The note found in Leroy Fry’s hand

The note found in Leroy Fry’s hand is a piece of planted evidence that links Leroy Fry’s murder to Augustus Landor. Fry believed it came from Patsy, to whom he was attracted, but Landor later acknowledges that he left the note with Fry and failed to retrieve it. Its importance changes when Edgar Allan Poe compares its handwriting with a separate message Landor wrote: what first appeared to be a clue about Fry’s private life becomes evidence pointing toward the investigator himself.

Identity and Role

The note is presented during Poe’s confrontation with Landor as one of two scraps placed side by side on a table. Poe identifies it as the message found in Leroy Fry’s hand. The other scrap is a separate note Landor had left for Poe, bearing the words “TAKE COURAGE.” The distinction matters: the two notes have different recipients and roles, but their lettering provides the comparison that brings Landor under suspicion.

The novel does not disclose the wording of Fry’s note in this exchange. Instead, its significance is established through who Fry thought had sent it, where it was found, and what its handwriting reveals. Landor’s later account identifies Patsy as the person Fry believed he was receiving it from. The note thus works through an assumed identity: its apparent sender is not the person who placed it in Fry’s hand.

The Deception and Its Discovery

When Poe asks directly whom Fry thought the note came from, Landor answers that Fry believed it came from Patsy, explaining that Fry had been rather sweet on her. Landor also admits that he was careless not to take the note back because he was in a hurry. The exchange turns the object from a found message into a trace of Landor’s actions: it had remained with Fry, where it could later be recovered and investigated.

Poe’s comparison gives the clue its force. He says he found Landor’s “TAKE COURAGE” note under their secret rock in Kosciusko’s Garden, then points out that the capital letters A, R, G, and E are virtually identical in the two messages. The observation is specific rather than a general resemblance: Poe treats the shapes of the letters as identifying marks, extending the comparison beyond the words’ meanings. The scraps, placed together, let the reader follow the same visual inference he presents to Landor.

Evidence, Admission, and Consequence

At first, Poe frames the handwriting match as a question: could the same person have written both notes, and why would Landor correspond with Fry? His uncertainty is part of the reveal. The writing comparison supplies a connection, but the circumstances of the message still require explanation. Landor’s subsequent answer resolves the central point: Fry believed Patsy was the sender, while Landor admits to having left the note and not recovered it. The planted message therefore implicates Landor not merely through a resemblance on paper but through his own account of its handling and its intended appearance to Fry.

The note’s evidentiary force depends on its passage through several hands and readings. Fry received it under a false impression; the investigators encountered it as an object found with his body; Poe preserved the possibility that it could be compared with another scrap; and, at the confrontation, Landor’s explanation connects its apparent sender to the deception. The message’s undisclosed wording does not prevent it from functioning as evidence. Instead, attention shifts to the material fact of the handwriting and to the difference between the person Fry believed was communicating with him and the person Landor says left it.

Narrative Significance

The note reverses the apparent direction of the investigation. Landor had been questioning others and interpreting clues, but Poe’s reading of the two scraps turns the investigation back upon its investigator. The small, shared forms of capital letters—A, R, G, and E—become more consequential than a confession written plainly on the page: they allow Poe to connect two separate messages before Landor’s explanation confirms how Fry was misled.

The separate “TAKE COURAGE” note also gives the comparison a personal dimension. Landor had written it to Poe to ease his conscience, though he knew that doing so could not ease it. Poe’s discovery of that message beneath the secret rock brings a private exchange into the same evidentiary frame as the note found with Fry. The object consequently joins the murder investigation to the relationship between Landor and Poe: a message designed to appear to come from Patsy helps expose Landor, while the note meant for Poe supplies the handwriting by which he is recognized.