"You’re right, Nick," Mantell quickly admitted. "I think I have hypnotized myself with horrible dread. I cannot govern my own mind, or----” "There you go again," Nick interrupted. "Now, Mantell, unless----” "Wait! I’ll tell you." "Do so, then." "It began three weeks ago, Nick, with a placard pinned on the side door of our residence," Mantell said, more calmly. "It was a rudely scrawled threat on a scrap of brown paper. It bore no signature and contained only these words: Your money or your wife!" "Wife, eh?" queried Nick. "Are you sure you did not misread it? Was not the word life, instead of wife?" "No, indeed, as since has appeared," Mantell said quickly. "Naturally, of course, that first threatening placard did not alarm us. I thought it might be a joke, a very bad one, of course, or the work of some foolish or malicious persons bent only upon annoying us. Two days later, however, a second was tacked on the trunk of a tree directly opposite the windows of my wife’s sleeping room." "A similar treat?" "Yes. It read: ‘You’ve got my money. I’m going to get your wife.’" "H’m, I see!" Nick remarked. "Was it on paper like the other?" "Yes. It was a piece of ordinary manila paper, such as one might obtain in a grocery store." "Inscribed with a lead pencil?" "Yes. The letters were rudely printed, however, not written." "That was done to avoid exposing his handwriting." "I inferred so," said Mantell. "That second placard made us somewhat apprehensive. I feared that my wife was to be persecuted by some unknown scoundrel whose enmity one of us has incurred, or who is himself a lunatic. I know of no one whose money I have got, however, or who is justified in any antipathy for me, or my wife. Helen began to grow nervous and----” "One moment," Nick interrupted. "I can appreciate your apprehensions and the nervousness and fear of your wife. What steps did you take in the matter?" "None at that time, Nick, except to caution Helen to be on her guard, and not to venture out alone after dark," Mantell replied. "I hoped the matter would end there, with no repetition of the outrage." "Well, what followed?" "Nothing more for about three days," Mantell continued. "Helen ventured, just after dusk that evening, to go to our rear gate with a friend who was leaving for home, that being the nearest way. They parted at the gate, and Helen started to return to the house. As she was passing the garage, a man darted from behind it and pursued her. She uttered a scream and ran at the top of her speed toward the house." "Did he overtake her?" "No. Luckily, Nick, I entered the driveway gate with my touring car at that moment, and in the glare of the lamps I saw the couple. The man immediately turned and fled. He disappeared in the darkness of the back street, but I heard him shout that he would get her later, in spite of me. Helen had fainted dead away on the side veranda, and I ran to her assistance, of course, making no attempt to pursue the miscreant."