door. It is true, however, that even then, the bearer of the letter
might easily have slipped by unseen and dropped the letter in the
box. The night had been so dark, you could scarcely see from one side
of the street to the other.

I have said that this letter appeared in facsimile in all the
newspapers to which the government communicated it. Perhaps one would
naturally imagine that the first comment of the public would be,
"This is the work of some practical joker." It was in that way that I
had accepted my letter from the Great Eyrie, five weeks before.

But this was not the general attitude toward the present letter,
neither in Washington, nor in the rest of America. To the few who
would have maintained that the document should not be taken
seriously, an immense majority would have responded. "This letter has
not the style nor the spirit of a jester. Only one man could have
written it; and that is the inventor of this unapproachable machine."

To most people this conclusion seemed indisputable owing to a curious
state of mind easily explainable. For all the strange facts of which
the key had hitherto been lacking, this letter furnished an
explanation. The theory now almost universally accepted was as
follows. The inventor had hidden himself for a time, only in order to
reappear more startlingly in some new light. Instead of having
perished in an accident, he had concealed himself in some retreat
where the police were unable to discover him. Then to assert
positively his attitude toward all governments he had written this
letter. But instead of dropping it in the post in any one locality,
which might have resulted in its being traced to him, he had come to
Washington and deposited it himself in the very spot suggested by the