hat McCall's story had
made as profound an impression on the other men as it had on him.

Jimmy looked curiously at Professor Brierly, who was rolling a
bread pill under his fingers in a mood of deep abstraction. To
Jimmy this gesture was of special significance, because it was one
which Professor Brierly disliked. He never did it himself and
Jimmy had heard him reprove Matthews for doing it. The newspaper
man caught Matthews' glance. Jack was going to make a facetious
remark, when the old man murmured as if thinking aloud:

"Seven deaths, _five_ of them suicides. Strange, strange!"

"You suspect, Professor--"

The old man came out of his fit of abstraction with a start. "I
suspect nothing. I never suspect without a sufficient basis of
fact. I am very much interested in the story McCall told us. It is
very, intriguing. An American vendetta! Possible, of course, for
we have our Kentucky mountain feuds. McCall's suggestion is an
unpleasant one.

"What dread horror does this mysterious '14' impose that will
impel five such men out of twenty-one to commit suicide? The
alternative is still more dreadful, Hale. In our criminal
investigations, we have come across many instances of careless
autopsies. We have come across many instances of loosely written
reports by medical and other official examiners."

He shook his head and fell silent for a moment. Then he went on:
"Think of it. On the one hand, a man, or men whose hate grew and
grew for sixty-five years, until it became an obsession or
outright mania. On the other hand, a fund of several million
dollars."

"You suggest, Professor, you suggest--can death be produced so that
it looks like suicide?"

"Of course it can."

"In five cases, Professor, within such a short time?"

"In five cases or five hundred cases, but here, this sort of thing
is all right for a highly speculative imaginative newspaper man.
Both you and McCall infected me with your--let us go outside and
enjoy the sunshine."

For a time that afternoon, Jimmy forgot the conversation at the
lunch table. He saw Professor Brierly and Matthews in new
surroundings. And the charm of it stole in on him and made him
forget temporarily the errand on which he came.

* * * * *

Professor Brierly was watching the movements of a lizard with
detached interest when his little friend sat down beside him and
began, glumly, pushing his toes in and put of the gentle ripples
that lapped t