“Have you ever shown the letters to any one?” Jack asked suspiciously.
“Never,” said the rector; “they have never been removed from this cupboard, to my knowledge, since I put them there.”
“Think! I want you to be quite sure,” Jack rejoined, pressing his point steadily; “you see this letter is rendered utterly worthless by the mutilation. Indeed, to produce it would be to raise a natural suspicion that the last sentence of the letter was not in our favor, and we had got rid of it. Of course the chances are that the earl’s solicitors have copies, but for the present that is not our business.”
“Well,” said the rector somewhat absently—he had been rather thinking than listening—“I do remember now a circumstance which may account for this. A short time after I came a man broke into the house and ransacked this cupboard. Possibly he did it.”
“A burglar, do you mean? Was he caught?” the barrister asked, figuratively pricking up his ears.
“No—or, rather, I should say yes,” the rector answered. And then he explained that his curate, taking the man red-handed, had let him go, in the hope that, as it was his first offence, he would take warning and live honestly.
“But who was the burglar?” Jack inquired. “You know, I suppose? Is he in the town now?”
“Clode never told me his name,” Lindo answered. “The man made a point of that, and I did not press for it. I remember that Clode was somewhat ashamed of his clemency.”
“He had need to be,” Jack snorted. “It sounds an extraordinary story. All the same, Lindo, I am not sure it has any connection with this.” He held the letter up before him as though drawing inspiration from it. “This letter, you see,” he went on presently, “being the first in date would be inside the packet. Why should a man who wanted perhaps a bit of paper for a spill or a pipe-light unfasten this packet and take the innermost letter? I do not believe it.”
“But no one else save myself,” Lindo urged, “has had access to the letter. And there it is torn.”