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 in the town of Toluca, out in Arizona. He 's buried there."

"That 's a lie!" cried Blake, sagging forward in his chair.

"We had the Phœnix authorities verify the report in every detail. There is no shadow of doubt about it."

Still Blake stared up at the other man.

"I don't believe it," he wheezed.

Copeland did not answer him. He stepped to the end of the desk and with his scholarly white finger touched a mother-of-pearl bell button. Utter silence reigned in the room until the servant answered his summons.

"Bridley, go to my secretary and bring me the portfolio in the second drawer."

Blake heard and yet did not hear the message. A fog-like sense of unreality seemed to drape everything about him. The earth itself seemed to crumble away and leave him poised alone in the very emptiness of space. Binhart was dead!

He could hear Copeland's voice far away. He could see the returning figure of the