Tragically, Eric Coverly was vindicated; by his death he was proved innocent.  And by the manner of his death we realized that he had fallen a victim to the same malign agency as his cousin.

I have explained that my cottage stood in a strangely secluded spot, although so near to the sleepless life of London; and I remember that throughout the period between the departure of the man with the car and his return with the doctor and two police officers whom he had brought from the local depot, only one pedestrian passed my door and he on the opposite side of the road.

How little that chance traveler suspected what a scene was concealed from his eyes by the tall hedges which divided the garden from the highroad!  It was as the footsteps of this wayfarer became faint in the distance, that suddenly: 

“Come along!” said Gatton.  “We might chance it now.  I want to get to the bottom of this telephone trick.”

We returned to the door of the ante-room, and side by side stood looking down at the telephone which had only been extracted from the grip of the dead man with so much difficulty.  The Inspector stooped and took it up from the floor.  The deadly gray mist was all but dissipated now, and together we stood staring stupidly at the telephone which Gatton held in his hand.

To all outward seeming it was an ordinary instrument, and my number was written upon it in the space provided for the purpose.  Then, all at once, as we stepped into the room, I observed something out of the ordinary.

I could see a length of green cable proceeding from the wall-plug out through the open window.  The cable attached to the instrument which Gatton held did not come from the proper connection at all, but came in through the window, and was evidently connected with something outside in the garden!

“What does this mean, Gatton?” I cried.

Evidently as deeply mystified as I, Gatton placed the telephone on the little table and fully opening the window, leaned out.

“Hullo!” he cried.  “The cable leads up to the roof of the tool-shed!”

“To the roof of the tool-shed!” I echoed incredulously.

But Gatton did not heed my words, for: 

“What the devil have we here?” he continued.

He was hauling something up from the flower-bed below the window, and now, turning to me, he held out ... a second telephone!

“Why, Gatton!” I cried, and took it from his hand, “this is the authentic instrument!  See!  It is connected in the proper way!”

“I see quite clearly,” he replied.  “It was simply placed outside, whilst a duplicate one was substituted for it.  I observe a ladder against the shed.  Let us trace the cable attached to the duplicate.”

The ladder was one used by Coates about the garden; and now, climbing out of the window, Gatton mounted it and surveyed the roof of the lean-to which I used as a tool-shed.