“What is it?” interrupted Graeme, as the meaning of the words even now began to dawn on him.

“A telautograph,” she replied simply, “a long distance writer which I have had installed over a leased wire from the hotel room of Wickham to meet the demands of you two.  With it you write over wires just as with the telephone you talk over wires.  It is as though you took one of the old pantagraphs, split it in half, and had each half connected only by the telephone wires.  While you write on this transmitter, their receiver records for them what you write.  Look!”

“... of $500,000,” it continued to write, “in cash, stocks and bonds, with interest to date, all proceedings against Graeme Mackenzie will be dropped and the indictment quashed.

“Marshall Taylor, Pres.  Central Western Trust.”

“Maxwell Wickham, District Att’y.”

“Riley Drummond, Detective.”

“It is even broader than I had hoped,” cried Constance in delight.  “Does that satisfy you, Graeme?”

“Y-yes,” he murmured, not through hesitation, but from the suddenness and surprise of the thing.

“Then sign this.”

She wrote quickly:  “In consideration of the dropping of all charges against me, I agree to tell the number and location of the safe deposit box in New York where the stocks and bonds I possess are located and to hand over a key and written order to the same.  I now agree immediately to pay by check the balance of the half million, including interest.”

She stepped aside from the machine.  With a tremor of eagerness he seized the stylus and underneath what she had written wrote boldly the name, “Graeme Mackenzie.”

Next Constance herself took the stylus.  “Place in the telautograph a blank check,” she wrote.  “He will write in the name of the bank, the amount, and the signature.”

She did the same.  “Now, Graeme, sign this cheek on the Universal Bank as Lawrence Macey,” she said, writing in the amount.

Mechanically he took the stylus.  His fingers trembled as he held it, but with an effort he controlled himself.  It was too weird, too uncanny to be true.  Here he was, without stirring forth from the security of his hiding place; there were his pursuers in their hotel.  With the precautions taken by Constance, neither party knew where the other was.  Yet they were in instant touch, not by the ear alone, but by handwriting itself.

He placed the stylus on the paper.  She had already written in the number of the check, the date, the bank, the amount, and the payee, Marshall Taylor.  Hastily Graeme signed it, as though in fear that they might rescind their action before he could finish.

“Now the securities,” she said.  “I have withdrawn already the amount we have made trading—­it is a substantial sum.  Write out an order to the Safe Deposit Company to deliver the key and the rest of the contents of the box to Taylor.  I have fixed it with them after a special interview this morning.  They understand.”