Produced by Al Haines. [Illustration: "’I shall have the detectives here—a man and a woman—within half an hour. There is nothing to do but wait’"—Page 61] *THE SIXTY-FIRST SECOND* BY OWEN JOHNSON AUTHOR OF "STOVER AT YALE," ETC. _ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. WENZELL_ NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS _Copyright, 1912, 1913, by_ THE MCCLURE PUBLICATIONS, INC. _Copyright, 1913, by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_ _March, 1913_ *ILLUSTRATIONS* "’I shall have the detectives here—a man and a woman—within half an hour. There’s nothing to do but wait’" . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ "In that gay party one person was a thief—but which one? ... A match sputtered. There was a cry of amazement and horror. The table was absolutely bare" "’Look here, Rita. Can’t I help out some way?’" "’Come outside—in the garden. I want to speak to you. Come quietly’" "’I have not hesitated to trust in you—you must in me’" "’Aha! I made them sit up, didn’t I—your cold women!’" *The Sixty-First Second* *CHAPTER I* In the year 19—, toward the end of the month of October, the country was on the eve of a stupendous panic. A period of swollen prosperity had just ended in which Titans had striven in a frenzy for the millions that opportunity had spilled before them. For months the stock market had steadily lowered, owing to the flight of the small investor, affrighted by the succession of investigations, the fear of readjustments, and the distrust of the great manipulators. The public, which understands nothing of the secret wars and hidden alliances of finance, had begun tremulously to be aware of the threatening approach of a stupendous catastrophe. So in the ominous, grumbling days of October, when the air was full of confusing rumors and violent alarms, the public, with its necessity for humanizing all sensations, perceived distinctly only two figures, each dramatically in peril, about whose safety or ruin the whole comprehensible drama of the financial cataclysm seemed to center.