The Confusion

As bizarre, as striking as this was, even I might have let it pass without further notice had it not been for the fact that on the sixth of August a remarkable act of piracy is said to have taken place off Sanlucar: as you may have heard, a band of Barbary Corsairs, disguised as galley-slaves, boarded a ship recently returned from New Spain and made off with some silver. I am certain that M. le duc d’Arcachon is somehow implicated.

[Written later in a more legible hand]

We have reached the Paris dwelling of the de Lavardacs, the Hotel d’Arcachon, and I am now at a proper writing-desk, as you can see.

To finish that matter of the Armenian letter: I know that you, Doctor, have an interest in strange systems of writing, and that you are in charge of a great library. If you have anything on the Armenian language, I invite you to correspond with M. Rossignol. For though he is fascinated by this letter, he can do very little with it. He had one of his clerks make an accurate copy of the thing, then re-sealed it, and has been trying to track down any surviving addressees, in hopes that he may deliver it to them. If they are alive, and they choose to write back, M. Rossignol will inspect their letter and try to glean more clews as to the nature of the cypher (if any) they are using.

§ Speaking of letters, I must get this one posted today, and so let me raise one more matter. This concerns Sophie’s banker, Lothar von Hacklheber.

I saw Lothar recently in Lyon. I did not wish to see him, but he was difficult to evade. Both of us had been invited to dinner at the home of a prominent member of the Depot. For various reasons I could not refuse the invitation; I suspect that Lothar orchestrated the whole affair.

To shorten this account somewhat, I shall tell you now what I only divined later. For as my driver and footmen would be tarrying in the stables for some hours with Lothar’s, I had given instructions to mine that they should find out all that they could from his. It had become obvious that Lothar was trying to dig up information concerning me, and I reckoned that turnabout was fair play. Of course his grooms and drivers could know nothing of what Lothar had been thinking or doing, but they would at least know where he had gone and when.