The astute legal gentleman consulted his diary, where he had carefully noted down all the facts of the extraordinary case; and the more he studied the matter, the more convinced he became that there was a mystery concealed somewhere; and, moreover, that the key was in his hands, only, unfortunately, the key was a complicated one. Indeed, to such absurd lengths had he gone in the matter, that Edgar Allan Poe’s romances of The Gold Bug and The Purloined Letter lay before him, and his study of those ingenious narratives had permeated his brain to such an extent lately, that he had begun to discover mystery in everything. The tales of the American genius convinced him that the solution was a simple one—provokingly simple, only, like all simple things, the hardest of attainment. He was quite aware of the methodical habits of his late client, Mr Morton, and felt that such a man could not have written such a letter, even on his dying bed, unless he had a powerful motive in so doing. Despite the uneasy consciousness that the affair was a ludicrous one to engage the attention of a sober business man like himself, he could not shake off the fascination which held him.
‘Pretty sort of thing this for a man at my time of life to get mixed up in,’ he muttered to himself. ‘What would the profession say if they knew Richard Carver had taken to read detective romances in business hours? I shall find myself writing poetry some day, if I don’t take care, and coming to the office in a billy-cock hat and turn-down collar. I feel like the heavy father in the transpontine drama; but when I look in that girl’s eyes, I feel fit for any lunacy. Pshaw!—Bates!’
Mr Bates entered the apartment at his superior’s bidding. ‘Well, sir?’ he said. The estimable Bates was a man of few words.
‘I can not make this thing out,’ exclaimed Mr Carver, rubbing his head in irritating perplexity. ‘The more I look at it the worse it seems. Yet I am convinced’——
‘That there is some mystery about it!’
‘Precisely what I was going to remark. Now, Bates, we must—we really must—unravel this complication. I feel convinced that there is something hidden here. You must lend me your aid in the matter. There is a lot at stake. For instance, if’——
‘We get it out properly, I get my partnership; if not, I shall have to—whistle for it, sir!’
‘You are a very wonderful fellow, Bates—very. That is precisely what I was going to say,’ Mr Carver exclaimed admiringly. ‘Now, I have been reading a book—a standard work, I may say.’
‘Williams’s Executors, sir, or——?’
‘No,’ said Mr Carver shortly, and not without some confusion; ‘it is not that admirable volume—it is, in fact, a—a romance.’