You will readily comprehend, after a little sober thought, that your life is dear to us.  Do not be afraid.  We would not hurt you for the world.  It is our policy to cherish you tenderly and protect you from all harm.  Your death means nothing to us.  If it did, rest assured that we would not hesitate a moment in destroying you.  Think this over, Mr. Hale.  When you have paid us our price, there will be need of retrenchment.  Dismiss your guards now, and cut down your expenses.

Within minutes of the time you receive this a nurse-girl will have been choked to death in Brentwood Park.  The body may be found in the shrubbery lining the path which leads off to the left from the band-stand.

Cordially yours,

The minions of Midas.

The next instant Mr. Hale was at the telephone, warning the Inspector of the impending murder.  The Inspector excused himself in order to call up Police Sub-station F and despatch men to the scene.  Fifteen minutes later he rang us up and informed us that the body had been discovered, yet warm, in the place indicated.  That evening the papers teemed with glaring Jack-the-Strangler headlines, denouncing the brutality of the deed and complaining about the laxity of the police.  We were also closeted with the Inspector, who begged us by all means to keep the affair secret.  Success, he said, depended upon silence.

As you know, John, Mr. Hale was a man of iron.  He refused to surrender.  But, oh, John, it was terrible, nay, horrible—­this awful something, this blind force in the dark.  We could not fight, could not plan, could do nothing save hold our hands and wait.  And week by week, as certain as the rising of the sun, came the notification and death of some person, man or woman, innocent of evil, but just as much killed by us as though we had done it with our own hands.  A word from Mr. Hale and the slaughter would have ceased.  But he hardened his heart and waited, the lines deepening, the mouth and eyes growing sterner and firmer, and the face aging with the hours.  It is needless for me to speak of my own suffering during that frightful period.  Find here the letters and telegrams of the M. of M., and the newspaper accounts, etc., of the various murders.

You will notice also the letters warning Mr. Hale of certain machinations of commercial enemies and secret manipulations of stock.  The M. of M. seemed to have its hand on the inner pulse of the business and financial world.  They possessed themselves of and forwarded to us information which our agents could not obtain.  One timely note from them, at a critical moment in a certain deal, saved all of five millions to Mr. Hale.  At another time they sent us a telegram which probably was the means of preventing an anarchist crank from taking my employer’s life.  We captured the man on his arrival and turned him over to the police, who found upon him enough of a new and powerful explosive to sink a battleship.