Darcy ever put that poison needle arrangement in it?"

"No, I don't. That mechanism was built into the watch after it was
originally made, I'm sure. But even so it was done a number of years
ago. I can tell that by the type of small screws used. They don't
make that kind in this country. Darcy never could have got possession
of any, to say nothing of some of the other parts used."

Following some days of strenuous work after Amy Mason had expressed her
belief in her lover's innocence in spite of the finding of the electric
wires, and had urged the detective to use every endeavor to clear
Darcy, the colonel had summoned Mr. Kettridge to hold a sort of autopsy
over the Indian watch which was still in possession of the old
detective. With the suicide of the East Indian the case had been
dropped by Donovan and the authorities, they taking it for granted that
Singa Phut had killed Shere Ali and then ended his own life, by help
from outside in getting poison. So if Donovan thought anything about
the watch, he said nothing.

"Then you think Darcy is cleared of any connection with the poison
watch?" asked the colonel.

"I think so--yes," answered the jeweler. "As a matter of fact, I don't
believe Jimmie did any repair work on it at all. Singa Phut brought it
in to have it fixed, it is true, but Jimmie was a great chap for
promising work and then not having it ready on time. I've known him to
do that more than once, and he lost Mrs. Darcy customers that way. He
probably promised Singa Phut to have the watch ready for him, and then,
either in working on his pet invention, the electric lathe, or because
of his quarrel with his cousin, forgot about the East Indian's watch.
He may, as he says, have gotten up early to redeem his promise to
repair it."

"But he never did?" asked the colonel.

"It bears no evidence of it," and the jeweler focused his glass on the
dismembered timepiece.

"Do you think he knew the deadly nature of the watch?" went on the
detective.

"It is doubtful. This watch is of peculiar construction. As I have
showed you, the poison needle could only be made to protrude when the
watch reached a certain time, which time could be set in advance as an
alarm clock is set. I think this is what happened, though I may be
wrong.

"Singa Phut, for purposes of his own, had this poisoned watch in his
possession. He, of course, knew just what it would do, and how to set
it so that if a person, at a certain hour, took it into his or her
hands, and exerted any pressure on the rim, the needle would shoot out
and puncture the flesh. The poison on the point then caused death."

"And very speedy death," added the colonel. "Witness what happened to
poor little Chet. The watch was wound up--I wound it myself as a
matter of fact, though I did not dream that the time mechanism had
anything to do with the poisoned needle. Then the dog, playing with
it, as he would with a bone, bit on the rim, just at the time when the
needle was set to operate. It shot out, punctured his lip, and Chet
died."

"Did you know it was a poisoned watch?" asked Jack Young.

"I had guessed that after what happened, and that is why I warned
Donovan to be careful. But, as I said, I thought it was like a sword
cane or a spring dagger--that only pressure on a certain part was
needed to force out the needle with its death-carrying smear of some
subtle Indian poison. I never dreamed it was like an alarm clock."

"Well, it was," said Mr. Kettridge. "I can easily see all the parts,
now that I have taken it apart, and the time-setting arrangement is
very compact, simple and effective."

"You were careful not to scratch yourself on the needle?" asked the
colonel quickly.

"Oh, yes indeed! I took that out first. But do you think, Colonel, in
spite of what I have said about Jimmie not knowing how this watch
operated, and, presumably, not having done any work on it--do you think
he can have planned to kill Mrs. Darcy with it?"

"Hardly. And yet it is possible that Mrs. Darcy may have been killed
by the watch."

"Killed by it?--how?" gasped Jack Young. "I thought she was stabbed,
and her skull fractured."

"She had both those injuries, it is true. But what is to have
prevented her from having been punctured by the watch just before she
received those hurts?

"I mean in this way," went on the colonel. "We will assume that Singa
Phut, finding some trifling thing the matter with his devilish watch,
brought it to the Darcy shop, where he was fairly well known.

"Darcy promised to fix the timepiece but neglected or forgot to do it,
leaving it on his table. Then, remembering it early in the
morning--perhaps feeling guilty at having spent part of the night
working on his electric lathe--he got up to do as he had promised,
and--"


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