Jos. Larkin rose from his desk, ruminating, and went to the window, and
placed the letter against the pane. I don't think he had any definite
motive in doing this, but something struck him that he had not remarked
before.

There was something different in the quality of the ink that wrote the
number of the date, 28th, from that used in the rest of the letter.

'What can that mean?' muttered Larkin, with a sort of gasp at his
discovery; and shading his eyes with his hand, he scrutinised the
numerals--'28th,' again;--'a totally different ink!

He took the previous letter, frowned on it fiercely from his rat-like
eyes, and then with an ejaculation, as like an oath as so good a man
could utter, he exclaimed,

'I have it!'

Then came a pause, and he said--

'Both alike!--blanks left when the letters were written, and the dates
filled in afterward--_not_ the same hand I _think_--no, _not_ the
same--_positively_ a different hand.'

Then Jos. Larkin examined these mysterious epistles once more.

'There may be something in what Larcom said--a very great deal, possibly.
If he was shut up somewhere they could make him write a set of these
letters off at a sitting, and send them from place to place to be posted,