Chapter XXXII: The Letter Comes Back

Tom left for Harkness shortly after breakfast next morning. He didn’t expect to be gone long, so Brent and I set about straightening up the Lodge. With our activities and worries of the past few days a good deal of necessary housekeeping had been neglected.

I had just swept the dust out of the front door and turning around noticed Brent dusting up after me. It was hard to conceal my amusement when I beheld his long, lanky form bending down and his hands awkwardly flipping a dust cloth here and there.

“I’ll straighten up those papers on the table presently,” he said, and adjusted his spectacles after having dusted the bottom rung of the willow rocker. “We might as well leave things as we found them, in the event that we don’t get back after to-night!”

“You’re certainly consoling, Brent,” I said.

“One can never tell,” he said, laughing.

“Let’s hope,” I said, “that everything will be adjusted for the happiness of all those concerned. The Scouts, the Camp and Tom. It’s the dream of his life.”

“You bet it is,” Brent agreed, vehemently. “I know he won’t be happy until he sees the clouds lifted off this place and the sun shining through for all time.”

Before noon, Tom came bursting in, enthusiastic over something. He was always suggestive of clear, cool piney winds in that mood.

“Here we are fellows!” he called to Brent and me, holding an envelope in mid-air between two weather-brown fingers.

“Who is it from?” Brent asked.

“Coover’s Falls, North Dakota,” he answered.

“No!” I exclaimed.

“Sure as anything,” he said, taking the bulky looking letter out of its envelope and handing it to me.

“You’re elected to read it.” I unfolded it carefully. There were two letters, one enclosed in the other. The enclosed one I laid aside and started to read aloud the other, which was signed by Mrs. Boardman.

Coovers Falls, S. D.

Leatherstocking Training Camp,

P. O. Address, Harkness, Clinton County,

N. Y.

Dear Sirs:--

Received your letter. Also Mrs. Northrop brought me over two
letters she had got from your camp. She can’t see to read
anymore so I do all that for her.

I couldn’t understand the one letter she got at all (that’s
the one I’ve enclosed), so I called in Sam Tibbets, our
postmaster and he read it for us.

The reason I’m sending it back to you is because I
understood from what you said in your letter that it wasn’t
likely you knew anything about anyone else in your camp
writing to Mrs. Northrop and that they must be doing it
behind your back. It came about three days after yours, Mrs.
Northrop says, and as I was over at Redlands helping my
married daughter who ain’t feeling so well, why Mrs.
Northrop had to wait till I got back.

Anyhow I guess you must know by now who wrote that last
letter and also that young Peter Northrop is dead so we
won’t have to give you any information that way.

Sam Tibbets said he felt right terrible when he had to read
that out to Mrs. Northrop, but we was surprised to see how
calm like she heard the whole thing. All she said was she
was so old it didn’t make much difference and it wouldn’t be
long anyhow before she’d be with young Peter.

But what I wanted to say was that Mrs. Northrop wants me to
tell you to thank whoever sent that last letter about her
son (there was no name signed as you’ll see) also the reason
I sent it back is because you’ll probably know the
handwriting.

As I said before, she wants you to thank the party and also
for the money that came in it. Sam says it was a dangerous
thing to do to send a pile of money like that through the
mail and only register it for twenty-five cents. I say so
too. But it will help Mrs. Northrop right comfortable for
the few years she has to live and she’s thankful to have it.
She was very poor and it is a fortune to her. I wouldn’t
mind having it myself, but of course not to lose my children
to have it.

I guess that’s all except Mrs. Northrop said to say young
Peter never had a scar on either of his feet that she knew.

Thanking you for your trouble and all,

Yours truly,
(Signed) Mrs. Katie Boardman.

When I had finished, Brent was still standing with the dust cloth in his hand and Tom was sitting on the edge of the table swinging his legs.

“What else?” said Tom, the first to break the silence.

