Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

Whitcher had ever returned from a troutin’ trip, to be exact, when the idlers about Del’s store had not crowded close to him to view the luscious catch that he was known to invariably bring back.

They had no time to get to him, on this occasion, before the postmaster himself came up to Bemis and Crocker with palpably wild excitement in his eye. He was holding out an envelope, and his lips were actually quivering so badly that he found it impossible to fashion words.

“Judas Priest, Del,” drawled the sheriff quizzically, “w’ot ’n all sin’s the matter? Win a prize ’n one o’ them puzzles y’re allus writin’ answers t’?”

But even this ancient and well-known slam at Del’s major hobby failed to elicit any responsive laughs from the native audience. They, as well, were looking quite as tense as the storekeeper. Their eyes, indeed, were glued to that stamped envelope that was being thrust at Bemis with a trembling hand.

“Stuck ’n the mail slot, this was, W’itcher,” Del finally managed to get out. “Come acrost it ’bout two ’clock, after y’d gone t’ the Stony with Crocker. Reckon — reckon it’s some more t’ do with Essie’s kidnapin’, by the looks o’ that there hand that’s drawed ’n the back!”

Whitcher, for a moment, did not accept the proffered letter. Instead, he put his arms akimbo and stood there gazing amusedly at his old crony. He was, unquestionably, the only calm man there.

If that were so, assuredly Amos Crocker suddenly became the most nervous one. As he edged his head around Whitcher’s shoulder, and craned his neck forward, he exhibited the most bewildered face it would have been possible to find.

He gazed, with terror rapidly taking the place of astonishment, at the large and crudely executed black hand that was inked on the back of the envelope Del was holding.

“What... what’s it mean?” he gasped, his skin literally turning to that sickly putty color.

“Means y’ sh’u’d ought’ve saw me alone ’bout this, Del, I reckon,” replied Bemis somewhat sternly, ignoring Crocker.

“I... I know, W’itcher,” admitted his friend, “but I been so dammed upset V worried ’bout this here kidnap — I... well, t’ tell the truth,” he finished with a gulp, “I had me a peculiar feelin’, I did, that even with the ten thousan’ the thing wouldn’ go through. Just one o’ my hunches, like, that—”

The sheriff, however, stopped him with a frown — a frown that plainly said. Del shouldn’t rightly go on with any such glum talk in the presence of an aching-hearted father. Then, almost brusquely, he reached out and took the letter.

“Open it — for God’s sake, Bemis, open it!” cried out Amos Crocker, his voice a wild shriek and his face livid.

“Aim t’, Amos,” explained Whitcher patiently, “after I do m’ ’xaminin’ like a good dee-tective sh’u’d ought t’!”

If the merits of a sleuth depended upon the time he took to scrutinize any suspicious object, Mr. Bemis must indeed have been an admirable one. While Del and the rest clustered about him with bated breaths — and the hardware man fidgeted agonizingly — the sheriff did his stuff.

He turned that envelope over and over — over and over — dozens of times. He held it up to the light and squinted solemnly at it, his great, china-blue eyes drawn down to mere slits.

He surveyed it, in short, from every humanly possible angle, it seemed — and then, just as he was about to slit the letter open, he raised his head and eyed his audience in a sheepish manner.

“Shucks — shucks,” he said hesitantly. “Pity this ain’t right fr’m It’ly herself, huh, w’ere them Black Handers ’rig’nally growed. Might ’a’ got me a Eye-talian stamp f’r m’ album. Short on—”

“God, Bemis — open it!”

The man who now appeared to be all philatelist, however, looked at Amos Crocker with vacant eyes that seemed to intimate his mind was far away.

A little crease came to his forehead, as if he were very gravely thinking, and his thumb and index finger strayed to his huge lip, He nursed it quite tenderly, and after quite as tenderly stretching it out he let it go back with a soft plop:

“Yep, mighty short on It’ly, I be, worse luck. Got t’ r’member t’ look up them stamps, nex’ time I buy me any, ’nstead o’ concentratin’ so heavy on them early United Sta—”

But he broke off suddenly, again flashing a grin on the circle of tautened faces.

“Speakin’ o’ the United States, though,” he chuckled, “let’s open us up this here stamped envelope o’ that same country. Hey, fellers?”

He did so, and he proved that he could be generous to the curious by reading the epistle aloud: