“I’ll follow you as far as the front door,” said the politician balefully. He rose.
“If the charge were in a chair, in the cushion of an easy chair, we’ll say, on the third floor of a house in Brooklyn—”
The Honorable William Linder sat down again. He sat heavily.
“—the problem would be somewhat different. Of course, it would be easy to arrange that the first person to sit down in the chair would, by his own weight, blow himself up. But the first person might not be the right person, you know. Do you still follow me?”
The Honorable William Linder made a remark like a fish.
“Now, we have, if you will forgive my professorial method,” continued Average Jones, “a chair sent to a gentleman of prominence from an anonymous source. In this chair is a charge of high explosive and above it a glass bulb containing sulphuric acid. The bulb, we will assume, is so safe-guarded as to resist any ordinary shock of moving. But when this gentleman, sitting at ease in his chair, is noticed by a trombonist, placed for that purpose In the street, below—”
“The Dutch horn-player!” cried the politician. “Then it was him; and I’ll—”
“Only an innocent tool,” interrupted Average Jones, in his turn. “He had no comprehension of what he was doing. He didn’t understand that the vibration from his trombone on one particular note by the slide up the scale—as in the chorus of Egypt—would shiver that glass and set off the charge. All that he knew was to play the B-flat trombone and take his pay.”
“His pay?” The question leaped to the politician’s lips. “Who paid him?”
“A man—named—er—Arbuthnot,” drawled Average Jones.