it swung about for a moment on what looked like a wire or a
whip-cord, then slowly came to rest within a foot or so from the
floor.

A cry from the horrified officials below was what first brought me
to myself. Withdrawing from my narrow quarters I hastened down to
them and added one more white face to the three I found congregated
in the doorway. In the diabolical ingenuity we had seen displayed,
crime had reached its acme and the cup of human depravity seemed
full. When we had regained in some measure our self-possession, we
all advanced for a closer look at the murderous object dangling
before us. We found it to be a heavy leaden weight painted on its
lower end to match the bosses of stucco-work which appeared at
regular intervals in the ornamentation of the ceiling. When drawn
up into place, that is, when occupying the hole from which it now
hung suspended, the portion left to protrude would evidently bear
so small a proportion to its real bulk as to justify any eye in
believing it to be the mate, and the harmless mate, of all the
others.

"It hangs just where the settle stood," observed Durbin,
significantly.

"And just at the point where the cushions invite rest, as the
colonel so suggestively puts it in his strange puzzle of a
confession," added the district attorney.

"Replace the old seat," ordered the major, "and let us make sure of
this."

Ready hands at once grasped it, and, with some effort, I own, drew
it carefully back into position.

"You see!" quoth Durbin.

We did.

"Devilish!" came from the major's lips. Then with a glance at the
ball which, pushed aside by the seat, now hung over its edge a foot
or so from the floor, he added briskly: "The ball has fallen to the
full length of the cord. If it were drawn up a little--"

"Wait," I eagerly interposed. "Let me see what I can do with it."

And I dashed back upstairs and into the closet of "The Colonel's Own."

With a single peep down to see if they were still on the watch, I
seized the handle whose position I had made sure of when searching
for the spring, and began to turn; when instantly--so quick was
the response--the long cord stiffened and I saw the ball rise into
sight above the settle top.

"Stop!" called out the major. "Let go and press the spring again."

I hastened to obey and, though the back of the settle hid the result
from me, I judged from the look and attitude of those below that
the old colonel's calculations h