uel enough to those two poor youngsters. As
for his passion for drinking himself to sleep--well, when a man's had
straight legs and plenty of health, such a fate as Adam's hits hard.

"He hated Joan and Donald," said Kenny. "Why?"

"He resented their drain upon his pocket-book. He hadn't enough left
for them and brandy too. Though the Lord knows they never cost him
much. Nellie Craig had them for a while after Cordelia died. Good old
soul, Nellie. But her tongue hung in the middle and worked both ways
like a bell-clapper. I always blamed her for the start of the miser
yarn. Adam managed to get it over on her and that was enough."

He made a final effort to read the will and while Kenny sat in stony
silence, choking back a creepy feeling of despair, reached the clause
pertaining to the residue of Adam's wealth.

"Ah!" he said.

"Well?" choked Kenny. "Is there some damned commonplace explanation
for that, too?"

The doctor tapped the paper with his stubby finger.

"And you," he marveled, "who knew so well his devilish cunning! That
clause I think was his last cruel jest."

Kenny turned white.

"A trap!" he said.

"A trap," said the doctor. "And you've swallowed bait and trap and
all."

"How he must have hated me?"

"On the contrary," said the little doctor warmly, "I think in his way
he was fond of you. He counted the hours until nightfall, that I know."

"And I--" said Kenny with a sharp intake of his breath, "I killed him
with that story of the chair."

"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!" said the doctor kindly. "Chair or no chair
he would have died just the same. I saw it coming. And your presence
there this summer freed him entirely from money worries. He even paid
me."

"Yes," said Kenny, "my money helped him drink himself to death."

The doctor sighed.

"Oh, well," he said, "that too would have happened just the same."

Kenny brushed his hair back dazedly from his forehead and rose. He
felt as if he had fallen from a great height and hit his head. It was
numbly aquiver. As he picked up the will and put it in his pocket,
Adam Craig, sinister and unassailable, seemed to mock him from the
grave. His last trap! Almost Kenny could hear him chuckle:
"Checkmate, Kenny, checkmate! And the game is won." How well he had
known his opponent's excitable fancy!

"Doctor," asked Kenny drearily, "why were all the books in the
farmhouse in Adam's room?"

"There," said the doctor, "I think he