ank-notes held together by heavy rubber bands
snapped over the ends.

While the little ormolu clock on the dressing-case was whirring softly
and chiming the hour she stared at the money-block as if the sight of it
had fascinated her. Then she sprang up and flew to the door, not to
escape, but to turn the key noiselessly in the lock. Secure against
interruption, she pulled the rubber bands from the packet. The block was
built up in layers, each layer banded with a paper slip on which was
printed in red the name of the certifying bank and the amount. "Bayou
State Security, $5,000." There were twenty of these layers in all,
nineteen of them unbroken. But through the printed figures on the
twentieth a pen-stroke had been drawn, and underneath was written
"$4,000."

Quite coolly and methodically Margery Grierson verified the bank's count
as indicated by the paper bands. There were one hundred thousand
dollars, lacking the one thousand taken from the broken packet. The
counting completed, she replaced the rubber bands and the brown-paper
wrapping. Then she repacked the suit-cases, arranging the contents as
nearly as might be just as she had found them, locking the cases and
returning the keys to the waistcoat pocket from which she had taken
them.

When all was done, she tiptoed across to the bed, with the brown-paper
packet under her arm. The sick man stirred uneasily and began to mutter
again. She bent to catch the words, and when she heard, the light of
understanding leaped swiftly into the dark eyes. For the mumbled words
were the echo of a fierce threat: "Sign it: sign it _now_, or, by God,
I'll shoot to kill!"

XVII

GROPINGS

The robbery of the Bayou State Security Bank was already an old story
when Mr. Matthew Broffin, chief of the New Orleans branch of a notable
detective agency, returned from Guatemala with the forger Mortsen as his
travelling companion.

Broffin was a successful man in his calling. Beginning as a deputy
marshal in the "moonshining" districts of Kentucky and Tennessee, he had
shifted first to the Secret Service, and later to the more highly
specialized ranks of the private agencies. With nothing very spectacular
to his credit, he had earned repute as a follower of long trails, and as
an acute unraveller of tangled clews. Hence, his docket was never empty.

It was not altogether for the sake of the reward that he took over the
case of the bank robbery a few days after his return fro