letter I showed to the French police. Putting it away for future use,

I burnt the specimens to prevent them from being compared with the forgery.

‘The problem of getting Felix to meet the cask which I intended to send him, and while doing so to attract the attention of the police, then occupied my thoughts. After much consideration I decided on the plan you know. It happened that some three weeks previously I had been seated in the Café Toisson d’Or, when a bad neuralgic headache had come on, and I had moved into an alcove to be as private as possible. While there I had seen Felix come in and begin talking to a group of men. I had not made myself known, as I was in considerable pain, but I had overheard their conversation and learnt the arrangement Felix and his friend Le Gautier had made about the lottery. This I now decided to use, and I drafted a letter to Felix purporting to come from Le Gautier, mentioning this matter of the lottery to make it seem genuine. I also drafted a slip about money I intended to send in the cask. The contents of this letter and slip you know. These I put away in my pocket-book, to be used later.

‘The next evening, Monday, I pretended to unpack the cask. I brought the group I had taken out of it on the previous Saturday from the portmanteau in which I had hidden it, and placed it on the table in my study. On the floor, about the cask, I sprinkled some of the sawdust from the handbag. By this manœuvre I hoped if suspicion arose it would be argued that as the cask was not unpacked till Monday night, the body could not have been put into it on the night of the dinner. As you know, this ruse also succeeded. I also took the label off the cask and put it in my pocket.

‘Opening the cask again, I put in £52 10s. in English gold, to correspond with my slip. I hoped that, if the police got hold of the cask, they would assume that Felix had put in this money in order to strengthen his story that the cask had been sent to him. I put in sovereigns instead of French gold with the intention of making this theory more likely, as I hoped it would be argued that Felix in his agitation had overreached himself, and forgotten from what country the cask was supposed to be coming.

‘Calling François, I told him I had unpacked the statue, and when Messrs. Dupierre sent for the cask he was to give it to them. Then, informing him that I would be from home for a couple of nights, I left next morning by the early train for London.

‘On the Monday I had purchased a false beard and arranged to get myself up to resemble Felix, and I wore this disguise all the time till my return. I brought with me on the journey the portmanteau containing my wife’s clothes, and, on board the boat, from a quiet place on the lower deck, slipped these articles overboard without being observed. On arrival in London I arranged with a carting firm to carry about the cask on the next two days, as you already know. I then went out to St. Malo, Felix’s house, which I found after some judicious inquiries. A careful reconnoitre showed me it was unoccupied. I tried round the windows and had the luck to find one unhasped. Opening it, I crept into the house and went to the study. There by the light of an electric torch I carefully inked over the tracing I had made of the forged letter ordering the cask, and blotted it on Felix’s pad. This, I felt sure, would be found, and would seem to prove that he had written the order.

‘I had foreseen that it would be argued that Felix must be innocent because not only would he have no motive to murder my wife, but also he would naturally be the last man in the world to do such a thing. It was necessary for me, therefore, to provide a motive. For this purpose I had written a letter purporting to be from a girl whom Felix had wronged. Having crumpled this letter I put it into the side pocket of one of Felix’s coats. I hoped this would be found, and that it would be argued that my wife had got hold of it and that there had been a quarrel which led to her death. Crumpling it was to suggest Felix had snatched it from her, thrust it into his pocket and forgotten it.

‘As I stood in the study a further idea occurred to me. I had thought of a use for a brooch that had dropped from my wife’s clothes. It had fallen just behind the chair she had been sitting in, and I thought if I placed it on the floor behind a chair in his room, it would suggest she had been murdered here. My eye fell on a chair with a low back, standing in front of a curtain, and I saw at once it would suit my purpose. I dropped the brooch behind it and it caught on the braid at the bottom of the curtain. There it was hidden from casual inspection by the chair, but I knew the police would not overlook it. I withdrew without disturbing anything or leaving traces, closed the window, and returned to the city.

‘Such was my plot, and, but for your cleverness, it would have succeeded. Is there any other point on which you are not clear?’

‘Only one, I think,’ answered La Touche. ‘You were heard to telephone on the Monday from the Café at Charenton to your butler and chief clerk. They received their messages on the Tuesday from Calais. How did you manage that?’

‘Easily. I never telephoned on Monday at all. I slipped a tiny wooden wedge into the instrument to prevent the hook rising when I lifted off the receiver. No call was therefore made on the exchange, though I went through the form of speaking. Any other point?’

‘I do not think so,’ returned La Touche, who again could not but feel a kind of rueful admiration for this ingenious ruffian. ‘Your statement has been very complete.’

‘It is not quite complete,’ M. Boirac resumed. ‘There are two more points of which I wish to speak. Read that.’

He took a letter from his pocket and handed it to La Touche. Both men leaned a little forward to look. As they did so there was a slight click and the light went out. What sounded like Boirac’s chair was heard falling.

