fic gravity seemed to have
departed--what did it contain?

With trembling hands the terrified man unfastened the cord which bound
it and inverted the bag over the table.

Instead of the sharp, musical collision and clink of metal, a sodden
succession of thuds smote his ears.

With a shriek of utter wonderment and alarm, Raikes stood erect and
petrified.

His hands fell, with inert palsies, to his sides. His eyes seemed about
to start from his head, for, looming dully to his aching gaze, in place
of the coin he had so confidently hidden away, was a rayless, squalid
heap of small, black coals.

A moment he stood lean and limp; every particle of the fever which
consumed him concentrated in his starting eyes, which turned, with
savage inquiry, toward the fastenings of the door.

The next instant, with a leap like that of a wild beast, he reached the
threshold, examined the bolt with vivid glance and searching fingers,
then raised his hand to his forehead with a gesture of utter
distraction.

Nothing had been disturbed.

Even the check-pin which he had inserted over the bar for additional
security was in place.

The only other possible means of entrance was by a window at the other
extreme of the room.

But this was not to be considered, for it opened, with sheer
precipitation, upon the unrelieved front of the house.

The windows adjacent were removed at a distance which could afford no
possible basis from which to reach the one from which Raikes glared so
grimly.

Moreover, the shutters had been clasped and the inner sash secured.

The conclusion was inevitable.

No one had entered the room during the night. It was impossible for a
stranger to have access to the apartment during the day unobserved, and
the recess behind the radiator was known to himself alone.

Nevertheless there was the absurd substitution.

It was incredible!

The secret repository was of his own construction.

The room was secure against intrusion.

And opposed to all this the incontrovertible proof of his loss, a
catastrophe all the more agonizing since the logic of the situation
obliged him to eliminate any one from suspicion.

Raikes had always considered a loss of this character the climax of
malignant fate. He had never been able to contemplate it without the
mortal shudder which usually communicates its chill to a loving parent
confronted with the prospect of the departure of a dear one.

The recess in the wall containe