The colonel burned the malefic letters that afternoon. Indeed, the
episode set him to ransacking the desk in which Patricia had found
them--a desk which, as you have heard, was heaped with the miscellaneous
correspondence of the colonel's father dating back a half-century and
more. Much curious matter the colonel discovered there, for "Wild Will"
Musgrave's had been a full-blooded career. And over one packet of
letters, in particular, the colonel sat for a long while with an
unwontedly troubled face.