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Title: X Y Z
A Detective Story

Author: Anna Katharine Green

Release Date: September 10, 2010 [EBook #33695]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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X

Y

Z

A DETECTIVE STORY

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE," ETC.

NEW YORK

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

27 & 29 WEST 23D STREET

1883

COPYRIGHT BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1883

X. Y. Z.

A STORY TOLD BY A DETECTIVE.

I.

THE MYSTERIOUS RENDEZVOUS.

Sometimes in the course of his experience, a detective, while engaged in
ferreting out the mystery of one crime, runs inadvertently upon the clue
to another. But rarely has this been done in a manner more unexpected or
with attendant circumstances of greater interest than in the instance I
am now about to relate.

For some time the penetration of certain Washington officials had been
baffled by the clever devices of a gang of counterfeiters who had
inundated the western portion of Massachusetts with spurious Treasury
notes. Some of the best talent of the Secret Service had been expended
upon the matter, but with no favorable result, when, one day, notice
was received at Washington that a number of suspicious-looking letters,
addressed to the simple initials, X. Y. Z., Brandon, Mass., were being
daily forwarded through the mails of that region; and it being deemed
possible that a clue had at last been offered to the mystery in hand, I
was sent northward to investigate.

It was in the middle of June, 1881, and the weather was simply
delightful. As I stepped from the cars at Brandon and looked up the long
straight street with its double row of maple trees sparkling fresh and
beautiful in the noonday sun, I thought I had never seen a prettier
village or enter