After having considered these questions, I went to the Lancaster-road, saw Miss Judson--assured her, on my word as a gentleman, that the packet had been delivered by my hands into those of the waiter at eleven o'clock on the previous day, and asked to see the envelope.

There it was--my large blue wire-wove office envelope, addressed in my own writing.

But in these days of adhesive envelopes there is nothing easier than to tamper with the fastening of a letter.
I registered a mental vow never again to trust any important document to the protection of a morsel of gummed paper.

I counted the letters, convinced myself that there was a deficiency, and then set to work to discover which of the letters had been abstracted.

Here I failed utterly.