_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _Jan._ 2_nd_, 1886.
DEAR JAMES PAYN,—Your very kind letter came very welcome; and still more
welcome the news that you see —’s tale. I will now tell you (and it was
very good and very wise of me not to tell it before) that he is one of
the most unlucky men I know, having put all his money into a pharmacy at
Hyères, when the cholera (certainly not his fault) swept away his
customers in a body. Thus you can imagine the pleasure I have to
announce to him a spark of hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy,
doing nothing and taking nothing, and watching his debts inexorably mount
up.
To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps aware, is not one of
those that can be read running; and the name of your daughter remains for
me undecipherable. I call her, then, your daughter—and a very good name
too—and I beg to explain how it came about that I took her house. The
hospital was a point in my tale; but there is a house on each side. Now
the true house is the one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If not,
what do you complain of? If it is, how can I help what is true?
Everything in the _Dynamiter_ is not true; but the story of the Brown Box
is, in almost every particular; I lay my hand on my heart and swear to
it. It took place in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in
that house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very bad
society.
But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter’s house has not a balcony at
the back? I cannot answer for that; I only know that side of Queen
Square from the pavement and the back windows of Brunswick Row. Thence I
saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather); and if there is none to the
particular house in question, it must have been so arranged to spite me.
I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address three questions
to your daughter:—
1st. Has her house the proper terrace?
2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital?
3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884?
You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me on
some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling exactitude. If
this should prove to be so, I will give your daughter a proper
certificate, and her house property will return to its original value.
Can man say more?—Yours very truly,