“Help move it, sir?”

“Yes—­help change the position of any of it since this afternoon?”

“No, sir; I haven’t touched any of it, sir.”

“That’s all right, then,” I said, and turned back into the inner room.

Vantine had said that he intended examining the cabinet in detail at the first opportunity; I remembered how his eyes had gleamed as he looked at it; how his hand had trembled as he caressed the arabesques.  No doubt he was making that examination when he had heard a woman’s cry and had gone out into the hall to see what the matter was.

Then he and the woman had entered the ante-room together; he had closed the door; and then....

Like a lightning-flash, a thought leaped into my brain—­a reason—­an explanation—­wild, improbable, absurd, but still an explanation!

I choked back the cry which rose to my lips; I gripped my hands behind me, in a desperate attempt to hold myself in check; and, fascinated as by a deadly serpent, I stood staring at the cabinet.

For there, I felt certain, lay the clue to the mystery!

CHAPTER VII

ROGERS GETS A SHOCK

Grady, Simmonds and Goldberger examined the room minutely, for they seemed to feel that the secret of the tragedy lay somewhere within its four walls; but I watched them only absently, for I had lost interest in the procedure.  I was perfectly sure that they would find nothing in any way bearing upon the mystery.  I heard Grady comment upon the fact that there was no door except the one opening into the ante-room, and saw them examine the window-catches.

“Nobody could raise these windows without alarming the house,” Grady said, and pointed to a tiny wire running along the woodwork.  “There’s a burglar alarm.”

Simmonds assented, and finally the trio returned to the ante-room.

“We’d like to look over the rest of the house,” Grady said to Rogers, who was sitting erect again, looking more like himself, and the four men went out into the hall together.  I remained behind with Hughes and Freylinghuisen.  They had lifted the body to the couch and were making a careful examination of it.  Heavy at heart, I sat down near by and watched them.

That Philip Vantine should have been killed by enthusiasm for the hobby which had given him so much pleasure seemed the very irony of fate, yet such I believed to be the case.  To be sure, there were various incidents which seemed to conflict with such a theory, and the theory itself seemed wild to the point of absurdity; but at least it was a ray of light in what had been utter darkness.  I turned it over and over in my mind, trying to fit into it the happenings of the day—­I must confess with very poor success.  Freylinghuisen’s voice brought me out of my reverie.

“The two cases are precisely alike,” he was saying.  “The symptoms are identical.  And I’m certain we shall find paralysis of the heart and spinal cord in this case, just as I did in the other.  Both men were killed by the same poison.”