[
 {
  "chunk": 126,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The narrator explains he is choosing, from many cases, one that was startling but never fully cleared up.",
  "predicament": "A chronicler must decide whether to tell a story whose ending was never fully explained or proven."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 127,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "He lists other cases from that year before turning to the strangest of them.",
  "predicament": "A chronicler passes over many lesser matters to reach the one case that still troubles him."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 128,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "On a stormy night a bell rings; the investigator, who has no friends but the narrator, guesses only a serious case would bring anyone out.",
  "predicament": "Two companions sheltering from a storm hear an unexpected visitor, and know only real trouble would bring someone out tonight."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 129,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "A pale, anxious young man arrives from the country, asking for help and noting the investigator's reputation; he is told the investigator has been beaten four times.",
  "predicament": "A frightened young man seeks help from a stranger he has been told never fails, and hears that he sometimes does."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 130,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The visitor explains the trouble is inherited, beginning with his father's successful business and his uncle.",
  "predicament": "A young man explains that the danger hanging over him was handed down to him with his family's fortune."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 131,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "His uncle made a fortune abroad, fought in a war, then came home and lived as a fierce, drinking recluse.",
  "predicament": "A relative who came home rich from abroad lived shut away from everyone, as if hiding from something."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 132,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The uncle took to the boy and made him master of the house, except for one attic room he always kept locked.",
  "predicament": "A young person is trusted with everything in a household except one locked room no one may enter."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 133,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "A letter arrived holding five dried seeds and three initials; the uncle turned grey with terror, said his sins had caught him up, and fetched a box from the attic.",
  "predicament": "A man receives a silent token he recognises as a death threat from people he wronged long ago."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 134,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The uncle burned the box's papers and made the nephew witness a will leaving the estate to his father, warning it was a double-edged gift.",
  "predicament": "A frightened man destroys what his pursuers want and leaves his estate to a relative with an ominous warning."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 135,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "After that the uncle drank more, locked himself in, and sometimes rushed out armed, screaming he feared no one.",
  "predicament": "A man living under a death threat swings between locking himself in and raging defiantly at an enemy he cannot see."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 136,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The uncle was found drowned in a shallow garden pool; the verdict was suicide, though the nephew doubted it; his father inherited.",
  "predicament": "A threatened man is found dead in what is called suicide, and only his relative doubts the verdict."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 137,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The father found the box's label; two years later he received the same token with an order to leave the papers on the sundial.",
  "predicament": "A person who laughed off a relative's fear receives the same threat himself and is suddenly afraid."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 138,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The father dismissed it as a joke and forbade the son to go to the police for fear of ridicule.",
  "predicament": "A threatened man refuses to take a warning seriously or let anyone go to the authorities, for fear of looking foolish."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 139,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The father died days later in a fall into an unfenced pit, ruled an accident; the son inherited, convinced it was murder but unable to prove it.",
  "predicament": "A young heir is sure his relative was murdered, but every sign says it was an accident."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 140,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "After nearly three quiet years the son received the same token; the police laughed at him and he felt helplessly doomed.",
  "predicament": "A person who has received a death threat his relatives did not survive is dismissed by the authorities as a crank."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 141,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The investigator is angry he waited; the son produces a surviving diary page recording warnings sent and victims cleared.",
  "predicament": "A threatened young man brings his helper a single torn scrap of proof, too late to do more than guess."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 142,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The investigator tells him to leave the surviving page in the box on the sundial with a note saying the rest were burned, and to take great care.",
  "predicament": "A threatened person is told to give his pursuers what they want at once and to put revenge aside until he is safe."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 143,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The young man leaves armed into the storm; the investigator says the danger is greater than any they have faced.",
  "predicament": "An investigator sends a frightened client back out into danger alone, and begins to realise how grave it is."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 144,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The investigator speaks of reasoning from one fact to a whole chain of events, and of needing all useful knowledge.",
  "predicament": "An investigator who believes a single fact can reveal a whole chain of events sets out to prove it."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 145,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "He reasons the uncle fled abroad in fear, and asks the narrator to note the letters' postmarks.",
  "predicament": "An investigator reasons that a man who fled abroad and hid for years was running from someone."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 146,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "He deduces the senders are on a sailing ship, that the blow falls when they arrive, and that this time there will be no delay.",
  "predicament": "An investigator realises too late that his client has no time left, because the enemy is already close."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 147,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "He concludes the killers are a group determined to recover the papers, and names a secret society.",
  "predicament": "An investigator realises his client is hunted not by one enemy but by an organised group that wants its papers back."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 148,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The encyclopedia describes a secret society that sent warning tokens before killing those who defied it.",
  "predicament": "Someone learns that the threat against a family comes from a society that warns once and then kills."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 149,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "He reasons the uncle's papers could implicate powerful men, so the society will stop at nothing; next morning he starts inquiries.",
  "predicament": "An investigator concludes that stolen records could ruin powerful people, who will kill anyone holding them."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 150,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The newspaper reports the young man drowned near the river that night, ruled an accident.",
  "predicament": "An investigator learns that the client he sent home with advice was killed that same night."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 151,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The investigator's pride is hurt; he vows to catch the gang himself without the police, and returns late, starved but successful.",
  "predicament": "An investigator who sent a client to his death takes it personally and vows to catch the killers himself."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 152,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "He sends the killers' own token to the ship's master, and explains how he traced the ship through shipping registers.",
  "predicament": "An investigator turns his enemies' own threat back on them, having traced them through dull public records."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 153,
  "story": 4,
  "summary": "The ship had sailed; he has cabled for the men's arrest at their home port, but the ship is lost at sea with all hands.",
  "predicament": "An investigator has the killers in his grasp, and justice is taken out of his hands by chance."
 }
]