om adjoining the ante-room, attempted to open
the drawer, and was killed."

"Yes," I agreed; "and now how about Vantine?"

"Vantine's death isn't so simply explained. Presumably the unknown
woman also called on business relating to the cabinet. She, also,
wanted to open the secret drawer, in order to secure its contents
--that seems fairly certain from her connection with the first
caller."

"You still think it was her photograph he carried in his watch?"

"I am sure of it. But how did it happen that it was Vantine who was
killed? Did the woman, warned by the fate of the man, deliberately
set Vantine to open the drawer in order that she might run no risk?
Or was she also ignorant of the mechanism? Above all, did she succeed
in getting away with the contents of the drawer?"

"What _was_ the contents of the drawer?" I demanded.

"Ah, if we only knew!"

"Perhaps the woman had nothing to do with it. Vantine himself told me
that he was going to make a careful examination of the cabinet. No
doubt that is exactly what he was doing when the woman's arrival
interrupted him. He might have let her out of the house himself, and
then, returning to the cabinet, stumbled upon the secret drawer after
she had gone."

"Yes; that is quite possible, too. At any rate, you agree with me
that both men were killed in some such way as I have described?"

"Absolutely. I think there can be no doubt of it."

"There are objections--and rather weighty ones. The theory explains
the two deaths, it explains the similarity of the wounds, it explains
how both should be on the right hand just above the knuckles, it
explains why both bodies were found in the same place since both men
started to summon help. But, in the first place, if the Frenchman got
the drawer open, who closed it?"

"Perhaps it closed itself when he let go of it."

"And closed again after Vantine opened it?"

"Yes."

"It would take a very clever mechanism to do that."

"But at least it's possible."

"Oh, yes; it's possible. And we must remember that the poisoners of
those days were very ingenious. That was the heydey of La Voisin and
the Marquise de Brinvilliers, of Elixi, and heaven knows how many
other experts who had followed Catherine de Medici to France. So
that's all quite possible. But there is one thing that isn't
possible, and that is that a poison which, if it is administered as
we think it is, must be a liquid, could remain in that cabinet fresh
and read