Some were
written in pen and ink, and some in pencil, but all were equally
brown, worn, and unsavory in appearance. In turning them over,
however, my eye was caught by some slips in the Russian character,
and three or four notes in French; the rest were German. I laid
aside "Pitaval" at once, emptied all the leathern pockets
carefully, and set about examining the pile of material.
I first ran rapidly through the papers to ascertain the dead man's
name, but it was nowhere to be found. There were half a dozen
letters, written on sheets folded and addressed in the fashion
which prevailed before envelopes were invented; but the name was
cut out of the address in every case. There was an official permit
to embark on board a Bremen steamer, mutilated in the same way;
there was a card photograph, from which the face had been scratched
by a penknife. There were Latin sentences; accounts of expenses;
a list of New York addresses, covering eight pages; and a number of
notes, written either in Warsaw or Breslau. A more incongruous
collection I never saw, and I am sure that had it not been for
the train of thought I was pursuing when the director called
upon me, I should have returned the papers to him without troubling
my head with any attempt to unravel the man's story.
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