I reckoned up the
bunches. Ten along the room--eight across it. When I had stepped
out five one way and four the other, and was down on my knees on
the center bunch, as true as I sit on this chair I could hear my
own heart beating so loud that it quite frightened me.
I looked narrowly all over the bunch, and I felt all over it with
the ends of my fingers, and nothing came of that. Then I scraped
it over slowly and gently with my nails. My second finger-nail
stuck a little at one place. I parted the pile of the carpet over
that place, and saw a thin slit which had been hidden by the pile
being smoothed over it--a slit about half an inch long, with a
little end of brown thread, exactly the color of the carpet
ground, sticking out about a quarter of an inch from the middle
of it. Just as I laid hold of the thread gently, I heard a
footstep outside the door.
It was only the head chambermaid. "Haven't you done yet?" she
whispers.
"Give me two minutes," says I, "and don't let anybody come near
the door--whatever you do, don't let anybody startle me again by
coming near the door."
I took a little pull at the thread, and heard something rustle. I
took a longer pull, and out came a piece of paper, rolled up
tight like those candle-lighters that the ladies make. I unrolled
it--and, by George! there was the letter!
The original letter! I knew it by the color of the ink.
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