The visitor ceased his questions to watch the colonel, who had gone to a closet and taken out a pair of rubber gloves. Putting them on, he took the watch from its tissue paper wrappings, and then, holding it under the gleaming light on his table, he gave a twist to the case, pressed on a certain point in the rim with the end of his lead pencil and a tiny needle shot out into view.
"Look!" said the colonel to Jack Young.
"Good Lord! An infernal machine in a watch!"
"Not exactly an infernal machine, but a poisoned needle which only required pressure on the rim of the case to shoot it out into the hand, or whatever part of a person or animal was near it. Poor Chet, gnawing the watch which he was playing with—worrying it as he would a bone—must have bitten on the right place. The needle shot out, pierced his tongue or lips and—the deadly poison did the rest!"
"But, Colonel—this—this is the watch Mrs. Darcy had in her hand when she was found dead!"
"Yes," was the cool response.
"And its the same one Shere Ali had in his hand when he was found dead!"
"Yes."
"But both of them had their heads smashed in!"
"Yes, Jack."