nce to my letter, is hurrying to the
trysting place, where her beloved will not come. And the beloved is
roaming under the windows where his darling will not appear.

"Oh, the dear little puppets whose string I pull! Dance! Jump! Skip!
Lord, what fun they are! A rope round your neck, sir; and, madam, a rope
round yours. Was it not you, sir, who poisoned Inspector Verot this
morning and followed him to the Cafe du Pont-Neuf, with your grand ebony
walking-stick? Why, of course it was! And at night the pretty lady
poisons me and poisons her stepson. Prove it? Well, what about this
apple, madam, this apple which you did _not_ bite into and which all the
same will be found to bear the marks of your teeth? What fun! Dance!
Jump! Skip!

"And the letters! The trick of my letters to the late lamented
Langernault! That was my crowning triumph. Oh, the joy of it, when I
invented and constructed my little mechanical toy! Wasn't it nicely
thought out? Isn't it wonderfully neat and accurate? On the appointed
day, click, the first letter! And, ten days after, click, the second
letter! Come, there's no hope for you, my poor friends, you're nicely
done for. Dance! Jump! Skip!

"And what amuses me--for I am laughing now--is to think that nobody will
know what to make of it. Marie and Sauverand guilty: of that there is not
the least doubt. But, outside that, absolute mystery.

"Nobody will know nor ever will know anything. In a few weeks' time, when
the two criminals are irrevocably doomed, when the letters are in the
hands of the police, on the 25th, or, rather, at 3 o'clock on the morning
of the 26th of May, an explosion will destroy every trace of my work. The
bomb is in its place. A movement entirely independent of the chandelier
will explode it at the hour aforesaid.

"I have just laid beside it the drab-cloth manuscript book in which I
pretended that I wrote my diary, the phials containing the poison, the
needles which I used, an ebony walking-stick, two letters from Inspector
Verot, in short, anything that might save the culprits. Then how can any
one know? No, nobody will know nor ever will know anything.

"Unless--unless some miracle happens--unless the bomb leaves the walls
standing and the ceiling intact. Unless, by some marvel of
intelligence and intuition, a man of genius, unravelling the threads
which I have tangled, should penetrate to the very heart of the riddle
and succeed, after a search lasting for months and mon