pported on
a beautifully carved base.

There was a breathless pause; then McIntyre unceremoniously jerked the
electric torch from Mrs. Brewster's nervous fingers and turned its rays
of the interior of the casket. Stretched at full length lay the figure
of a man, and from a wound in his temple flowed a steady stream of
blood.

"Good God!" McIntyre staggered back against Helen. "Grimes!"

CHAPTER XVII. A QUESTION OF HOUSE-BREAKING

The genial president of the Metropolis Trust Company was late.
Mrs. Brewster, waiting in his well-appointed office, restrained her
ill-temper only by an exertion of will-power. She detested being kept
waiting, and that morning she had many errands to attend to before the
luncheon hour.

"May I use your telephone?" she asked Mr. Clymer's secretary, and the
young man rose with alacrity from his desk. Mrs. Brewster never knew
what it was to lack attention, even her own sex were known on occasions
to give her gowns and, (what captious critics termed her "frivolous
conduct") undivided attention.

"Can I look up the number for you?" the secretary asked as Mrs. Brewster
took up the telephone book and fumbled for the gold chain of her
lorgnette.

"Oh, thank you," her smile showed each pretty dimple. "I wish to speak
to Mr. Kent, of the firm of Rochester and Kent."

"Harry Kent?" The young secretary dropped the book without looking at
it, and gave a number to the operator, and then handed the instrument to
Mrs. Brewster.

"Mr. Kent not in, did you say?" asked the widow. "Who is speaking? Ah,
Mr. Sylvester--has Mr. Rochester returned?---Both partners away"... she
paused... "I'll call later--Mrs. Brewster, good morning."

Mrs. Brewster hung up the receiver and turned to the secretary.

"I don't believe I can wait any longer," she began, and paused, as
Benjamin Clymer appeared in the doorway.

"So sorry to be late," he exclaimed, shaking her hand warmly. "And I am
sorry, also, to have called you here on such an errand."

Mrs. Brewster waited until the young secretary had withdrawn out of
earshot before replying; then taking the chair Clymer placed for her
near his own, she opened her gold mesh bag and took out a canceled check
and laid it on the desk in front of the bank president.

"Your bank honored this check?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Who presented it?"

Clymer pressed the buzzer and his secretary came at once.

"Ask Mr. McDonald to step here," and as the man vanished on his err