REVEALS THE TRUTH
The woman Fournereau crossed the room quickly to a small rosewood
bureau, and took therefrom a little cardboard box about a couple of
inches square, such as is often used for containing cheap jewellery.
"I have something here," she said, addressing the man before her,
"which was lying on the floor. You alone know its secret--a secret
which I, too, have lately discovered."
And opening the box carefully, she displayed, lying in a bed of
cotton-wool, what at first appeared to be a woman's steel thimble.
Taking it from its hiding-place, and placing it upon the forefinger
of her right hand, we saw that, instead of being what it at first
appeared, it rose to a sharply-tempered steel point, about half an
inch long, protruding from the finger-tip.
I glanced at the man accused. His face had blanched to the lips at
sight of it.
"This," she explained, "I discovered on the floor close to where the
dead man was lying. It is a diabolical invention of Laumont's, which
he showed me a year ago, although he did not then explain its use.
An examination which has been made by my friend, a chemist, has
plainly indicated the truth. You will notice that the point is fine
as a needle, but is hollow, like that of a hypodermic syringe.
Within, at the point touched by the tip of the finger, is a small
chamber filled with a most subtle and deadly poison, extracted from a
small lizard peculiar to the Bambara country on the banks of the
Upper Niger."
The point would, I saw, act just as the fang of a snake, for the
thimble, when placed on the finger and pressed against the flesh of
the victim, would inject the poison into the blood, causing almost
instantaneous collapse and death. The puncture made by such a fine
point would be indistinguishable, and the action of the poison, as we
afterwards learnt, so similar to several natural complications that
at the post-mortem examination doctors would fail to distinguish the
real cause of death.
She held the diabolical thimble out for us to examine, saying:
"The mode in which this was used upon the unfortunate Monsieur Thorne
was undoubtedly as follows:--He had seated himself at the table with
his back to the door when the Corsican, Laumont, watching his
opportunity, crept in with the thimble upon his finger. Before his
victim was aware of his presence he had seized him by the collar from
behind and pressed the point deep into the flesh behind the right
ear, at a spot where the poison would at once enter the circulation.
You will remember that the doctors discovered a slight scratch behind
the ear, which they guessed to be the only mark resulting from the
struggle which they believed had taken place. But there was no
struggle. As has been proved by the person who examined for me this
most deadly but inoffensive-looking weapon, anyone struck by it would
become paralysed almost instantly. Plainly, then, the chair was
broken by him as he fell against it in fatal collapse."
"And the stolen notes? What of them?" asked Mr. Keppel anxiously.
"Ah!" she answered. "Those accursed notes! On the following morning
Laumont came to me and handed me the money, saying that as I knew the
truth regarding the crime, he would trust me further, and give the
money into my safe keeping. I took it, for, truth to tell, I knew
that he could make some very unwelcome revelations to the police
regarding this place and the character of the play here. Therefore I
decided that, after all, silence was best, even though I held in my
possession the thimble which, I presume, in his hurry to escape from
the room, fell upon the floor and rolled away. I took the notes, and
for some days kept them; but finding that the police were making such
active inquiries, I returned them to him, and he then resolved upon
giving them to Miss Rosselli, through one of his accomplices, either
in order further to baffle the detectives or else to throw suspicion
upon her. She was told some extraordinary story about a meeting in
London, merely, of course, to put the police off the scent, and cause
them to believe that the money was stolen by English thieves. Soon
afterwards I knew that Monsieur Cameron was aware of the manner in
which his friend had been cheated here. This caused me, from fear of
being arrested on suspicion, to fly to Russia, arranging with my
friends to return here on the 1st of May--to-day."
"The date of your return I learnt from Laumont himself," explained
Ernest, "for, in the course of the inquiries I made immediately after
the tragic affair, I found that he was your intimate associate, and
in order to divert suspicion from himself he hinted at you being the
assassin."
"He denounced me, not knowing that I held the actual evidence of his
guilt in my hand," she cried, holding out the finger with the
curious-looking thimble upon it. "Poor Monsieur Thorne is, I fear,
not the first victim who has fallen beneath the prick of this deadly
instrument."
"To whom do you refer?" inquired the detective quickly.
"To Monsieur Everton, the young Englishman who was found dead about a
year ago in the Avenue des Acacias."
In an instant the man whom I had known in Leghorn as Branca sprang at
her with all the fury of a wild beast, and, clutching her at the
throat, tried to strangle her. His eyes were lit by the fierce light
of uncontrollable anger, his bushy hair giving his white face a wild
and terrible look, and it really seemed that before the detectives
could throw themselves upon him, the murderer would tear limb from
limb the woman who had confessed.
For a moment the detectives and the man and woman were all struggling
wildly together. Suddenly a loud yell of pain escaped from the
wretched Corsican, and releasing his hold, he drew back, with his
left hand clasped upon his wrist.
He staggered, swayed unevenly, uttering terrible imprecations.
"_Dieu!_" he gasped. "_You--you've killed me!_"
What had happened was easy to understand. In the struggle the point
of his cunning invention, which was still upon the woman's finger,
had entered deeply the fleshy part of his wrist, injecting that
poison that was so swift, and for which no antidote had ever been
discovered.
As he staggered, two detectives sprang forward to seize him, but
before they could do so, he reeled, clutched at the air, and fell
heavily backward, overturning a small table beside which he had been
standing.
Never was there a scene more ghastly. I shall remember every detail
of it so long as I have power to draw my breath.
Five minutes later, the wretched man who had thus brought
card-sharping and murder to a fine art had breathed his last in
frightful agony, his ignominious career ended by his own diabolical
invention.