tle Broadway hanger-on had had so much hard cash on deposit. Then
where had she got it--$5,000 at a time, here in Hamilton?

_Blackmail!_

Hastily but thoroughly Dundee ran through the remaining check
stubs.... _No record at all of a check for rent made out to Judge Hugo
Marshall!_

But there was a stub that interested him. Check No. 17--Nita had spent
her money lavishly--was filled in as follows, in Nita's pretty backhand:

No. 17 $9,000
_May 9, 1930_
To _Trust Dept._
For _Investment_

Had John C. Drake, who as vice president in charge of trusts and
investments had doubtless handled the check, wondered at all where the
$9,000 had come from?

One other revelation came out of the twenty-three filled-in stubs. On
every Monday Nita Selim had drawn a check for $40 to her maid, Lydia
Carr.

Again Dundee whistled. Forty dollars a week was, he wagered to himself,
more money than any other maid in Hamilton was lucky enough to receive!
Nita in a new light--an over-generous Nita! Or--_was Nita herself paying
blackmail on a small scale_?

He reached into a pigeon-hole whose contents--a thick packet of unused
envelopes--had not been disturbed by Strawn, and was about to remove an
envelope in which to place the all-important checkbook, when he noticed
something slightly peculiar. An envelope in the middle of the packet
looked rather thicker than an empty case should....

_But it was not empty._ And across the face of the expensive,
cream-colored linen paper was written, in that same pretty, very legible
backhand:

TO BE OPENED IN CASE OF MY DEATH
--JAUNITA LEIGH SELIM

His heart hammering painfully, and his fingers trembling, Dundee drew
out the two close-written sheets of creamy notepaper. After all, who had
better right than he to open it? Was he not the representative of the
district attorney?... And he hadn't damaged the envelope. It had opened
very easily indeed--its flap had yielded instantly to his thumb-nail....

Wait! It had been _too easy_! Before unfolding the letter or whatever it
was, Dundee examined the flap of the envelope.... Yes! He was not the
first to open it since its original sealing. God grant he hadn't
destroyed any tell-tale fingerprints in his criminal haste to learn any
secret that Nita Selim had recorded here!... Perhaps Nita herself had
unsealed the letter to make an addition or a correction?

Well, whatever damage had been done was done now, and he might