rom the dying man that the will remained and where it was. You
made sure by pretending to write letters in this room, bringing your
portfolio with ink and pen and a pad of paper. Then, at Marshall's
death, you inquired of Lewis for legal measures to discover the dead
man's will. And when you find the room ransacked, you run after the
law."

My father paused.

"That is your past, Mr. Gosford. Now let me tell your future. I see you
in joy at the recovered will. I see you pleased at your foresight in
getting a direct bequest, and at the care you urged on Marshall to leave
no evidence of his plan, lest the authorities discover it. For I see,
Mr. Gosford, that it was your intention all along to keep this sum of
money for your own use and pleasure. But alas, Mr. Gosford, it was not
to be! I see you writing this release; and Mr. Gosford"--my father's
voice went up full and strong,--"I see you writing it in terror--sweat
on your face!"

"The Devil take your nonsense!" cried the Englishman.

My father stood up with a twisted, ironical smile.

"If you doubt my skill, Mr. Gosford, as a fortune, or rather a
misfortune-teller I will ask Mr. Lewis and Herman Gaeki to tell me what
they see."

The two men crossed the room and stooped over the paper, while my father
held the crystal. The manner and the bearing of the men changed. They
grew on the instant tense and fired with interest.

"I see it!" said the old doctor, with a queer foreign expletive.

"And I," cried Lewis, "see something more than Pendleton's vision. I see
the penitentiary in the distance."

The Englishman sprang up with an oath and leaned across the table. Then
he saw the thing.

My father's hand held the crystal above the figures of the bequest
written in the body of the will. The focused lens of glass magnified
to a great diameter, and under the vast enlargement a thing that would
escape the eye stood out. The top curl of a figure 3 had been erased,
and the bar of a 5 added. One could see the broken fibers of the paper
on the outline of the curl, and the bar of the five lay across the top
of the three and the top of the o behind it like a black lath tacked
across two uprights.

The figure 3 had been changed to 5 so cunningly is to deceive the eye,
but not to deceive the vast magnification of the crystal. The thing
stood out big and crude like a carpenter's patch.

Gosford's face became expressionless like wood, his body rigid; then he
stood up and face