years ago, and every day since then her property has increased.  I did not know then, and I do not know now, why they were both so anxious that all knowledge of their good fortune should be kept from those about them; but that it was to be &o kept was made very evident to me; and, notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary, I have refrained from uttering a word likely to give away their secret.  The money, which to all appearance was the cause of her tragic and untimely death, was interest money which I was delegated to deliver her.  I took it to her day before yesterday, and it was all in crisp new notes, some of them twenties, but most of them tens and fives.  I am free to say there was not such another roll of fresh money in town.”

“Warn all shopkeepers to keep a sharp lookout for new bills in the money they receive,” was Dr. Talbot’s comment to the constable.  “Fresh ten-and twenty-dollar bills are none too common in this town.  And now about her will.  Did you draw that up, Harvey?”

“No.  I did not know she had made one.  I often spoke to her about the advisability of her doing so, but she always put me off.  And now it seems that she had it drawn up in Boston.  Could not trust her old friend with too many secrets, I suppose.”

“So you don’t know how her money has been left?”

“No more than you do.”

Here an interruption occurred.  The door opened and a slim young man, wearing spectacles, came in.  At sight of him they all rose.

“Well?” eagerly inquired Dr. Talbot.

“Nothing new,” answered the young man, with a consequential air.  “The elder woman died from loss of blood consequent upon a blow given by a small, three-sided, slender blade; the younger from a stroke of apoplexy, induced by fright.”

“Good!  I am glad to hear my instincts were not at fault.  Loss of blood, eh?  Death, then, was not instantaneous?”

“No.”

“Strange!” fell from the lips of his two listeners.  “She lived, yet gave no alarm.”

“None that was heard,” suggested the young doctor, who was from another town.

“Or, if heard, reached no ears but Philemon’s,” observed the constable.  “Something must have taken him upstairs.”

“I am not so sure,” said the coroner, “that Philemon is not answerable for the whole crime, notwithstanding our failure to find the missing money anywhere in the house.  How else account for the resignation with which she evidently met her death?  Had a stranger struck her, Agatha Webb would have struggled.  There is no sign of struggle in the room.”

“She would have struggled against Philemon had she had strength to struggle.  I think she was asleep when she was struck.”

“Ah!  And was not standing by the table?  How about the blood there, then?”

“Shaken from the murderer’s fingers in fright or disgust.”

“There was no blood on Philemon’s fingers.”

“No; he wiped them on his sleeve.”