CHAPTER XXVIII REVEALS THE TRUTH

The woman Fournereau crossed the room quickly to a small rosewood bureau, and took therefrom a little cardboard box about a couple of inches square, such as is often used for containing cheap jewellery.

"I have something here," she said, addressing the man before her, "which was lying on the floor. You alone know 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 placing it upon the forefinger 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 diabolical invention of Laumont's, which he showed me a year ago, although he did not then explain its use. An examination which has been made by my friend, a chemist, has plainly indicated 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 Bambara country on 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 against the flesh of the victim, would inject the poison into the blood, causing almost instantaneous collapse and death. The puncture made by such a fine point would be indistinguishable, and the action of the poison, as we afterwards learnt, so similar to several natural complications that at the post-mortem examination doctors would fail to distinguish the real cause of death.

She held the diabolical thimble out for us to examine, saying:

"The mode in which this was used upon the unfortunate Monsieur Thorne was undoubtedly as follows:—He had seated himself at the table with his back to the door when the Corsican, Laumont, watching his opportunity, crept in with the thimble upon his finger. Before his victim was aware of his presence 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, which they guessed to be the only mark resulting from the struggle which they believed had taken place. But there was no struggle. As has been proved by the person who examined for me this most deadly but inoffensive-looking weapon, anyone struck by it would become paralysed almost instantly. Plainly, then, the chair was broken by him as he fell against it in fatal collapse."

"And the stolen notes? What of them?" asked 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, through one of his accomplices, either in order further to baffle the detectives or else to throw suspicion upon her. She was told some extraordinary story about a 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 Monsieur Cameron was aware of the manner in which his friend had been cheated here. This caused me, from fear of being arrested on suspicion, to fly to Russia, arranging with my friends to return here on the 1st of May—to-day."

"The date of your return I learnt from Laumont himself," explained Ernest, "for, in the course of the inquiries I made immediately after the tragic affair, I found that he was your intimate associate, and in order to divert suspicion from himself he hinted at you being the assassin."

"He denounced me, not knowing that I held the actual evidence of his guilt in my hand," she cried, holding out the finger with the curious-looking thimble upon it. "Poor Monsieur 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 Monsieur Everton, the young Englishman who was found dead about a year ago in the Avenue des Acacias."

In an instant the man whom I had known in Leghorn as Branca sprang at her with all the fury of a wild beast, and, clutching her at the throat, tried to strangle her. His eyes were lit by the fierce light of uncontrollable anger, his bushy hair giving his white face a wild and terrible look, and it really seemed that before the detectives could throw themselves upon him, the murderer would tear limb from limb the woman who had confessed.

For a moment the detectives and the man and woman were all struggling wildly together. Suddenly a loud yell of pain escaped from the wretched Corsican, and releasing his hold, he drew back, with his left hand clasped upon his wrist.

He staggered, swayed unevenly, uttering terrible imprecations.

"Dieu!" he gasped. "You—you've killed me!"

What had happened was easy to understand. In the struggle the point of his cunning 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 for which no antidote had ever been discovered.

As he staggered, two detectives sprang forward to seize him, but before they could do so, he reeled, clutched at the air, and fell heavily backward, overturning a small table beside which he had been standing.

Never was there a scene more ghastly. I shall remember every detail of it so long as I have power to draw my breath.

Five minutes later, 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.