I had taken up the enclosed letter and was trying to decipher that outlandish writing. One could see at a glance it had been written under great stress. It looked like the Chinese alphabet to me so I handed it over to Tom. He scrutinized it carefully.

“Why hand it to me?” said Tom. “This crossword puzzle stuff is right in Brent’s line. He’ll make it out somehow.” Tom took the dust cloth out of Brent’s limp hand, shoved him down in the rocker and pulled both over to the window.

“While you’re about it, Tom,” Brent said, leisurely, “you might get me a clean handkerchief out of the top pocket in my coat, hanging on the rack. I’ll have to wipe the dust off my glasses.” After Brent had attended to all these preliminaries, he studied the letter through twice. We kept a respectful silence meanwhile, but I’ll own I was impatient for him to say something. Finally his sober features broke into a puzzled look, that was half frown and half smile.

“To begin with,” Brent said, “the paper this is written on is the same stuff we had stuck up in the cupboard. Remember the stuff we bought in Harkness that one time and couldn’t use because the weave was so coarse the pen point would catch in it and blur?”

So we had. We’d used it all with the exception of a few sheets and had thrust those carelessly in the cupboard after we had gotten more of a better grade.

“Tom,” Brent said, “take a look in that cupboard and see if the paper’s there.” Tom looked thoroughly and shook his head in a negative manner.

“So much for that, then,” Brent murmured, as though it were serious business. Nevertheless, he looked to be enjoying his present role.

“Scotland Yard would appreciate you, Brent,” I said. “You’ve missed your vocation.”

“I know it,” he said, and went on, “Also, my fountain pen was used in writing this letter. I know its defects so well that I recognized them at once. I know it because it always blots in making punctuation marks. Especially periods.”

“How could he have gotten hold of your pen, for goodness’ sake?” Tom asked.

“I’ve been keeping it on the table standing upright in that little bud vase. It leaks if I don’t.”

“Well, Brent,” I said, “if that’s the case I’ll give you a new one for Christmas next year. Please go on and read that letter!”

“I don’t know that I’d care to part with it now,” Brent answered good-humoredly. “It’s thrown some light on this mystery already.”

“And ink,” Tom remarked.

“Ink then,” Brent came back, “and be thankful for its blessings. Well, here goes----”

“Just a minute, Brent,” I said, “Do you think it possible he could have written the letter here?”

“I think it’s quite possible. He had the key to get in before, didn’t he? Made away with the newspaper clipping; the targets? Furthermore we’ve been mighty careless leaving letters on that table. He’s found Mrs. Northrop’s letter there too, I’d bet my life. How else could he have known her address. And, if he had known it before, he surely would have written her.”

True, I hadn’t seen that letter of Mrs. Northrop’s that she had sent to her son, after the day it came.

Brent had started to read the letter in his hand, so I sat back to listen intently.

Leatherstocking Lodge,
Harkness, N. Y.

Dear Mrs. Northrop:--

In a most unusual manner your address has fallen into my
hands.

Otherwise, I would have written you before to tell you that
your son is dead. It grieves me to write this so bluntly,
but I know of no other way.

He has, in fact, been dead now, over a year and a half and
the enclosed money really belongs to him. In short, he had
every right to claim it, had he lived, and you being the
mother deprived of her only son, it goes to you.

At least it will give you the material comforts which your
son’s death and long absence has probably deprived you of
already.

Allow me to say that knowing your son Peter as I did, I can
sympathize with you in your grief at this revelation of his
death. I know it has blighted my life completely!

Perhaps it will console you a little to know that he lost
his life for another, who was absolutely unworthy to breath
the air that Peter Northrop did.

And his body, too clean to rest in a tainted grave, has
reached the clear waters of which he seemed a very part.

By the time you receive this, let me assure you that he will
have found his Paradise and God.

In telling you this and by your leave, dear lady, my own
tortured soul will find some peace and be ready to face its
maker.

Good-bye!

In the short silence following Brent’s reading, I felt that through it all I had seen revealed the naked soul of Roland McClintick.