, she was certainly a consummate actress. I had never credited her
with any ability in that direction.

A consummate forger, too!

The thought stung me upright. Of course, if her story was a lie, she
herself had written the note. Had Godfrey thought of that? Or was it
Godfrey who was trying to throw dust in my eyes?

CHAPTER II

It was raining when I left my apartment at the Marathon that night--a
cold and disagreeable drizzle--and the thought occurred to me as I
turned up my coat collar and stepped into the cab I had summoned, that
it was a somewhat foolhardy thing to be driving about the streets of
New York with fifty thousand dollars in my hand bag. I glanced at the
lights of the Tenderloin police station, just across the street, and
thought for an instant of going over and asking for an escort. Then I
sank back into the seat with a little laugh at my own nervousness.

"One-twenty West Twenty-third," I said, as the cabman slammed the
apron shut.

He nodded, spoke to his horse, and we were off.

The asphalt was gleaming with the rain, and a thin fog was in the air,
which formed a nimbus around the street lamps and drew a veil before
the shop windows. Far away I heard the rattle of the elevated and the
never-ceasing hum of Sixth Avenue and Broadway, but, save for these
reminders of the city's life, the silence of the street was broken
only by the click-clack of our horse's hoofs.

We swung sharply around a corner, and then another. A moment later the
cab drew up at the curb, and the driver sprang from his box.

"Here we are, sir," he said, and as I stepped to the pavement, I saw
the old Magnus house frowning down upon me.

I had never before seen it at night, and for the first time I really
appreciated its gloomy situation. In its day it had been part of
a fashionable residential district, of which it was now the only
survival. It was of brownstone, with a flight of steps mounting
steeply to the door, and stood back from the street at the bottom of a
canon formed by the towering walls of the adjacent office buildings.
Why any woman who could afford to live where she chose should choose
to live here was a riddle past my solving.

Musing over this, I mounted the steps and rang the bell.

"I am Mr. Lester," I said, to the maid who opened the door. "Mrs.
Magnus is expecting me."

She stood aside for me to enter, and as I passed I happened to glance
at her face. It was that of a woman no longer young