The Carlisle independent., 1917-09-13

drop in upon him on my way to the bank the next morning. I found him with a newspaper folded across his knee and his eyes regarding it with vexed expression.
 Did you see it?" he inquired.
 I guessed what, and told him so and ran hurriedly over an item an nouncing that a new S100 treasury note counterfeit-the particulars con corning which, even to the approxi- mate serial numbers, were given had appeared on the market.
 Some one has babbled," scolded my friend Tt may make a compli- cation.'
 l did not see how, just then. knew better-later Marvel had noth- ing to impart to me of progress or importance in the case, but late that afternoon there came hurry call for me from him. I closed my desk and was soon in his company. | He handed me a card which he 1 took from an envelope. It read sim ! ply, in pencil scrawl: T must see you.-A. B"
 T may need you," observed my l friend, and after half hours spin We arrived at the home of the mil | lionaire.
 The servant who answered the sum- mons at the door seemed to know we were expected. She led us down the hall to a sort of library, saying l that Mr. Buckingham was engaged, but that she would announce our pres ence shortly. Then she left us alone in the room. half darkened by the ap- preaching shadows of eventide. I caught some rapid words from a room beyond the heavy draperies, ev- 1 idently smoking apartment off the | library. I noted, however, that Mar vel heard them quicker than I, for he | moved from his seat to a chair closer to the masked doorway. The words, not in the tones of MT. Buckingham, were rapid, insistent, almost menac- ing:
 The plates-the plates!" There was an utterance akin to a groan, and it proceeded from the lips of the millionaire, I readily traced. Then the former voice, only clacking. wheedling and menacing at the same time, spoke again:
 MT. Buckingham, am here in the interests of client who has one proposition to make to you. My prom ise ends with distinct and final neg ative or affirmative. It places me in regrettable and unfortunate posi- tion to be the representative of men who are dangerous criminals, but I am lawyer. Shall I briefly state the case?"
 There was no reply. at least none ued:
 Some years ago. your son Percival Buckingham, chief engraver for the government, was taken ill and re- moved to a sanitarium while you were absent in Europe. Too close ap- plication to delicate expert work had blighted his mind. He escaped from the sanitarium. and three men I will not name, but once known as the most finished showers of the queer in the world, got hold of him. They saw their opportunity and improved it. They were shrewd, capable men and made no blunders. What they did you will now learn for the first time.
 Those men secured the upper floor of a lonely, secluded house. They fitted it up as nearly as possible like one of the work rooms in the treasury department. They took your deluded son there, and made him believe that he was producing new 1906 series S100 plates for the government. For nearly year that was his home. His mind did not refuse to act me chanically along the line eye and skill had directed for so many years. In brief, he made two plates, so perfect that they were almost duplicates of the original government plates. Twelve impressions were made, and two of these were tested by being placed in circulation. Today they are somewhere in existence, their valid ity never doubted Within that week it must have been, while unguarded and alone, your son had flash of his old mentality. At all events, when his three captors returned they found him gone, and with him the two treas ury plates and the ten printed $100 bills.
 Now for your end of the story, as understand it: Your son appeared at this home, suddenly. unexpectedly. He must have brought the plates and the notes. You believed him a coun- terfeiter, for before he could explain to you, his insane mood returned. You at once removed him to private asylum. Later you sent him with relative, Alan Dean, to Paris. He re- gained his reason. Today he occupies a studio in the French capital, patron ized by devotees of high art. Happily married, all that year of mental dark ness forgotten, restored to his right mind, he is a wonderful producer of art etchings, man of fame, and mar vel0ualv nrosparO1s You havo hoon