Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 3 (1925-03).djvu/109

108 they would continue to admire and envy him—and his secret would remain undiscovered.

was ready. He lighted a cigarette contentedly. When he had finished this last smoke, he would climb the ladder, adjust the rope It would be the greatest triumph of his life, after all—this death. His only regret was that he could not be there to enjoy the effect of the stupendous climax.

His cigarette finished, he flung the butt away and mounted the ladder. He felt gingerly of the rope knotted about his neck, shuddering involuntarily. If it were not that by dying he was making his secret secure for all time—. After all, it was the only way.

Setting his teeth, he pushed against the ladder with both feet. It toppled to the floor with a crash.

As his body was whirled about by the tautening rope, a flare from the bronze tray on the desk caught Milton’s eye.

In that last poignant moment he had the mortification of observing that the cigarette butt had fallen upon and ignited the suicide note, that curled—crisped—blackened to a indecipherable ash before his agonized eyes.