tanza unfastened the box and removed a sheet of cotton wool which lay on the top. the sun gleamed on a heap of stones of various sizes, diamonds for the most part, which streamed and twinkled as if they had been running water. then he laid out the rings and necklaces and the various odds and ends, which went to make up a collection of stones worth a considerable amount. the italian knew something about jewels, and in his estimation at least ten thousand pounds' worth of jewels lay on their bed of cotton wool.
"mrs. charlock appeared to have a pretty taste in this respect," tanza remarked. "these things might have belonged to the wife of a millionaire. so this is the end of our search. well, those stones have done mischief, goodness knows. i suppose you can tell me how they managed to get there?"
"all in good time," grey replied. "we had better return to the yacht and talk the matter over. besides, rent may send for me at any moment, and i should not like to be out of the way when his message comes. it has been an exciting venture on the whole, and, to a certain extent, i have enjoyed it. but i would give half of what i possess not to have to face mrs. rent, as i shall be compelled to do presently."
tanza nodded sympathetically. he understood what grey was alluding to. the latter replaced the capstone on the sundial and proceeded to strip off his rubber boots and gloves. tanza touched these articles lightly with his finger-tips.
"did you really need these?" he asked. "was there actual danger? i saw you were taking no risks."
"it was a necessary precaution," grey explained. "of course, you know that in handling high-volted coils and cables there is always danger. anything beyond five hundred volts needs great caution. you are well aware, also, that a voltage which is almost harmless when one is dry or standing on dry ground becomes dangerous in the presence of moisture. the perfect safeguard is in using india-rubber gloves and boots. with these one can handle cables carrying practically any power."
tanza nodded his approval.
"i know all that," he said. "but what first put the idea of electricity into your head? as you know, from the very first i suspected foul play. i felt certain the frenchwoman met her death by some new and ingenious method of manslaughter. in thinking the matter over, electricity suggested itself to my mind, but i could not for the life of me see how it was worked. that is why i called you in. you seem to have known from the start what to do and what to look for. isn't that a fact?"
"well, i had luck on my side," grey admitted. "you remember bringing me to have a look round the place and giving me a minute account of the way in which hortense met her death. you will recollect telling me that her dress was more or less singed, which seemed remarkable, seeing that she had apparently met her death by water. there were no marks of violence on the body, either, which was another thing that aroused one's suspicions. i was still asking myself a few questions in this direction when i had the good luck to pick up a thumb torn from an india-rubber glove. now, you know india-rubber gloves are worn almost entirely by electrical engineers; indeed, i know no other use for them. i am aware that burglars have adopted the same precaution to prevent any identification of finger-marks. but, then, your average burglar does not give as much as two guineas a pair for india-rubber gloves, which is somewhere about the price of those from which the thumb was torn. as soon as that evidence came into my hands i knew that somebody connected with electricity had been near the sundial. but the mere presence of a fountain disposed of the suggestion that anything like the usual electrical business had been contemplated by the owner of the property. i dropped a hint to charlock, and he knew nothing about it. now, why had this mysterious individual been here? and what was he doing in the neighbourhood of the fountain? a little farther up the lawn i discovered a small piece of cable properly insulated, and then i became more or less certain of my facts. somebody had laid a wire from the sundial to a power station in the neighbourhood. it puzzled me why this had been done till i began to put things together, and i suddenly recollected what you told me about hortense's clothing being scorched. it seemed fair to assume that the sundial and the fountain were charged for some reason with a dangerous load of electricity, and that directly the woman came into contact with the water she was killed instantly. doubtless she fell forward into the fountain, which would account for the scar upon her forehead. you see, the current might have been powerful enough to cause instant death without unduly injuring the body. before i left these premises that day i knew beyond the shadow of a doubt how the french maid had met her death. you follow me?"
"absolutely," tanza said. "it is quite logical."
"of course it is," grey went on. "there is no other way of accounting for it. then i began to ask myself what the woman was doing near the fountain. until i could get to the bottom of that i was more or less groping in the dark. but, then, as you know now, i had an opportunity of examining hortense's bedroom, where, in the fireplace, i found a torn photograph of two men, one of whom was rent. who the other man is probably we shall never know, and, in any case, it doesn't matter. at any rate, we have the fact that hortense was in the possession of rent's photograph, which she had torn across the middle, no doubt in a moment of petulance and passion. i may be wrong, but that is the interpretation i put upon it. it was more or less natural to conclude that tender passages had passed between hortense and himself. i could not guess why for the moment, but it became clear later. but this is not all the evidence i discovered. in the grate were fragments of a letter which pointed to the fact that some secret was on foot connected with the sundial. it was not till after i heard that mrs. charlock had lost her jewels that i began to wonder if the gems had been hidden in the sundial. i had to speculate upon this for a day or two, until i caught bark loafing about the lawn, and then i felt sure my supposition was correct. when i saw that bark had severely burnt his fingers in the waters of the fountain i became certain of my ground. it was lucky for him that the night was fine and the grass dry, or he would have shared the fate of his sister. by this time my suspicions were growing pretty strong. i could not come to any other conclusion but that rent was at the bottom of the whole business. where else could the power station which supplied the electricity be except in rent's own workshop? and who besides himself was interested in getting hortense out of the way? beyond a doubt she had found out how she had been fooled and had threatened revenge. therefore he determined to get rid of her by this diabolically ingenious means, which it would be impossible to trace. he had only to let the girl know where the jewels were hidden, and she was certain to try to steal them. to a man who has discovered the secret of intermittent electricity the thing was easy. you know in how small a compass an electrical plant goes and how easy it is to manipulate. suppose a hole is cut in the ground by the fountain and a wire inserted into the water. then, a quarter of a mile away, another apparatus is hidden underground, the current turned on from the works, and without intermediate wires a contact is made between one pole and another. of course, i know it sounds very extraordinary, but if you can telegraph and telephone without wires, why shouldn't you transmit an ordinary electrical current? at any rate, rent succeeded in doing so, as swift more or less intimated to me; in fact, he found out what was going on and gave me a plan of the direction in which the apparatus ran. i shouldn't be surprised if swift knows as much as we do, and no doubt his guilty knowledge has driven him to drink. i have proved how this thing was done and how the french girl was sent to her death."
"you think she was murdered?" tanza asked.
"most emphatically i do. otherwise, why should rent go to the trouble of all these elaborate preparations? he was afraid that hortense would betray him to her mistress. he was so infatuated with mrs. charlock that he was prepared to run any risk to retain her good opinion. i feel convinced that hortense was sent deliberately to her death, and if you and i had not happened to be in the neighbourhood the thing would have been forgotten and nobody been any the wiser. why, apart from such proofs as i have given you just now, there are other people who could support my assertions. don't you suppose that that blackguard bark knows all about it? and he was prepared to keep his mouth shut and leave his sister's death unpunished if only he could get possession of the jewels. it is a ghastly business altogether. and now you understand why i am not anxious to face mrs. rent. and you will see that the matter cannot be allowed to rest here. what a sensation there will be when it all comes out!"
