atch."

He handed his secretary a Smith and Wesson revolver as he spoke.
Shorthouse slipped it into his hip pocket and went out of the room.

* * * * *

A drizzling cold rain was falling on fields covered with half-melted
snow when Shorthouse stood, late in the afternoon, on the platform of
the lonely little Long Island station and watched the train he had just
left vanish into the distance.

It was a bleak country that Joel Garvey, Esq., formerly of Chicago, had
chosen for his residence and on this particular afternoon it presented a
more than usually dismal appearance. An expanse of flat fields covered
with dirty snow stretched away on all sides till the sky dropped down to
meet them. Only occasional farm buildings broke the monotony, and the
road wound along muddy lanes and beneath dripping trees swathed in the
cold raw fog that swept in like a pall of the dead from the sea.

It was six miles from the station to Garvey's house, and the driver of
the rickety buggy Shorthouse had found at the station was not
communicative. Between the dreary landscape and the drearier driver he
fell back upon his own thoughts, which, but for the spice of adventure
that was promised, would themselves have been even drearier than either.
He made up his mind that he would waste no time over the transaction.
The moment the signature was cut out he would pack up and be off. The
last train back to Brooklyn was 7.15; and he would have to walk the six
miles of mud and snow, for the driver of the buggy had refused
point-blank to wait for him.

For purposes of safety, Shorthouse had done what he flattered himself
was rather a clever thing. He had made up a second packet of papers
identical in outside appearance with the first. The inscription, the
blue envelope, the red elastic band, and even a blot in the lower
left-hand corner had been exactly reproduced. Inside, of course, were
only sheets of blank paper. It was his intention to change the packets
and to let Garvey see him put the sham one into the bag. In case of
violence the bag would be the point of attack, and he intended to lock
it and throw away the key. Before it could be forced open and the
deception discovered there would be time to increase his chances of
escape with the real packet.

It was five o'clock when the silent Jehu pulled up in front of a
half-broken gate and pointed with his whip to a house that stood in its
own grounds among trees a