Two of the Albany detectives were detailed to ask questions in the neighborhood and see whether there had been any witnesses to the abduction. The others began an examination of the strange letter in the hope of recognizing the handwriting. This attempt yielded nothing and the letter was temporarily cast aside. Here the first blunder was made, for I have yet to examine a kidnapper’s letter more revealingly written. The letter is remarkable in many ways. It is long, prolix, and anxiously repetitive. It is without punctuation in part, wrongly punctuated at other points, miscapitalized or not capitalized at all, strangely underlined, curiously paragraphed, often without even the use of a capital letter, wholly illiterate in its structure and yet contradictory on this very point. The facsimile copy which I have before me shows that in spite of all the solecisms and blunders, there is not a misspelled word in the long missive, a thing not always to be said in favor of the writings of educated and even eminent men. Also, there are several cheap literary echoes in the letter, such as “never look upon your child again” and “leave him to his fate.” The following deductions should have been made from the letter: That it was written or dictated by some one familiar with Albany and with the affairs of the Conways, since the writer knows Conway has the money in the bank, knows the closing hour, is familiar with the surrounding terrain, is precise in all directions, and knows there are other and older children, since he constantly refers to “your little boy” and says that Conway will have “one child less.” That the writer of the letter is not a professional criminal. Otherwise he would not have written at length. That the writer is extremely nervous and anxious to have the thing done at once. That he is a man without formal education, who has read a good deal, especially romances and inferior verse. That, judging from the chirographic fluctuations, he is a man between thirty-five and forty-five years of age. That the kidnappers are anxious to have the money intrusted to some man known to them, to whom they repeatedly refer and whom they believe likely to be selected by Conway. That the child is in no danger, since the letter writer doth threaten too much. That the search for the kidnappers should begin close at home. Lest I be accused of deducing with the aid of what the dialect calls hindsight, it may be well to say that these conclusions were made from the facsimile of the letter by an associate who is not familiar with the case and does not know the subsequent developments.