ch the Prefect had read us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D--
cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S--
family. Here, the address, to the Minister, diminutive and feminine;
there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly
bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But,
then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the
dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with
the true methodical habits of D--, and so suggestive of a design to
delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document;
these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this
document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly in
accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these
things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came
with the intention to suspect.

"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a
most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to
memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also
fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial
doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper,
I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented
the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having
been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed
direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original
fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter
had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and re-sealed. I
bade the Minister good morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a
gold snuff-box upon the table.

"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath
the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful
screams, and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D-- rushed to a casement,
threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the
card-rack took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by