d it to her, and he wouldn't. Let her go on believing
in ghosts! He was hugely pleased to think that there really existed
one thing that could get under the skin of that hard-boiled human!

He was still smiling grimly as he finally began to read the
message--but the smile had faded away before he finished.

"_Woe unto thee, stiff-necked son of Belial! Woe unto thee, oppresor
of the defensless! Woe unto thee, who hast ground the faces of the
poor, who hast turned the hopes of thy neighbers to ashes! Woe! Woe!
Woe! Take heed to thy ways and mend them, lest thou be destroyed by
the thunderbolts of wrath!_"

A hand-written signature in a sprawling fist concluded the
communication; heavy, labored characters, inscribed in a crimson fluid
by a blunt pen, formed two words: "The Monk."

Simon Varr read the thing through twice. He laid it on the desk before
him and stared at it as though it had some power to hypnotize him. A
pulse of anger beat in his temple, but it was a more subdued anger than
his quick temper usually produced. His mental processes had ceased to
function normally as they sank beneath a wave of bewilderment such as
had submerged them in the woods. Feebly, they came again to the
surface.

This message was an event entirely outside the range of his previous
experience. He had heard of anonymous letters, naturally, and he knew
that the correct and courageous thing to do was to ignore them as if
they did not exist. But anonymous letters, as he understood them, were
brought by the postman and placed on the breakfast table with the
morning mail; they weren't planted in the middle of a lonely copse by
gentlemen attired as Spanish Inquisitioners!

The letter on his desk seemed to leer at its recipient and challenge
him to ignore it.

What did it mean? Who had sent it? Was it a genuine warning and
threat, or was it merely an elaborate hoax? He pondered the latter
possibility quite at length--and thanked his stars that he had not told
Ocky about it. Simon Varr was not the man to relish a jest against
himself, and if Ocky ever heard about it and it subsequently proved to
be the work of a practical joker--well, she would never let him forget
that he hadn't gone after the pound of coffee!

But the theory that it might be a hoax grew more and more implausible
as he contemplated it. He was positive he knew no one capable of such
a prank, and to suppose that any stranger had gone to so much troubl