Jacques Futrelle

“ The bonds! He had dreamed of them, and fear for their safety had been born in that dream,—a strange,vivid vision of a desperate struggle with some straight staring, rugged faced, hulking man, some man who seemed to be—to be John Smith! In the dream he had lost the bonds! For a long time he sat listening, listening, then started to rise from the bed. It was an effort. Illness had sapped his strength, he was weak as a child, but the will of him came to his rescue, that merciless, all compelling will against which no man or thing had ever stood. ”

“ Inside, folded separately, and placed one upon another, were many papers, bound into a package by a rubber band, he thrust his fingers into the bag. The papers crackled at his touch and he laughed senselessly. They were safe!
With trembling hands he slid one of the sheets out and opened it. It was a United States bond, printed in the golden yellow that one instinctively associates with things of great value. On its face it bore the figures $10,000. There were one hundred and fifty of those bonds in the bag—one million five hundred thousand dollars! ”

“ Mr. Smith had been led away a submissive prisoner, and immediately he had gone Edna had hurried her father into a taxicab and they had been driven here—here to this shabby little apartment in the Rue St. Honore where she had found him, where he had been quartered for weeks, and where by force of indomitable will and splendid physique he had conquered his illness. ”