"Congratulations, my dear Thorp, on your marriage. They're a bit belated, I know, but I haven't been in the mood for writing of late. Moreover, I wanted to make sure of Mrs. Thorp's dowry. I enclose the proceeds of the campaign, and fancy that the settlement isn't so far out of the way. But then our good friend Magnus never expected that he would be called upon to pay it. Here's the story as I wrote it down from day to day. "March 1. It's plain enough that Magnus has been embezzling the fortune of his niece, Miss Allaire. From what the girl could tell me of her late parent's mode of living I put them down as being comfortably off, if not rich. So I have intimated that I might consider an offer of fifty thousand dollars for the phonographic records in my safe-deposit vault. At least I will now draw the enemy's fire. "March 3. Chivers has called and affects to regard my proposition as absurd. I have riposted by raising my price to seventy-five thousand dollars. He protested angrily, and I immediately made it one hundred thousand dollars. "March 8. Five days of silence and then another call from Chivers. I met him with the statement that now I would not take less than one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. He seemed flurried and said that he would have to consult his principal. 'As you like,' I remarked, carelessly, 'but it will then cost you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.' Magnus is evidently alarmed and is wondering how much I really know. "March 9. No word from the hostile camp. The inference is that I may now look for a move on my antagonists' part, 'Otherwise,' as he says in that precious note, 'there will have to be a new adjustment of averages.' Precisely. "The position is probably a dangerous one, and I must take the obvious precautions. To begin with, I shall not leave these rooms until the affair is over, and I have made arrangements with an up-town restaurant to supply me with my meals in sealed vessels. I am thus insured against a street assault and poison. But all this is probably useless. The Magnus method of attack will be far more subtle. "I have just written to Chivers that two hundred thousand dollars will now be necessary if he wants those phonographic records. "March 11. I have had a talk with Louis, the janitor, about the Barowsky 'affairs.' Three men found dead in the big chair that faces the centre-table in my living-room. The date in every case was the 21st of March. If not an extraordinary coincidence there is food for reflection in this plain statement. It gives me ten clear days, and I can eat my dinner to-night in comparative comfort.