"Did he leave any personal property behind?"
"Yes. Two hundred dollars in bank-notes, each of one hundred dollars, several letters from his wife, addressed to him under the name of Jonas, and a few other pocket articles."
"Will you allow me to read the letters?"
"Certainly. They are in my drawer here. I am waiting to hear from his wife. She was notified yesterday morning, and an answer signed by her father came back, which stated that the blow of her husband's death had prostrated her, and that she was threatened with brain-fever."
The letters were three in number, and all were written within the fortnight preceding the death.
The one bearing the earliest date Nick read with amused interest:
"My Dear Husband: Each day is more lonesome since your departure. I shall go mad if things do not turn out as you have planned. Get well quick. Make those nasty doctors take a special interest in your case. Offer them the highest inducement, and if you can't fulfil any agreement you make with them, let me know and I will help you, if I have to sell the gown off my back. That hateful Mr. Carter is here yet, but from what he told father the other day, I think he will leave for New York in a day or two. We've pulled the wool over his eyes so thoroughly that he is as harmless as a dove. Chick, poor man, is about well. He is a good fellow, and I don't think he bears any grudge against me. But Patsy—you remember Patsy, don't you? He's the boy I told you about—he takes no stock in me. He told me so the other day. He had the impudence to say this to my face. 'Young woman,' said he, 'I wouldn't trust you farther than I can sling a cat.' I laughed at him. I could afford to. Now, do as I tell you. Get well and—you know what our plan is.
"Lovingly your own Nellie."
The second and third letters showed the writer's anxiety over her husband's condition, which had become serious. In the last letter she said, if he was not better at the end of a week, she would take him to Philadelphia and place him under the care of a noted specialist.
Nick returned the letters to the superintendent, and then asked for the bank-notes. As he had expected, they belonged to the batch stolen from the body of Cora Reesey. "With what was Mannion afflicted when he came to the hospital?" was his next question.
"A complication of diseases, brought on by exposure. He looked like a tramp when he arrived, and said that for many days he had been sleeping in barns, sheds, and on the ground. Typhoid set in a week ago."