tages,"
he muttered broodingly.

"But you," said I; "how came you to know anything about this letter?
Ah, I see," remembering that the carriage in which we were riding at the
time had been procured for us by him. "The man on the box was in your
pay, and informed, as you call it."

Mr. Gryce winked at his muffled toes mysteriously. "That is not the
point," he said. "Enough that I heard that a letter, which might
reasonably prove to be of some interest to me, had been dropped at such
an hour into the box on the corner of a certain street. That, coinciding
in the opinion of my informant, I telegraphed to the station connected
with that box to take note of the address of a suspicious-looking letter
about to pass through their hands on the way to the General Post Office,
and following up the telegram in person, found that a curious epistle
addressed in lead pencil and sealed with a stamp, had just arrived, the
address of which I was allowed to see----"

"And which was?"

"Henry R. Clavering, Hoffman House, New York."

I drew a deep breath. "And so that is how your attention first came to
be directed to this man?"

"Yes."

"Strange. But go on--what next?"

"Why, next I followed up the clue by going to the Hoffman House and
instituting inquiries. I learned that Mr. Clavering was a regular guest
of the hotel. That he had come there, direct from the Liverpool
steamer, about three months since, and, registering his name as Henry
R. Clavering, Esq., London, had engaged a first-class room which he had
kept ever since. That, although nothing definite was known concerning
him, he had been seen with various highly respectable people, both of
his own nation and ours, by all of whom he was treated with respect. And
lastly, that while not liberal, he had given many evidences of being a
man of means. So much done, I entered the office, and waited for him to
come in, in the hope of having an opportunity to observe his manner when
the clerk handed him that strange-looking letter from Mary Leavenworth."

"And did you succeed?"

"No; an awkward gawk of a fellow stepped between us just at the critical
moment, and shut off my view. But I heard enough that evening from the
clerk and servants, of the agitation he had shown on receiving it, to
convince me I was upon a trail worth following. I accordingly put on
my men, and for two days Mr. Clavering was subjected to the most
rigid watch a man ever walked under. But nothing was gained