20 Must-Read Thriller Novels

Chapter 5 A Dinner With the Enemy

Chapter 5 A

Dinner With the EnemyReaders of that prince of romancers,

Poe, will recollect a celebrated story in which he describes the

device employed by a man of uncommon shrewdness to conceal a stolen

letter from the perquisitions of the police, and the elaborate

argument by which the writer proves that the highest art of

concealment is to thrust the object to be hidden under the very

nose of the searcher.

But that argument is one of the many mystifications in which the

weird genius of Poe delighted. It is easy to see, in short, that

the theory was invented to suit the story, and not the story to

suit the theory. I now had before me the practical problem of

concealing a document of surpassing importance, from enemies who

were already on my scent, and keeping it concealed dur