“Well?” he queried absently, looking up from a book, one of the latest untranslated treatises on the new psychology from the pen of the eminent scientist, Dr. Freud of Vienna, “what brings you uptown so early?”

Briefly as I could, I explained to him what it was that I proposed to do.  He listened without comment and I rattled on, determined not to allow him to negative it.

“And,” I added, warming up to the subject, “I think I owe a debt of gratitude to the managing editor.  He has crystallised in my mind an idea that has long been latent.  Why, Craig,” I went on, “that is exactly what you want—­to show people how they can never hope to beat the modern scientific detective, to show that the crime-hunters have gone ahead faster even than—­”

The telephone tinkled insistently.

Without a word, Kennedy motioned to me to “listen in” on the extension on my desk, which he had placed there as a precaution so that I could corroborate any conversation that took place over our wire.

His action was quite enough to indicate to me that, at least, he had no objection to the plan.

“This is Dr. Leslie—­the coroner.  Can you come to the Municipal Hospital—­right away?”

“Right away, Doctor,” answered Craig, hanging up the receiver.  “Walter, you’ll come, too?”

A quarter of an hour later we were in the courtyard of the city’s largest hospital.  In the balmy sunshine the convalescing patients were sitting on benches or slowly trying their strength, walking over the grass, clad in faded hospital bathrobes.

We entered the office and quickly were conducted by an orderly to a little laboratory in a distant wing.

“What’s the matter?” asked Craig, as we hurried along.

“I don’t know exactly,” replied the man, “except that it seems that Price Maitland, the broker, you know, was picked up on the street and brought here dying.  He died before the doctors could relieve him.”

Dr. Leslie was waiting impatiently for us.  “What do you make of that, Professor Kennedy?”

The coroner spread out on the table before us a folded half-sheet of typewriting and searched Craig’s face eagerly to see what impression it made on him.

“We found it stuffed in Maitland’s outside coat pocket,” he explained.

It was dateless and brief: 

Dearest Madeline: 

May God in his mercy forgive me for what I am about to do.  I have just seen Dr. Ross.  He has told me the nature of your illness.  I cannot bear to think that I am the cause, so I am going simply to drop out of your life.  I cannot live with you, and I cannot live without you.  Do not blame me.  Always think the best you can of me, even if you could not give me all.  Good-bye.

Your distracted husband,

Price.

At once the idea flashed over me that Maitland had found himself suffering from some incurable disease and had taken the quickest means of settling his dilemma.