Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/29

 girl hand. “I wonder he went off into an abstracted lapse. At the head of his table, perhaps, the glint of the shaded lights playing on that hair, the mouth and eyes smiling at him absentmindedly, he thumbed the pages. A glint of yellow and green caught his eye in the pages.

Instantly he was wide awake, interested, turning the pages one by one to find the one so decorated as to stand out from the others. He found the page finally, drawing out from between pages one hundred and ninety nine and two hundred a yellow and green paper, which he examined with interest, giving vent to a long, low whistle of astonishment.

There came a knock on his door, and he started.

“Did you call, sir?” came the voice of Eddie.

“No, go to bed,” he answered, and he heard the patter of retreating footsteps. He turned his attention again to the slip of paper in his hand.

It was a United States Treasury note for ten thousand dollars.