I--I have no one else."
For the first time in my life I found myself pitying her. It was
true--she had no one else.
"Don't think that I've been gambling or speculating or anything of
that sort," she went on. "I have hesitated a long time before asking
for this money--I don't enjoy giving away fifty thousand dollars."
"Giving it away?" I repeated. Certainly she was not the woman to enjoy
doing that!
"Yes--giving it away! But--I must have peace! Another such night as
last night--"
A sudden pallor spread across her face, and she touched her
handkerchief hastily to lips and eyes.
"My--my husband wishes it," she added, almost in a whisper.
I don't know what there was about that sentence that sent a little
shiver along my spine. Perhaps it was the tense of the verb. Perhaps
it was the voice in which the words were uttered. Perhaps it was the
haggard glance which accompanied them. Whatever the cause, I found
that some of my client's panic was communicating itself to me.
"You mean he indicated his wish before he died?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Or left a note of it, perhaps?"
"Yes," she said, "he has left a note of it," and she opened the bag
she carried on her arm. "Here it is."
I took the sheet of paper she held out to me. It bore these words,
written in the crabbed and somewhat uncertain hand which had belonged
to Peter Magnus:
MY DEAR WIFE: It is my wish that you leave at once on this desk the
sum of fifty thousand dollars in currency.
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