"I will," he called back.
As he flashed his pocket electric bull's-eye about, his gaze fell on the electric meter. He paused before it. In spite of the fact that it was broad daylight, it was running. His face puckered.
"They are using no current at present in the house," he ruminated. "Yet the meter is running."
He continued to examine the meter. Then he began to follow the electric wires along. At last he discovered a place where they had been tampered with and tapped by other wires.
"The work of the Clutching Hand!" he muttered.
Eagerly he followed the wires to the furnace and around to the back.
There they led right into a little water tank. Kennedy yanked them out.
As he did so he pulled something with them.
"Two electrodes—the villain placed there," he exclaimed, holding them up triumphantly for me to see.
"Y-yes," I replied dubiously, "but what does it all mean?"
"Why, don't you see? Under the influence of the electric current the water was decomposed and gave off oxygen and hydrogen. The free hydrogen passed up the furnace pipe and combining with the arsenic in the wall paper formed the deadly arseniuretted hydrogen."
He cast the whole improvised electrolysis apparatus on the floor and dashed up the cellar steps.