The dentist himself was left—the last time he was referred to in this chronicle—facing Sawyer and two policemen.

The sight of the policemen caused him to clutch at the door frame for support. He thought the moment of his arrest had come, and his knees seemed to take on a desire to figure as castanets.

The two men touched their caps and did not attempt to enter.

That surprised the dentist. It dawned on him that a salute was not the usual preliminary to an arrest.

One of the men had a note-book in his hand. He spoke:

"Sorry to intrude, sir, but there's a fÊte on at the Crystal Palace for the police orphanage. Your name's down on the books as subscribing something last year, and we thought we'd just ask if you'd be so kind as to remember the poor orphans again."

What a feeling, what an intense feeling of relief came over him!

Relief! He almost laughed, the tension for a minute had been so great.

"What did I give last year?" he inquired, in as natural a voice as he could assume.

"Five shillings, sir."

"Then here's the same again. That's all right."

The men thanked him and withdrew. The dentist closed the door and almost sobbed.

Then he changed his mind about the registered letter. Opening the door, he entered the outer room, and took it from Sawyer.

"I'll see to this," he said.

That police visit seemed to have roused some courage in him—it was an element in his nature that needed a lot of rousing.

Why should he be afraid of every shadow? Where was the need for it?

Unless he betrayed himself—and then he remembered the visit of the man yesterday, the man who had made an appointment for eleven o'clock that day.

What could that mean? His inquiries, his reference to the American, all this seemed suspicious.

He would wait another half hour and see. Perhaps after all there was no need for fright.

During that half hour Sawyer tapped at and opened the door.

"The gent that came yesterday, sir."

"His name?"

"Mr. Brown, sir."

"Show him in."

The dentist braced himself for the interview. He put the envelope containing the notes in his table drawer, and looked up as his visitor entered.

"Mr. Brown?"

"That's it."

"You were recommended here, I think, by some one whose teeth I attended to."

"Well, I don't think you attended to his teeth only."

"No."

"He was rather cut up by your treatment."

Gerald had his eyes fixed on the dentist, and when he had uttered that double meaning remark, he saw the man's face grow pale as death.

He knew then that his bolt had gone home; knew that he was on the right track at last.

He adopted bold measures. The dentist's appearance warranted them.

"Sit down, Mr. Lennox. You don't mind my turning the key in the door, so we shan't be disturbed, do you? That's it."

He seated himself opposite the dentist, and pulled out his hired-for-a-shilling handcuffs.

The effect of their production was electric. He was more than ever convinced that he was right.

"Of course," he said quietly, "you guess the game's up. That little game you and your brother played with Mr. George Depew when he came to have a tooth out?"

The dentist was incapable of an answer. He sat there as if turned to stone.

Gerald went on:

"I'm of the American detective force—you have perhaps heard of me, Detective Grabbem. I gave the name of Brown to your boy because I didn't want to give the show away."

Still no answer. Then Gerald said suddenly:

"Where are the nineteen thousand pound notes?"

For answer the tongue-tied dentist with trembling hand opened his drawer, and handed Gerald the envelope he had recently given to and taken from Sawyer.

"You intended them for the London police? I'm from New York."

Gerald opened the envelope and his eyes sparkled as he handled the notes.

As a measure of precaution he collated the numbers with the entries in his pocketbook—all were correct.

"I'll take charge of these," he said, as he put the notes in his pocket. "Thanks for saving me trouble."

Then Gerald's anxiety was to get away. He said:

"Out of gratitude for saving me bother, is there anything you would like me to do for you? Want to write to your friends or anything?"

He had got all he wanted, and he decided to leave with it as promptly as possible. The dentist found his tongue, and said:

"I would be grateful for half an hour for—for the purpose of writing to my friends."

"It's yours. There is no back way out of this house, I see. I'll just smoke a pipe outside. No tricks, mind. I'll be back in half an hour."

Gerald went out slowly, lighted a pipe within sight of the dentist's window, sauntered with his hands behind him, after the manner of one waiting, and then when he reached the corner, turned it, and bolted in the direction of Moorgate Street.

There he hailed a hansom and was rapidly driven to his lodgings. He was one of the happiest fares in a London cab that day.

And the dentist? He completed the unfinished work of the morning.

No need now for the subtleties of the sharpening stone—all was known. He might as well use the knife in the quickest possible way, and end it all speedily.

His old cowardice came over him. He loathed himself for it, stamped his foot and strove to attain the courage needed to draw that sharp surgeon's knife under his chin.

He knew its edge was razor-like, that one strong, firm draw and all would be over. But he lacked the nerve.

He almost laughed when he remembered that he had heard it said that a suicide is a coward—he imagined that it required more courage to take one's own life than another's.

He looked at the clock; he had fooled away five minutes. That braced him up—he must avoid the hangman's attention at any cost.

It was not the loss of his life which had deterred him so much as the method of losing it.

Then an idea occurred to him. He had the gas apparatus, why not—no sooner thought than he started to put the idea into execution.

He had a little bench whereat he worked in and about the repairing and making of false teeth.

At each end were small vises. He fastened the surgeon's long knife into it after the manner of a man who would sharpen a saw.

It was firm and rigid.

The gas apparatus he put on the bench itself, and leaned over to it, his neck almost touching the knife.

As he lost consciousness and the power of standing, he knew what would happen; the weight of his whole body would drag his neck on to the keen edge. Long before he could recover consciousness, all would be over.

Then he expelled a deep breath and inhaled the gas.

When Gerald's copy of the Star was brought up to him, a triple head-lined column caught his eye. It was captioned:

STRANGE DEATH

OF A WELL KNOWN

CITY DENTIST

and it went on to describe the ghastly details of the find in the dentist's room.

It was put down as a pure accident. The boy's evidence about the sharpening of the knives, the extraordinary position in which the body was found, were chronicled; there was not the breath of a suspicion of suicide.

Perhaps that soul which had taken its flight to another world knew naught of the happenings in this—would never know that the insurance office paid over the policy moneys, and that the wife and child the dead man had thought so much of benefited by the application of a golden salve in their time of grief.

And yet—who knows?