awer, if
you please, monsieur," he added to Simmonds.

It sprang back into place on the instant, the arabesqued handle
snapping up with a little click.

"You will observe its ingenuity," said M. Pigot. "It is really most
clever. For whenever the hand, struck by the poisoned fangs, loosened
its hold on the drawer, the drawer sprang shut as you see, and
everything was as before--except that one man more had tasted death.
Now I open it. The fangs fall again; they strike the gauntlet; but
for that, they would pierce the hand, but death no longer follows. By
turning this button, I lock the spring, and the drawer remains open.
The man who devised this mechanism was so proud of it that he
described it in a secret memoir for the entertainment of the Grand
Louis. There is a copy of that memoir among the archives of the
Bibliotheque Nationale; the original is owned by Crochard. It was he
who connected that memoir with this cabinet, who rediscovered the
mechanism, rewound the spring, and renewed the poison. No doubt the
stroke with the poisoned fangs, which he used to punish traitors, was
the result of reading that memoir."

"This Croshar--or whatever his name is,--seems to be a 'strordinary
feller," observed Grady, relighting his cigar.

"He is," agreed M. Pigot, quietly; "a most extraordinary man. But
even he is not infallible; for, since the memoir made no mention of
the other secret drawer--the one in which Madame la Duchesse
concealed her love letters--Crochard knew nothing of it. It was that
fact which defeated his combinations--a pure accident which he could
not foresee. And now, gentlemen, it shall be my pleasure to display
before you some very beautiful brilliants."

Not until that instant had I thought of what the drawer contained; I
had been too fascinated by the poisoned fangs and by the story told
so quietly but so effectively by the French detective; but now I
perceived that the drawer was filled with little rolls of cotton,
which had been pressed into it quite tightly.

M. Pigot removed the first of these, unrolled it and spread it out
upon the desk, and instantly we caught the glitter of diamonds
--diamonds so large, so brilliant, so faultlessly white that I drew a
deep breath of admiration. Even M. Pigot, evidently as he prided
himself upon his imperturbability, could not look upon those gems
wholly unmoved; a slow colour crept into his cheeks as he gazed down
at them, and he picked up one or two of the la