Aire had his eye shrewdly on her. “We can credit you with the flashlight, can’t we?”
She nodded. “Yes; the camera’s in the gallery, and there were powders attached to several places on the wall. Constable Pritchard manipulated the electric button that ignited them. I hope we have obtained a decent picture of the claw in mid-air.”
“But who—who’s responsible?” asked Mrs. Bartholomew plaintively, with outspread hands.
“Dead too long to make any difference,” said Aire.
“Could this, er, machine last for centuries?” Crofts demanded, shouldering his way to the Doctor.
“For millenniums, without oiling,” returned Aire. “Why not? The really important thing is—”
“I’ve got it!” I cried. “About your question, Mrs. Bartholomew. Remember, Miss Lebetwood, what Maryvale told me the day he finished his picture? Someone, he said, of the house of Kay. And, by heaven, he was right!”
“The really necessary thing,” persisted Aire, “is to dismantle this machine without getting killed. It will be ticklish work, though, since it’s automatically prepared to lunge out with its claw on five seconds’ notice. We’ll have to make a start with the cistern and the wheel.”
“That’s not the first thing, Doctor,” said the American girl.
Aire turned toward her in surprise. “Nothing can be more urgent. You wouldn’t leave this thing for a night or for an hour, would you, like a gun primed and cocked? Why, at any moment, sooner or later, the equilibrium—”