d his shoulders, and leered at his visitor.

"We talk a great deal, my young friend. What is the use? A bargain is
a bargain. A few rubies in exchange for your life. A few rubies and my
mouth is shut. Otherwise"--he humped his shoulders again. "Well?"

Burton drew back, swept his hand in a dazed way across his eyes--and
laughed out suddenly in bitter mirth.

"A few rubies!" he cried. "The most magnificent stones on this side of
the water--a FEW rubies! It's been Maddon's life hobby. Every child in
New York knows that! A few--yes, there's only a few--but those few are
worth a fortune. He trusts me, the man has been like a father to me,
and--"

"So you are the very last to be suspected," observed old Isaac suavely.
"Have I not told you that? There is nothing to fear. Did we not arrange
everything so nicely--eh, my young friend? See, it was to-night that
Maddon gives a little reception to his friends, and did you not say that
the rubies would be taken from the safe-deposit vault this afternoon
since his friends always clamoured to see them as a very fitting
conclusion to an evening's entertainment? And did you not say that you
very naturally had access to the safe in the library where you worked,
and that he would not notice they were gone until he came to look
for them some time this evening? I think you said all that. And what
suspicion let alone proof, would attach itself to you? You were out of
the room once when he, too, was absent for perhaps half an hour. It
is very simple. In that half hour, some one, somehow, abstracted them.
Certainly it was not you. You see how little I ask--and I pay well, do I
not? And so I gave you until to-night. Three days have gone, and I have
said nothing, and the body has not been found--eh? But to-night--eh--it
was understood! The rubies--or the chair."

Burton's lips moved, but it was a moment before he could speak.

"You wouldn't dare!" he whispered thickly. "You wouldn't dare! I'd tell
the story of--of what you tried to make me do, and they'd send you up
for it."

Old Isaac shrugged with pitying contempt.

"Is it, after all, a fool I am dealing with!" he sneered. "And I--what
should I say? That you had stolen the stones from your employer and
offered them as a bribe to silence me, and that I had refused. The very
act of handing you over to the police would prove the truth of what I
said and rob you of even a chance of leniency--FOR THAT OTHER THING. Is
it not so--eh? And why