"And just at the point where the cushions invite rest, as the colonel so suggestively puts it in his strange puzzle of a confession," added the district attorney.
"Replace the old seat," ordered the major, "and let us make sure of this."
Ready hands at once grasped it, and, with some effort, I own, drew it carefully back into position.
"You see!" quoth Durbin.
We did.
"Devilish!" came from the major's lips. Then with a glance at the ball which, pushed aside by the seat, now hung over its edge a foot or so from the floor, he added briskly: "The ball has fallen to the full length of the cord. If it were drawn up a little - "
"Wait," I eagerly interposed. "Let me see what I can do with it."
And I dashed back upstairs and into the closet of "The Colonel's Own."
With a single peep down to see if they were still on the watch, I seized the handle whose position I had made sure of when searching for the spring, and began to turn; when instantly - so quick was the response - the long cord stiffened and I saw the ball rise into sight above the settle top.
"Stop!" called out the major. "Let go and press the spring again."
I hastened to obey and, though the back of the settle hid the result from me, I judged from the look and attitude of those below that the old colonel's calculations had been made with great exactness, and that the one comfortable seat on the rude and cumbersome bench had been so placed that this leaden weight in descending would at the chosen moment strike the head of him who sat there, inflicting death. That the weight should be made just heavy enough to produce a fatal concussion without damaging the skull was proof of the extreme care with which this subtle apparatus had been contrived.
An open wound would have aroused questions, but a mere bruise might readily pass as a result of the victim's violent contact with the furnishings of the hearth toward which the shocked body would naturally topple. The fact that a modern jury had so regarded it shows how justified he was in this expectation.
I was expending my wonder on this and on a new discovery which, with a very decided shock to myself I had just made in the closet, when the command came to turn the handle again and to keep on turning it till it would turn no farther.
I complied, but with a trembling hand, and though I did not watch the result, the satisfaction I heard expressed below was significant of the celerity and precision with which the weight rose, foot by foot, to the ceiling and finally slunk snugly and without seeming jar into its lair.
When, a few minutes later, I rejoined those below, I found them all, with eyes directed toward the cornice, searching for the hole through which I had just been looking. It was next to imperceptible, so naturally had it been made to fit in with the shadows of the scroll work; and even after I had discovered it and pointed it out to them, I found difficulty in making them believe that they really looked upon an opening. But when once convinced of this, the district attorney's remark was significant.
"I am glad that my name is not Moore."
The superintendent made no reply; his eye had caught mine, and he had become very thoughtful.
"One of the two candelabra belonging to the parlor mantel was found lying on that closet floor," he observed. "Somebody has entered there lately, as lately as the day when Mr. Pfeiffer was seated here."
"Pardon me," I impetuously cried. "Mr. Pfeiffer's death is quite explained." And, drawing forward my hand, which up to this moment I had held tight-shut behind my back, I slowly unclosed it before their astonished eyes.
A bit of lace lay in my palm, a delicate bit, such as is only worn by women in full dress.
"Where did you find that?" asked the major, with the first show of deep emotion I have ever observed in him.
My agitation was greater than his as I replied:
"In the rough boarding under those drawers. Some woman's arm and hand has preceded mine in stealthy search after that fatal spring.
A woman who wore lace, valuable lace."
There was but one woman connected with this affair who rightly answered these conditions. The bride! Veronica Moore.
