"Well, I'll get on my way," said Jack, after a pause. "I'll keep in touch with you, in case you need me."
"And don't lose sight of Harry King," was the parting admonition. "Something just as unexpected as this may turn up in his case," and the colonel motioned to the watch.
Left to himself, the detective looked at the timepiece on his table, now silent in its tissue wrapping. The needle, which under the magnifying glass was shown to be hollow, probably drawing the poison from some receptacle inside the case, had slipped back out of sight when the pressure was removed from the rim.
"The watch of death!" mused the colonel. "I must see how you are made inside, and I think I'd better have a professional perform an autopsy on you. I'll send for Kettridge. He knows all about watches, though I question if he ever saw one like this."
The colonel was about to use his telephone when it rang and, answering it, he was told that another visitor wished to see him.
"Who is it?" he asked the clerk downstairs.
"Mr. Aaron Grafton."
"Send him up."
Grafton was plainly nervous as he entered the room; and the colonel, had he not been a man of experience, might have allowed this nervousness to influence his judgment, and bring into too much prominence the first suspicions the detective had felt regarding this man.
"Ah, Mr. Grafton, you wish to see me?"