uncle's
desk. On the very spot, so it happened, where he had burned Anne
Marie's letter. He put down his cigarette quickly.

"Is that telegram for me?" he asked in an eager tone.

"Yes," snorted Dr. McPherson.

"Oh----" Frederik said. "It will explain perhaps why I--I've been kept
waiting at the hotel--I had an appointment to meet a man who wanted to
buy this business."

"Ha!" The doctor grunted indignantly.

Frederik cleared his throat.

"I may as well tell you--I'm thinking of selling out root and branch."

At this amazing news the doctor got up slowly, and turning his bushy
head toward Frederik, fixed his keen eyes upon him. He was all attention
now.

"Yes----?"

Then with a sheepish laugh Frederik abruptly changed the subject.

"You'll think it strange," he said, "but I simply cannot make up my mind
to go near the old desk of my uncle's--peculiar, yes--isn't it?"

He smiled rather a sickly smile at the doctor, and hesitated.

"I've got a perfect--Ha! Ha!--terror of the thing!"

His laughter was quite mirthless and his fear made him a pitiable
object.

The doctor, not trying to hide his contempt for him, went to the desk,
took the telegram, and threw it in Frederik's direction, not even
troubling to aim accurately.

It hit the floor about two feet away from the younger man's trimly shod
feet, and he quickly reached over sideways and seized it. He tore it
open. Then, as his eyes took in the message it contained, he drew a long
breath.

He sat down mechanically, looking straight ahead of him.

"Billy Hicks," he said slowly in a dazed voice, "Billy Hicks, the man I
was to sell out to, is de--I knew it--This afternoon when he
phoned--something told me--but I wouldn't believe it."

Slowly he put the telegram in its envelope, and then put the envelope
into his pocket; but the dazed look never left his eyes, and his face
was grey white.

"Doctor," he said, turning his eyes at last, "as sure as you live,
somebody else is doing my thinking for me in this house."

Dr. McPherson's heavy eyebrows met in an earnest frown as he studied
Frederik.

"What?" he queried.

"To-night--here in this room," Frederik went on in a voice full of awe,
"I thought I saw my uncle _there_----"

He pointed toward the desk with a little shudder.

"Eh?" said the doctor, with popping eyes, coming a step nearer. "You
really mean that you thought you saw _Peter Grimm_?"

"And just before I--I saw him--I--I--had the stra