Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

“It is no use, my friend,” said he with a half smile. “I’m quite beyond any of you fellows. My best medicine is in that bottle there, and every gulp brings me nearer my miserable end. No, doctor, I’ll have none of your remedies. Keep them for your fashionable patients with the big pocketbooks.”

I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing. The little man was replacing the chains on the door.

Copeland was talking again now in his quavering, thin voice.

“You saved me once, doctor, put me on my feet and gave me a chance. It is not your fault that this tale does not end differently. Yours was the first human treatment I had in many years. I appreciate it. Now that my opportunity has come I am unable to take it, so I pass it on to you. I will make you a rich man. Rich as you ever will want to be!”

I looked at him sharply. His sunken eyes were gleaming, his lean fingers were clenched, and the perspiration rolled from his face and bared chest, although he shuddered pitifully beneath his scanty coverlet. I concluded that he was delirious and tried to calm him.

“I’m not raving,” he protested. “Listen to me, I beg of you, for I have not long to talk to any man.”

He broke off as a fit of coughing seized and shook his emaciated body.

“The bottle. Hand me the bottle.”

I passed the liquor to him, and a deep drink restored some of his waning strength. He spoke again in the same, quavering, hopeless tone.

“When I was taken to prison for the crime of being unable to care for myself I was placed in a cell with a large, well-dressed young man who questioned me closely about myself and finally, seeming satisfied with my answers, told me that he was carrying important papers which he did not care to have fall into the hands of the police.

“Knowing that he would be searched shortly, he proposed that I hold the documents for him. It was obvious that I was just a bum and the police would pay but little attention to me.

“I accepted the proposition, and he gave me a black capsule about the size of your thumb. It was sealed with wax. ‘Return that to me next week at the Horton House and you will be well rewarded,’ he said. ‘Double cross me and I’ll kill you like a rat.’

“An hour later I was whisked away to the hospital where you found me in the ward. The Lord only knows what became of the big young man.

“Of course, I broke the seal and opened the capsule. I found a half of a letter in it. Nothing that seems to make any sense or be very valuable. But I soon found out that somebody attaches great value to it, for I have been followed day and night. Attempts have been made on my life. I finally eluded them and came here and drank bad whisky until I felt myself slipping. Doctor, there is a fortune in that paper, some place.”

Exhausted by the effort of talking, Copeland sank back on the bed and lay there gasping. Then one shaking hand fumbled in the pocket of his garment and produced a small black capsule which he handed to me.

“There is but one condition.” he whispered. “If it is valuable, and I am certain that it is, see that the man who brought you here to-night is rewarded.”

He fell silent again. Outside the rain pattered on the roof, and the wind that came through the broken pane in the window rustled among the litter of papers on the floor.

The sick man stirred uneasily, closed his eyes, then opened them again.

“Good-by,” he said feebly, “and good luck to you.”

I found my voice.

“See here, Copeland, I don’t want this infernal paper. Why don’t you give it to your friend and let him recover the hidden treasure, or whatever it is?”

The wastrel smiled faintly.

“My friend is hardly in a position to be going about such things in person, if you get what I mean. He is slightly known at police headquarters and in other places. You see, he wouldn’t have an outside chance. He couldn’t—”

The words were choked back by another fit of coughing, and when it had passed away Copeland lay still. He looked like a corpse.

“Bill’s about done,” said the little man heavily.

I turned on him.

“Take this thing,” I commanded, thrusting the capsule toward him. “I haven’t any time for this sort of thing. I am a physician, not a dime novel hero.”

The little man shook his scarred head.

“Nope,” he said. “Not for me. I’ll get mine going into other people’s houses, but I’m damned if I’ll monkey with that kind of stuff. I’ve seen ’em after Bill. There’s a lot of trouble connected with that thing some place.”

The sick man’s voice came from the bed.

“Hurry!” he pleaded. “Get away from here. I’ve been watched for days. They’ve found me. I hear them in the hall and on the roof. Always watching! They’ll be back to-night. Get away before—”

His voice trailed away into a thin whisper and died.

“Come on,” said the little man. “I’ll take you down to your machine.”

We tiptoed out of the room and left Copeland mumbling and raving to himself on his filthy couch.

Chapter III Woman in the Case