Cautiously she went through her usual elaborate precautions to shake off any shadows that might be following her, and an hour later found her with Mackenzie.

“What has happened!” he asked eagerly, surprised at her early visit.

Briefly she ran over the events of the afternoon.  “Would you be willing,” she asked, “to go to District Attorney Wickham, hand over the half million with, say, twelve thousand dollars interest, in return for freedom?”

Graeme looked at Constance a moment doubtfully.

“I would not do that,” he measured slowly.  “How do I know what they will do, the moment they get me in their power?  No.  Almost, I would say that I would not go there under any guarantee they might give.  I do not trust them.  The indictment must be dismissed first.”

“But they won’t do that.  The ultimatum was personal restitution.”

Constance was faced by an apparently insurmountable dilemma.  She saw and agreed with the reasonableness of Graeme’s position.  But there was the opposition and obstinacy of Wickham, the bitterness and unscrupulousness of Drummond.  Here was a tremendous problem.  How was she to meet it?

For perhaps half an hour they sat in silence.  One plan after another she rejected.

Suddenly an idea occurred to her.  Somewhere, in a bank, she had seen a method which might meet the difficulty.

“To-morrow—­I will arrange it—­to suit both of you,” she cried confidently.

“How?” he asked.

“Trust it all to me,” she appealed.

“All,” replied Graeme, rising and standing before her.  “All.  I will do anything you say.”

He was about to take her hand, but she rose.  “No, Graeme.  Not now. 
There is work—­the crisis.  No, I must go.  Trust me.”

It was not until noon of the next day that he saw Constance again.  There was an air of suppressed excitement about her as she entered the apartment and placed on a table before him a small oblong box of black enameled metal, beneath which was a roll of paper.  Above was another somewhat similar box with another roll of paper.

Constance attached the instrument to the telephone, an enigmatical conversation followed, and she hung up the receiver.

A few minutes later, she took the stylus that was in the lower box.  Hastily across the blank paper she wrote the words, “We are ready.”

Mackenzie was too fascinated to ask questions.  Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something in the upper box move, as if of itself.  It was a similar, self-inking stylus.

“Watch!” exclaimed Constance.

“Do you get this?” wrote the spirit hand.

“Perfectly,” she scrawled in turn.  “Go ahead, as you promised.”

The upper stylus was now moving freely at the ends of its two rigid arms, counterparts of those holding the lower stylus.

“We promise,” it wrote, “that in consideration of the return...”