Thorndyke chuckled softly. “We have had our little experiences, Mayfield, and we have grown wary. We don’t open strange parcels nowadays until we are sure that we are not dealing with a ‘Greek gift’ of some sort. That is what we are going to ascertain now in respect of this.”
He picked up from the bench a parcel about the size of an ordinary cigar-box and held it out for my inspection. “The overwhelming probabilities are,” he continued, “that this is a perfectly innocent package. But we don’t know. I am not expecting any such parcel and there are certain peculiarities about this one that attract one’s attention. You notice that the entire address is in rough Roman capitals—what are commonly called ‘block letters.’ That is probably for the sake of distinctness; but it might possibly be don
