They had laboured
hard to keep him awake, but had not succeeded, and after several
days of lying in a comatose state he had finally succumbed. It was
one of those strange but rather frequent cases of long sleeps
reported in the newspapers, although it was by no means one which
might be classed as record-breaking.
The interest in Phelps lay, a great deal, in the fact that the
young man had married the popular dancer, Anginette Petrovska, a
few months previously. His honeymoon trip around the world had
suddenly been interrupted, while the couple were crossing Siberia,
by the news of the failure of the Phelps banking-house in Wall
Street and the practical wiping-out of his fortune. He had
returned, only to fall a victim to a greater misfortune.
"A few days before his death," continued Andrews, measuring his
words carefully, "I, or rather the Great Eastern, which had been
secretly investigating the case, received this letter. What do you
think of it?"
He spread out on the table a crumpled note in a palpably disguised
handwriting:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
You would do well to look Into the death of Montague Phelps,
Jr.
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