Beauty and the Beast, and Tales of HomeTaylor, Bayard
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Beauty and the Beast, and Tales of Home
Taylor, Bayard
Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
I know not what gave me the suspicion that he had not even found the
heart to destroy the exscinded names; perhaps the care with which they
had been removed; perhaps, in two instances, the circumstance of their
taking words out of the body of the letters with them. But the suspicion
came, and led to a re-examination of the leathern wallets. I could
scarcely believe my eyes, when feeling something rustle faintly as I
pressed the thin lining of an inner pocket, I drew forth three or four
small pellets of paper, and unrolling them, found the lost addresses!
I fitted them to the vacant places, and found that the first letters of
the sister in Breslau had been forwarded to “Otto Lindenschmidt,” while
the letter to Poland was addressed “Otto von Herisau.”
I warmed with this success, which exactly tallied with the previous
discoveries, and returned again to the Polish memoranda The words
“[Rus]sian officers” in “Jean's” note led me to notice that it had
been written towards the close of the last insurrection in Poland--a
circumstance which I immediately coupled with some things in the note
and on the leaf of the journal. “No tidings of Y” might indicate that
Count Kasincsky had been concerned in the rebellion, and had fled, or
been taken prisoner. Had he left a large amount of funds in the hands
of the supposed Otto von Herisau, which were drawn from time to time by
orders, the form of which had been previously agreed upon? Then, when he
had disappeared, might it not have been the remaining funds which Jean
urged Otto to divide with him, while the latter, misled and entangled in
deception rather than naturally dishonest, held back from such a step?
I could hardly doubt so much, and it now required but a slight effort of
the imagination to complete the torn note.
The next letter of the sister was addressed to Bremen. After having
established so many particulars, I found it easily intelligible. “I have
done what I can,” she wrote. “I put it in this letter; it is all I have.
But do not ask me for money again; mother is ailing most of the time,
and I have not yet dared to tell her all. I shall suffer great anxiety
until I hear that the vessel has sailed. My mistress is very good; she
has given me an advance on my wages, or I could not have sent thee any
thing. Mother thinks thou art still in Leipzig: why didst thou stay
there so long? but no difference; thy money would have gone anyhow.”
It was nevertheless singular that Otto should be without money, so soon
after the appropriation of Count Kasincsky's funds. If the “20” in
the first memorandum on the leaf meant “twenty thousand rubles,” as I
conjectured, and but four thousand two hundred were drawn by the Count
previous to his flight or imprisonment, Otto's half of the remainder
would amount to nearly eight thousand rubles; and it was, therefore, not
easy to account for his delay in Leipzig, and his destitute condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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