RANS RANSVESTIA

into one of the side rooms. Adrian bolted the door and after we were all seated she began her story.

"Doctor Watson, you must help me, I don't know who to turn to, and I fear my life may be in danger," she stated nervously.

"What is causing you to fear for your life?" I asked.

"Several months ago, I received an anonymous letter stating that its writer knew about my double life. He stated incidents, times, and places as proof of his knowledge. He claimed to have photographs of me which would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I on occasion ventured out in public in women's clothing. He threatened to show them to my family and employer unless I paid him 500 pounds. I, of course, paid him the money, but it didn't stop there. There were more demands for money each week, which I kept paying. Soon my money had run out. I told him this, so instead of money he told me I could pay with little favors. His favors were for me to give him the key to the door and the combination to the vault at my place of employ- ment, which I gave him."

"Where is this place?" I interrupted.

"I am employed by the Western Bank and Trust," she replied.

The Western Bank and trust had recently been robbed of over two million pounds. It was a baffling theft without a single clue. Scotland Yard was stumped over it. Evidently this blackmailer had been the culprit who had absconded with the sum.

"But, even that did not satisfy him," she continued. "Next, he asked me to kill a man. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Giving him the key and combination was almost too much. So I took what little money I had left and tried to escape from him. It didn't work though, for I was in Manchester, Saturday last, feeling I had at last escaped him, when another letter was delivered to me. He warned that if the man I was to kill wasn't dead on Tuesday, that I surely would be. I'm afraid to go home or even leave here tonight."

What a fiend this man must be, I thought, to turn men into murderers and thieves to buy his silence.

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