"I asked you to come," Mr. Carstairs began, "because I had a bad night last night and I have had a bad day. This you may think but a poor reason," he continued, in his quiet, cultured voice, smiling faintly, "and to you, who are well and strong, it is inadequate. But to me, who am dying, it is justification for any eccentricity. I liked you directly I saw you, and it pains me to think that I have taken no steps to cultivate the acquaintance of yourself and your wife; but I have long got out of the way of making overtures of friendship, and to occupy rooms in the same house is not one of the best passports to a good understanding." He lay back exhausted and began to cough. I looked among the bottles for a lenitive and found only an empty one. Asking him if there was another, I understood him to say it was in the cupboard by the window; and to this I hurried. But no sooner was my hand on the handle than his face underwent a terrifying transformation, and he half-sprang from bed crying, "Not there! Not there!" I came hurriedly from the door, and he quieted down and directed me to a cupboard on the other side. Now what Bluebeard's closet was this? I wondered (with Mrs. Wiles). I was soon to know. "I throw myself on your good nature," he resumed, "because I am _in extremis_ and have no friend within call. It is extremely improbable that I shall get well from this attack. You see, for one thing I am a good age, and for another I have very little to live for, and therefore am not likely to make a fight of it." I murmured the usual things. "No," he said, "there's very little in it. If I recover it is only for a brief while, with impaired strength. If I were younger and happier even that would be worth having; but really one may as well die to-day as to-morrow. It's got to be." This is a form of fatalism with which I am as fit to grapple as a seamstress with a cuttlefish, so I said nothing. "Your kindness in coming up," he continued, "leads me to ask you to be kinder still and administer my effects. They are few enough. I want everything to go to the National Art Collections Fund. It sounds simple, but there is this complication, that the name by which I am known is not my real name; and my real name, although it is bound to come out, I want to be still suppressed in connection with myself. I die as John Carstairs." My face, no doubt, indicated some perplexity, for he went on. "You will understand only if I tell you the whole story; but first I must confess that I am one of the most notorious of living thieves--perhaps almost the most famous of all, in this country--who have never been found out. When I die the secret must of necessity be in part discovered. I look to you to help me so that my name and the theft are kept distinct."