hout delay,
and I will come to Illington and confer with
you.

I am prepared, of course, to give him my personal
note for same, but do not desire any direct
dealings with him. In fact, it would be exceedingly
dangerous to my interests if he ever mentioned
it to me personally, even when he fancied
himself alone with me. Impress this upon him.
I will pay far above the legal rate of interest, of
course. You can arrange this with him.

I will go into the whole matter of this contingency
confidentially with you when I see you. In
the meantime, I know that I can rely upon you.

Awaiting the earliest possible reply, and thanking
you for the interest I know you will take
in this affair,

Sincerely, your friend,

Pennington Lawton.

After glancing at it a moment Blaine read the letter aloud in a calm,
unemotional voice which gave no hint of the tumult within him. He had
scarcely finished when Jimmy Brunell, greatly excited, interrupted
triumphantly:

"That's it! That's the note! Don't see anything phony about it, do
you, sir? Neither did they! Now, leave out the 'My dear Mallowe,' and
beginning with the next as the first line, count down five lines. The
last letter of the last word on that line is _f_, _isn't it_? Omit a
line and take the last letter of the next, and so on for four
letters--that is, the last words of the four alternate lines beginning
with the fifth from the top are: _of_, _a_, _ask_, and _see_, and the
last letters of those four spell a word. That word is _fake_, and so
is the note, and the whole infernal business! _Fake_, from beginning
to end! I put my mark on it, sir, so it could be known for what it is,
in case of need. Now the need has come."

"By Jove, so it is!" Guy Morrow cried, unable to restrain himself
longer. "You're a wonder, Mr. Brunell!"

"You have rendered us a greater service than you know," supplemented
Blaine, the while his pulses throbbed in time to his leaping heart.
The crevice! The rift in the criminal's almost perfected scheme, into
which he had succeeded in inserting the little silver probe of his
specialized knowledge, and disclosed to a gaping world the truth! He
had found it at last, and his work was all but done.

"But what's to happen to me now?" The exultation had died out of his
voice, and Jimmy Brunell looked suddenly pinched and gray and tired,
and