The Purloined Letter

"I paid especial attention to a large writing table near which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters and other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite particular suspicion.

At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the mantelpiece.  In this rack, which had four or five compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter.  This last was much soiled and crumpled.  It was torn nearly in two, across the middle -- as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been altered, or stayed, in the second.  It had a large black seal, bearing the D---- cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D----, the minister, himself.  It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.

No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to be that of which I was in search. ...

…I protracted my visit as long as possible….I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter….and fell at length upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained.  In scrutinising the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary.  They presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, have been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original fold.  This discovery was sufficient.  It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, redirected, and re-sealed."

The Purloined Letter  Edgar Allan Poe

Seal of identity

"And in a hollow voice he spake, and said --
'Sohrab, that were a proof that could not lie.
If thou show this, then thou art Rustum's son.'

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed
His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,
And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points
Prick'd: as a cunning workman, in Pekin,
Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,
An emperor's gift --at early morn he paints,
And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp
Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands: --
So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd
On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal."

Sohrab and Rustum  Matthew Arnold