The secretary had not finished reading the resolutions when a messenger brought in a letter which he handed to the chairman as the clock pointed to eight fifty-eight.
It ran in this fashion:
Fellow-Members: It is, by the time of reading this, probably plain to you that you have been taken in by me, and that, so far from my really having been a wicked person, I was a credit to my race and time.
True to my desire that to the rest of the world I should be accounted a bad man, I have caused to be delivered with this letter a box. It works its purpose at nine o’clock. Sit where you are and do not attempt to escape. The secret of my goodness rests, and shall rest, with you.
Yours insincerely, Ephrata Symonds.
As the chairman finished reading he glanced at the clock. It was on the stroke of nine! He seized the box, and with a wild cry attempted to throw it through the window, but it was too late. A whirring noise was heard, followed by a terrific explosion, that left of club-house and -members naught save a hole in the ground.
Symonds’s culpable goodness remained unknown to the world.