The woman Fournereau crossed the room quickly to a small rosewood bureau and took therefrom a little card-board box about a couple of inches square, such as are used for cheap jewelry.
"I have something here," she said, addressing the man before her. "It was lying on the floor. You alone knew its secret—a secret which I too have lately discovered."
And opening the box carefully she displayed, lying in a bed of cotton-wool, what at first appeared to be a woman's steel thimble. Taking it from its hiding-place and putting it upon the fore-finger of her right hand, we saw that, instead of being what it at first appeared, it rose to a sharply tempered steel point about half an inch long protruding from the finger-tip.
I glanced at the man accused. His face had blanched to the lips at sight of it.
"This," she explained, "I discovered on the floor close to where the dead man was lying. It is a diabolic invention of Laumont which he showed me a year ago, although he did not then explain its use. An examination which has been made by a friend, a chemist, has shown plainly the truth. You will notice that the point is fine as a needle, but is hollow, like that of a hypodermic syringe. Within, at the point touched by the tip of the finger, is a small chamber filled with a most subtle and deadly poison extracted from a small lizard peculiar to the banks of the Upper Niger."
The point would, I saw, act just as the fang of a snake, for the thimble, when placed on the finger and pressed upon the flesh of the victim, would inject the poison into the blood, causing almost instant collapse and death. The puncture made by such a fine point would be indistinguishable, and the action of the poison, as we afterwards learnt, was so similar to several natural complications that at the post-mortem examination the doctors would fail to distinguish the real cause of death.
She held the diabolical thimble forth to us to examine, saying:
"The mode in which this was used upon the unfortunate M'sieur Thorne was undoubtedly as follows. He had seated himself at the table with his back to the door when Laumont, watching his opportunity, crept in with the thimble upon his finger, and ere his victim was aware of it he had seized him by the collar from behind and pressed the point deep into the flesh behind the right ear, at a spot where the poison would at once enter the circulation. You will remember that the doctors discovered a slight scratch behind the ear, and attributed it to having been received in the struggle which they believed had taken place. But there was no struggle. As has been proved by the medico-legist who has examined this most deadly but inoffensive-looking weapon, any one struck by it would become paralyzed almost instantly, therefore the chair was broken by him as he fell against it in fatal collapse."
"And the stolen notes? What of them?" asked old Mr. Keppel anxiously.
"Ah!" she answered. "Those accursed notes! On the following morning Laumont came to me and handed me the money, saying that as I knew the truth regarding the crime he would trust me further and give the money into my safe-keeping. I took it, for, truth to tell, I knew that he could make some very unwelcome revelations to the police regarding this place and the character of the play here. Therefore I decided that, after all, silence was best, even though I held in my possession the thimble which, I presume, in his hurry to escape from the room fell upon the floor and rolled away. I took the notes, and for some days kept them, but finding that the police were making such active inquiries I returned them to him, and he then resolved upon giving them to Miss Rosselli, either in order to further baffle the detectives or to throw suspicion upon her. He told her some extraordinary story about meeting in London, merely, of course, to put the police off the scent and cause them to believe that the money was stolen by English thieves! Soon afterwards I knew that M'sieur Cameron was aware of the manner in which his friend had been cheated here, and then, in fear of being arrested on suspicion, I fled to Russia, arranging with my friends to return here on the first of May—to-day."
"The date of your return I learnt from Laumont himself," explained Ernest, "for in the course of my inquiries immediately after the tragic affair I found that he was your associate, and in order to divert suspicion from himself he hinted at you as being the assassin."
"He denounced me, not knowing that I held this evidence of his guilt in my hand!" she cried, holding forth the finger with the curious-looking thimble upon it. "Poor M'sieur Thorne is, I fear, not the first victim who has fallen beneath the prick of this deadly instrument."
"To whom do you refer?" inquired the detective quickly.
"To M'sieur Everton, the young Englishman, who was found dead one night a year ago in the Avenue des Acacias."
In an instant the man Laumont sprang at her with all the fury of a wild beast, and clutching at her throat tried to strangle her. His eyes were lit by the fierce fire of uncontrollable anger, his dark, bushy hair giving his white face a wild and hideous look, and for an instant, in the confusion before the detectives could throw themselves upon him, it seemed as though he would tear limb from limb the woman who had confessed.
For a moment the detectives and the pair were mixed in a struggling mass, when suddenly a loud yell of pain escaped the wretched man, and releasing his hold he drew back, with his left hand clasped upon his wrist.
He staggered, swayed unevenly, uttering fierce and terrible imprecations.
"Dieu!" he gasped. "You—you've killed me!"
What had happened was next instant plain. In the struggle the point of his dastardly invention, which was still upon the woman's finger, had entered deeply the fleshy part of his wrist, injecting that poison that was so swift, and to which there was no known antidote.
He staggered. Two detectives sprang forward to seize him, but ere they could do so he reeled, clutched the air, and fell heavily backward, overturning the small table beside which he had been standing.
The scene which ensued was ghastly. I shall remember it through all my life.
Five minutes later, however, the wretched man who had thus brought card-sharping and murder to a fine art had breathed his last in frightful agony, his ignominious career ended by his own diabolical invention.
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