now what there was about that sentence that sent a little
shiver along my spine. Perhaps it was the tense of the verb. Perhaps
it was the voice in which the words were uttered. Perhaps it was the
haggard glance which accompanied them. Whatever the cause, I found
that some of my client's panic was communicating itself to me.

"You mean he indicated his wish before he died?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"Or left a note of it, perhaps?"

"Yes," she said, "he has left a note of it," and she opened the bag
she carried on her arm. "Here it is."

I took the sheet of paper she held out to me. It bore these words,
written in the crabbed and somewhat uncertain hand which had belonged
to Peter Magnus:

MY DEAR WIFE: It is my wish that you leave at once on this desk the
sum of fifty thousand dollars in currency.

"On this desk?" I repeated, reading the words over again.

"On his desk at home," she explained.

"Then what is to become of it?"

"I don't know."

"But surely--" I said, bewildered. "Look here, Mrs. Magnus, you aren't
telling me everything. Where did you find this?"

"On his desk."

"When?"

"Three nights ago."

"You mean it had been lying there unnoticed ever since his death?"

"No," she answered hoarsely. "It had not been lying there unnoticed.
It was written that night."

I could only stare at her--at her trembling lips, at her bloodshot
eyes, at her livid face.

"Then it's an imposture of some sort," I said at last.

"It is not an imposture," she answered, more hoarsely than ever. "My
husband wrote those words."

"Nonsense!" I retorted impatiently. "Somebody's trying to impose on
you, Mrs. Magnus. Leave this with me, and I'll get to the bottom of
it."

"I tell you," she repeated, rising to her feet in her earnestness, "my
husband wrote those words three nights ago."

"How do you know he did?" I questioned, in some amusement.

"Because I saw him do it!" she answered, and fell back into her chair
again, her hands fumbling feebly at her bag.

She was evidently on the verge of collapse, and I hastened to get her
a glass of water, but when I returned with it, she had her smelling
bottle to her nose and was almost herself again. She waved the glass
away impatiently.

"I shall be all right in a moment," she murmured, and I sat down again
and watched her, wondering if there had ever been any insanity in Mrs.
Magnus' family.

I suppose my thought must have been reflected in my face, for Mr