be staved off another day. I have thought it all out. For the sake of my children and the name they bear I am about to take my own life. But they nor any other living person save you must ever know that I did not die by the hand of the assassin. I have arranged that it will appear as if the bank has been robbed and the cashier murdered. As I write this room bears evidence of a fearful struggle. The vault is open and the securities in confusion. Thus will our crime be hidden from the eyes of all save God. Your personal account overdrawn I have fixed by the removal of pages from the ledger, so that when the examination of the bank's affairs is made there may be no suspicion of irregularity on your part or mine. You will be the first to find my lifeless body. The weapon by which I die you must secure and secrete.
"And now, farewell. That the sacrifice I am about to make may not be in vain I adjure you guard well the secret of my death. Care for my children. Watch over them, cherish them. By our hope of heaven and forgiveness, by our life-long friendship, by the bitter sacrifice to which duty points the way, by all these things I charge you, Cyrus Felton, fail not at the peril of your good name
Roger Hathaway."
As Barker concludes the reading of the remarkable
epistle each of the four men is busy with his thoughts.
No one offers any comment on the message from the
dead. Finally Ames breaks the silence.
"And Ralph Felton?" he queries, turning to Barker.
"He had nothing whatever to do with the death of Roger Hathaway," returns the detective. "He refused to answer the coroner's question at the inquest as to where he had spent his time between 7:45 o'clock and 8:30 on the evening of Memorial Day because he did not wish his association with Isabel Winthrop, or Harding, to become known when he had been a suitor for the hand of Helen Hathaway. But that was not his principal reason for leaving Raymond as suddenly as he did. As bookkeeper of the savings bank he had embezzled a portion of the funds—not a sensational peculation, only sufficient to keep pace with his expenditures, which were in excess of his income. Fearing that his offense would be made public when the bank's affairs were overhauled, he fled. It was with difficulty that I extracted from him yesterday afternoon a confession of his reason for leaving Raymond.
