August 21, 2025 12:16 AM (GMT+2) There was some sort of blackmailing going involving Herbert S. Sinclair, of course in relation to What happened to Mary?. I’m still missing a lot of pieces of the puzzle to reach any meaningful conclusion, but I’ve collected enough evidence now to grasp the basics.

The blackmailers from 8th red letter seem very likely to have been the ones that wrote the Message about the 8 letters. It seems Herbert paid them the sum they asked for and they left him alone. They even presumably felt guilty about what they did because they were “sympathetic to the underlying cause that the letters pertain to”.

This raises an obvious question though. If the blackmailer’s letter is itself the 8th red letter, but it was sent after the Message about the 8 letters, what was the other 8th letter? According to them, all the envelopes were returned. So there should actually be 8 original red letters + the blackmailer’s one. Could this tie in with The great Alzara (2nd time), who mentioned I’d only ever read 7 of the 8 red letters?

Another possibility is that the blackmailers who wrote the Message about the 8 letters are actually not the same as the original ones. That actually perhaps could tie in with the note in red on 1st red letter. It seems like it was written by different blackmailers that were blackmailing Herbert about the other blackmail. But it barely makes any sense to me. Very unclear for now.

September 8, 2025 10:54 PM (GMT+2) It was Denny Revane who initially blackmailed Herbert S. Sinclair. See What was Denny involved with? for further details. In short, he reached Room 46, stole the letters, put them in red envelopes, and left the Message about the 8 letters.

Given that he expresses some sort of guilt in The original gardener’s logbook, I find it extremely likely that he’s also the author of the 8th red letter. However, it’s still unclear to me what’s going on with the note in the 1st red letter.

In any case, I’m still confused about 7 vs 8 red letters, because in Denny’s message it asks for a ransom for 8 letters, however then the 8th letter is not one of the original ones. So was there a 0th letter??? Also see Memo about a missing letter, which further confirms, like The great Alzara (2nd time), that there is “one letter missing”.