She seated herself by the table, and I took the chair she indicated. Never did blind man walk into a pit more unsuspectingly. The seat gave under me, half a dozen inches, perhaps, setting the hidden mechanism to quick work. My ankles were gripped, the arms closed across me, pinning me securely just above the elbows, and a bar shot under my chin, holding my head rigidly against the back of the chair.
Mrs. Barrymore got up quickly, went behind me, and, in a moment, had passed a cloth of some thick material over my mouth. Then she came and stood in front of me.
"Caught!" she said. "That chair holds you helpless and speechless. I know just how you feel. I am going to tell you why. I daresay you know I am an American—at least my father was, although my mother was English. I married an Englishman, who was a genius, a crank, and a devil. We lived in the States, where you know electrocution is the death penalty, and my husband, a genius in all that had to do with electricity, invented an improved method, using little current and dangerous in one particular—it is impossible to tell how the victim has died. He was so pleased with his invention he would not make it public. He used it chiefly to terrify me. I was rich, my money was my own, and to get money from me he has forced me into that chair, also an invention of his, and sworn he would kill me. Mine was a life of torture and terror. Then I played the siren with him. I asked him to explain his devilish machine to me, and vowed to make over to him a large sum of money in exchange for the secret. He agreed—the fool! I kept my promise and paid the money, but one night when he was drunk, I pushed him into that chair. He was the first victim of his own invention, and to this day his death remains a mystery."
She laughed very quietly—not like a mad woman—and, going to a corner of the room, she opened a panel near the floor and brought out a curious contrivance, circular in shape, but not a complete circle—something like a metal cap with a triangular piece missing at the back. Wires were attached to it, and were also secured within the cupboard. They uncoiled as she came across the room carrying the metal cap in her hand.
"My husband was the type of brute who loves to torture women in some form or other," she said. "There are thousands of such men, especially in England, I think, or why are societies so necessary to protect women, to help them, to relieve them? Such devils are better out of the world, and I had the power to be something more than a philanthropist. I had the knowledge and the money to be an active agent. I came to England. I hate Englishmen because of my husband, and I have made a beginning. It was easy among my charitable concerns to hear of men who were brutes, and who would not be missed. In such a man I took an interest, was kind to him, brought him here to Lantern House to befriend him. He has sat in that chair as you are sitting, he has worn this cap as you wear it. How to get rid of him afterward? Underneath us is a basement where I have a car ready, a car I drive myself, and of the existence of which nobody knows. An old house was an advantage to me, you see. It is easy to put goggles and overalls on a dead man. To contrive an iron frame which should keep him in a sitting position was not difficult, and you are exactly over a trap through which you can be lowered into the car. Then a drive in the night, when I am dressed like a man, and have a companion with me who sits upright beside me, then an unfrequented piece of country, and I come home again—alone. Twice cyclists have been found—one of them a foreigner—their broken machines beside them. It was easy to buy a fifth rate motor machine, smash it, and carry it in the car. The cycle confused investigation, and I was secure from detection. Then a chauffeur was found. I did not take so much trouble with him, and I wondered how his death would be explained."
She laughed again.
"You may say you are not one of these brutes—perhaps not. But do you remember the day Lord Delmouth married Lady Evelyn Malling? Such a wealth of wedding presents required careful watching, and a guest was pointed out to me as Murray Wigan, the great detective. I never forget a face, and I never underrate an enemy. I heard that Murray Wigan was inquiring into the mysterious death of the chauffeur. I knew you the moment you came into the house. Who the girl is, I do not care. Your accomplice has nothing to fear—I do not war against women. I sent her to London. When she returns she will learn that you have been and gone. You will be found, Murray Wigan, sixty or seventy miles from London, and since death by this method draws the features strangely, it is doubtful if you will be identified. You were clever to get upon my track, but you pay the penalty."
The perspiration stood out heavily upon me. Fear gripped me, and I was helpless. Yet even in this supreme moment, even when this fiend of a woman fitted that horrible metal cap upon my head, I remembered the marks upon the dead chauffeur. He had been electrocuted as I was to be. It was the frame holding him in a sitting posture which had marked his body—it was this awful chair which had left those depressions on his arms. I was glad to know the truth. It was the ruling passion, strong in death.
The woman crossed to the cupboard quickly. There was a click, the moving of the switch, and then—nothing. Thank God! Nothing. The cap gripped my head, that was all.
The woman looked at me, and then rushed to the door, only to stagger backward as Christopher Quarles and Zena met her on the threshold. Their first thought was for me, and Mrs. Barrymore had the moment for which she had always been prepared, doubtless. The poison pilule had been concealed in a signet ring she wore, and in a few moments she was lying dead in that horrible Tudor room.