one of those no-questions-asked garages where they keep motors
that are not for family use. I had a lively cousin who had put
me up to that dodge, and I looked about till I found a queer hole
where they took in my car like a baby in a foundling asylum. . .
Then I practiced running to Wrenfield and back in a night. I
knew the way pretty well, for I'd done it often with the same
lively cousin--and in the small hours, too. The distance is over
ninety miles, and on the third trial I did it under two hours.
But my arms were so lame that I could hardly get dressed the next
morning. . .

"Well, then came the report about the Italian's threats, and I
saw I must act at once. . . I meant to break into the old man's
room, shoot him, and get away again. It was a big risk, but I
thought I could manage it. Then we heard that he was ill--that
there'd been a consultation. Perhaps the fates were going to do
it for me! Good Lord, if that could only be! . . ."

Granice stopped and wiped his forehead: the open window did not
seem to have cooled the room.

"Then came word that he was better; and the day after, when I
came up from my office, I found Kate laughing over the news that
he was to try a bit of melon. The house-keeper had just
telephoned her--all Wrenfield was in a flutter. The doctor
himself had picked out the melon, one of the little French ones
that are hardly bigger than a large tomato--and the patient was
to eat it at his breakfast the next morning.

"In a flash I saw my chance. It was a bare chance, no more. But