‘Hold the door!’ yelled La Touche, springing to his feet and fumbling for his electric torch. Mallet leaped for the door, but, tripping over the chair, missed it. As La Touche flashed on his light they could see it closing. There was a low, mocking laugh. Then the door slammed and they heard the key turn in the lock. La Touche fired rapidly through the panels, but there was no sound from without. Then Mallet flung himself on the handle. But at his first touch it came off. The holes for the screws had been enlarged so that they had no hold.

The door opened inwards, and presented to the imprisoned men a smooth, unbroken surface, with nothing on which to pull. To push it towards the hall was impossible, as it shut solidly against the frame. Their only hope seemed to split it, but as they gazed at its solid oak timbers this hope died.

‘The window,’ cried La Touche, and they swung round. The sashes opened readily, but outside were shutters of steel plate, closely fastened. Both men shoved and prised with all their might. But Boirac had done his work well. They were immovable.

As they stood panting and baffled, Mallet’s eye caught the switch of the electric light. It was off. He clicked it on. Though no answering flood of light poured down, he noticed something that interested him.

‘Your torch, La Touche!’ he cried, and then he saw what it was. Tied to the switch was a length of fisherman’s gut. Practically invisible, it passed down the wall and through a tiny hole in the floor. Any one pulling it from below would switch off the light.

‘I don’t understand,’ said La Touche. ‘That means he had a confederate?’

‘No!’ cried Mallet, who had been looking about with the torch. ‘See here!’

He pointed to the chair Boirac had occupied and which now lay on its side on the floor. Fastened to the left arm was another end of gut which also entered a hole in the floor.

‘I bet those are connected!’

Their curiosity temporarily overcame their fears. La Touche turned on the switch and Mallet, pulling the gut at the arm of the chair, heard it click off again.

‘Ingenious devil,’ he muttered. ‘It must go round pulleys under the floor. And now he has cut off the current at the meter.’

‘Come on, Mallet,’ La Touche called. ‘Don’t waste time. We must get out of this.’

Together they threw themselves on the door with all the weight of their shoulders. Again they tried, and again, but to no purpose. It was too strong.

‘What does it mean, do you think?’ panted Mallet.

‘Gas, I expect. Perhaps charcoal.’

‘Any use shouting at the window?’

‘None. It’s too closely shuttered, and it only opens into a courtyard.’

And then suddenly they perceived a faint odour which, in spite of their hardened nerves, turned their blood cold and set them working with ten times more furious energy at the door. It was a very slight smell of burning wood.

‘My God!’ cried Mallet, ‘he’s set the house on fire!’

It seemed impossible that any door could withstand so furious an onslaught. Had it opened outwards, hinges and lock must long since have given away, but the men could not make their strength tell. They worked till the sweat rolled in great drops down their foreheads. Meanwhile the smell increased. Smoke must be percolating into the room.

‘The torch here,’ cried La Touche suddenly.

Taking his pistol, he fired a number of shots on the bolt of the lock.

‘Don’t use them all. How many have you?’

‘Two more.’

‘Keep them.’

The lock seemed shattered, but still the door held. The men’s efforts were becoming frenzied when Mallet had an idea. Along the farther wall of the room stood a heavy, old-fashioned sofa.

‘Let’s use the couch as a battering-ram.’

The room was now thick with smoke, biting and gripping the men’s throats. Hampered by coughing and bad light, they could not work fast. But at last they got the couch across the room and planted end on to the door. Standing one at each side, they swung it back and then with all their strength drove it against the timber. A second time they drove, and a third, till at the fourth blow there was a sound of splitting wood, and the job was done.

Or so they thought. A moment later they found their mistake. The right bottom panel only was gone.

‘The left panel! Then the bar between!’

Though the men worked feverishly, their operations took time. The smoke was now increasing rapidly. And then suddenly La Touche heard a terrible, ominous sound. Crackling was beginning somewhere not far off.

‘We haven’t much time, Mallet,’ he gasped, as the sweat poured down his face.

Desperately they drove the couch against the bar. Still it held. The terrible fear that the couch would come to pieces was in both their hearts.

‘The torch!’ cried Mallet hoarsely. ‘Quick, or we’re done!’

Drawing his magazine pistol and holding it close to the door, he fired its full charge of seven shots at the vertical bar. La Touche instantly grasped his idea, and emptied his two remaining shots at the same place. The bar was thus perforated by a transverse line of nine holes.

There was a singing in the men’s ears and a weight on their chests as, with the energy of despair, they literally hurled the heavy couch against the weakened bar. With a tearing sound it gave way. They could get through.

‘You for it, Mallet! Quick!’ yelled La Touche, as he staggered drunkenly back. But there was no answer. Through the swirling clouds the detective could see his assistant lying motionless. That last tremendous effort had finished him.

La Touche’s own head was swimming. He could no longer think connectedly. Half unconsciously he pulled the other’s arms to the hole. Then, passing through, he turned to draw his confrère out. But the terrible roaring was swelling in his ears, the weight on his chest was growing insupportable, and a black darkness was coming down over him like a pall. Insensible, he collapsed, half in and half out of the doorway.

As he fell there was a lurid flicker and a little dancing flame leaped lightly from the floor.