Jimmie’s best friend, and now Jeanne’s lawyer, the man who had refused him the divorce, had searched the house from the attic to the coal cellar; detectives had failed to detect; rewards had remained unclaimed; no one could tell where the will was hidden.  Only Jimmie could tell.  And Jimmie was dead.  And no one knew that better than Jimmie.  Again he upbraided himself.  Why had he not foreseen this catastrophe?  Why, before his final taking off, had he not returned the will to the safe?  Now, a word from him would give Jeanne all his fortune, and that word he could not speak.

The will was between the leaves of a copy of “Pickwick,” and it stood on a shelf in his bedroom.  One night, six months before, to alter a small bequest, he had carried the will up-stairs and written a rough draft of the new codicil.  And then, merely because he was sleepy and disinclined to struggle with a combination lock, he had stuck the will in the book he was reading.  He intended the first thing the next morning to put it back in the safe.  But the first thing the next morning word came from the kennels that during the night six beagle puppies had arrived, and naturally Jimmie gave no thought to anything so unimportant as a will.  Nor since then had he thought of it.  And now how was he, a dead man, to retrieve it?

That those in the library might not observe his agitation, he went outside, and in Bryant Park on a bench faced his problem.  Except himself, of the hidden place of the will no one could possibly know.  So, if even by an anonymous letter, or by telephone, he gave the information to his late lawyer or to the detectives, they at once would guess from where the clew came and that James Blagwin was still alive.  So that plan was abandoned.  Then he wondered if he might not convey the tip to some one who had access to his bedroom; his valet or a chambermaid who, as though by accident, might stumble upon the will.  But, as every one would know the anonymous tipster could be only Blagwin himself, that plan also was rejected.  He saw himself in a blind alley.  Without an accomplice he could not act; with an accomplice his secret would be betrayed.

Suddenly a line in one of the newspapers returned to him.  It was to the effect that to discover the lost will several clairvoyants, mediums, and crystal-gazers had offered their services.  Jimmie determined that one of these should be his accomplice.  He would tell the clairvoyant he formerly had been employed as valet by Blagwin and knew where Blagwin had placed his will.  But he had been discharged under circumstances that made it necessary for him to lie low.  He would hint it was the police he feared.  This would explain why he could not come forward, and why he sought the aid of the clairvoyant.  If the clairvoyant fell in with his plan he would tell him where the will could be found, the clairvoyant would pretend in a trance to discover the hiding-place, would confide his discovery to Mrs. Blagwin’s lawyer, the lawyer would find the will, the clairvoyant would receive the reward, and an invaluable advertisement.  And Jimmie’s ghost would rest in peace.  He needed only a clairvoyant who was not so upright that he fell over backward.  Jimmie assured himself one of that kind would not be difficult to find.