The Devil Man by Edgar Wallace

A letter arrived at Berne, via the National Bank. It was in a strange handwriting, and the composition was more literate than was usual.

-"DEAR MADAME" (it began), "I am Charles Peace, who you know served you faithfully and suffered cruelly in your loyal service. Dear Madame, I am in a terrible position owing to the way I have looked after your interests, and I can't get any money because of the title deeds of the cottage. Dear Madame, could you send the title deeds to me in the name of Grey, and I can get them transferred to another gentleman who will pay me well for them, because I am in very sad circumstances and starving to death because of the way I looked after your interests, turning out in the middle of the cold nights to play the fiddle when you was feeling poorly, and all the trouble I got into with the police because of you know who being killed by accident which was not design, which I had no intention of killing the man, because nothing is further from my thoughts than taking human life which is sacred according to the Bible I honour. Dear Madame, if you will send the title deeds to a friend of mine, Mr Thompson, 5 East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham, London, he will see that I get justice done to me which I have never had since I was a boy owing to the perjury of the police which as you know are always ready to swear away a man's life for a few shillings. And that nurse turned against me. She is a low woman as you can't deny when I tell you she is carrying on with the doctor and brazen about it. She has sweared my life away and your life away too, and the doctor tried to murder me and the police tried to murder me by firing arms at me which it is against the law for the police to carry firearms and they have kept it quiet or the Government would have had his coat off his back.