"Send me word
instantly whether the seal had been tampered with. I stamped it with my
private seal." Mr. Robert Galloway received this on the Monday morning.
He did not wait for the post, but forwarded the reply by
telegraph--"The seal had not been broken. Will send you back the
envelope by first post." This was the despatch which you saw Mr.
Galloway receive in his office.
He went back into his private room, carrying the despatch with him, and
there he sat down to think. From the very first, he had not believed
the fraud to lie with the post-office--for this reason: had the note
been taken out by one of its servants, the letter would almost
certainly not have reached its destination; it would have disappeared
with the note. He had cast a doubt upon whether Arthur Channing had
posted the letters himself. Arthur assured him that he had done so, and
Mr. Galloway believed him; the information that the seal of the letter
was unbroken was now a further confirmation, had he needed it. At
least, it confirmed that the letter had not been opened after it left
the office. Mr. Galloway perfectly remembered fastening down the
letter. He probably would have sealed it then, but for the commotion
that arose at the same moment in the street caused by Mad Nance. There
could be no shadow of doubt, so far as Mr. Galloway could see, and so
far as he believed, that the abstraction had taken place between the
time of his fastening down the envelope and of his sealing it.
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