y for use for more than three hundred years. It would have
dried up centuries ago. Nor would the mechanism stay in order so
long. It must be both complicated and delicate. Therefore it would
have to be oiled and overhauled from time to time. If it is worked by
a spring--and I don't see how else it can be worked--the spring would
have to be renewed and wound up."

"Well?" I asked, as he paused.

"Well, it is evident that the drawer contains something more recent
than the love letters of Louis Fourteenth. It must have been put in
working order quite recently. But by whom and for what purpose? That
is the mystery we have to solve--and it is a mighty pretty one. And
here's another objection," he added. "That Frenchman knew about the
secret drawer, because, according to our theory, he opened it and got
killed. Why didn't he also know about the poison?"

That was an objection, truly, and the more I thought of it, the more
serious it seemed.

"It may be," said Godfrey, at last, "that d'Aurelle was going it
alone--that he had broken with the gang--"

"The gang?"

"Of course there is a gang. This thing has taken careful planning and
concerted effort. And the leader of the gang is a genius! I wonder if
you understand how great a genius? Think: he knows the secret of the
drawer of Madame de Montespan's cabinet; but above all he knows the
secret of the poison--the poison of the Medici! Do you know what that
means, Lester?"

"What _does_ it mean?" I asked, for Godfrey was getting ahead of me.

"It means he is a great criminal--a really great criminal--one of the
elect from whom crime has no secrets. Observe. He alone knows the
secret of the poison; one of his men breaks away from him, and pays
for his mutiny with his life. He is the brain; the others are merely
the instruments!"

"Then you don't believe it was by accident that cabinet was sent to
Vantine?"

"By accident? Not for an instant! It was part of a plot--and a
splendid plot!"

"Can you explain that to me, too?" I queried, a little ironically,
for I confess it seemed to me that Godfrey was permitting his
imagination to run away with him.

He smiled good-naturedly at my tone.

"Of course, this is all mere romancing," he admitted. "I am the first
to acknowledge that. I was merely following out our theory to what
seemed its logical conclusion. But perhaps we are on the wrong track
altogether. Perhaps d'Aurelle, or whatever his name is, just
blundered in, like