And the name was Sutton.
Of course, it would be Sutton.
What had Buster's android lawyer said? A trunkful of family papers.
I'll have to look into historic geography, Sutton thought. I'll have to find out just where Wisconsin was.
But John Sutton? John H. Sutton. That was another matter. Just another Sutton. One who had been dust these many years. A man who sometimes forgot to open up his mail.
Sutton turned the letter and examined the flap. There was no sign of tampering. The adhesive was flaking with age and when he ran a fingernail along one corner the mucilage came loose in a tiny shower of powder. The paper, he saw, was brittle and would require careful handling.
A trunkful of family papers, the android Wellington had said when he came into the room and balanced himself very primly on the edge of a chair and laid his hat precisely on the tabletop.
And it was a trunkful of junk instead. Bones and wrenches and paper clips and clippings. Old notebooks and letters and a letter that had been mailed six thousand years ago and never had been opened.
Did Buster know about the letter…but even as he asked himself the question Sutton knew that Buster did.
And he had tried to hide it…and he had succeeded. He had tossed it in with other odds and ends, well knowing that it would be found, but by the man for whom it was intended. For the trunk was deliberately made to appear of no importance. It was old and battered and the key was in the lock and it said there's nothing in me, but if you want to waste your time, why, go ahead and look. And if anyone had looked, the clutter would have seemed no more than what it was with one exception…the worthless accumulation of outworn sentiment.