mail-box and went out. At this
moment Green stepped up to the desk, registered his name, and asked for
a room. As the clerk was attending to his room and baggage, Green
looked intently at him, as if trying to recall his name. Then, stepping
forward, he said, cordially:

"Why, how are you? When did you come here? Let me see; the last time I
saw you was at a hotel in Buffalo, wasn't it?"

This was a lucky guess, for the clerk replied:

"Havn't you seen me since then? Why, I left there over a year ago."

"Well, I'm right glad to see you again," said Green; "step into the
bar-room and take a 'smile' with me."

"I can't very well leave the office just now," said the clerk.

"Oh, yes you can," said Green; "your friend there will look after the
office for a few minutes; come along."

"Wait here until I come back, will you?" the clerk asked Miller, as he
went off with Green.

[Illustration: "_As soon as the clerk had left the office, Miller
quietly extracted Pattmore's letter from the box._"--Page 157.]

As soon as the clerk had left the office, Miller quietly extracted
Pattmore's letter from the box. He had marked its appearance so well
that he only needed one glance to identify it and he secured it so
quickly that none of the crowd outside the desk noticed any movement on
his part. In a few minutes the clerk returned to the desk, and Miller
lounged out into the bar-room, whence he hurried over to meet me at the
Globe Hotel. He there gave me the letter, which was addressed:

"Mrs. Annie Thayer,
"Chicago,
"Illinois."

I carefully opened it by a simple process, which did not leave any
evidence that the envelope had been tampered with. The letter began: "My
own dear Annie," and the writer went on to caution Mrs. Thayer that she
must not be alarmed at the news he was about to tell her. He said that
some of his enemies had started a report that he had poisoned his late
wife. He had no doubt that the Whig newspapers would spread and magnify
these reports; still, he had no fears that they would be of any
permanent injury to him, since his friend, coroner Van Valkenburgh, had
agreed to hold an inquest, and there would be no difficulty in proving
his innocence. He begged her to excuse the haste and brevity of the
note, as he only had time to dash off a few lines to assure her that all
was well, and to warn her not to become alarmed at anythi