“So they were.  But they can be supplied with current from another source, it seems, and I was the innocent cause of doing it.”

“You!  How?”

“By throwing over a switch on the work bench where James Darcy used to busy himself!”

“An electric switch on Darcy’s work bench?”

“Yes, come and see for yourself.  I’ve sent for the electrician to come and rip out everything.  I’ll have the place all wired over.  It was a makeshift job to begin with, and since Darcy complicated the wires with some that he hoped to run his electric lathe with, there is no telling when one may get a shock.”

“How did it happen?” asked the colonel, as the jeweler led the way to that part of the store where Darcy had the repair bench, behind the watch showcase.  It was now close to midnight, and the excitement over the accident to Sallie, which had occurred after the closing hour for the store, had subsided, not as much of a crowd having gathered at that time of the evening as would have done earlier.

“Well, it happened this way,” explained Kettridge.  “We’re going to have a special sale of a medium-priced line of goods to-morrow.  I was getting ready for it after the clerks had gone—­setting out the display and the like—­when I found I needed help.

“It wasn’t much—­just the little odds and ends that a woman can do better than a man when it comes to making things look fancy.  I might have telephoned for Miss Brill, but I didn’t like to bring her back, as she’d worked hard all day.

“Then I thought of Sallie Page.  It’s true she’s deaf, but she has been in the family, so to speak, a long while, and she knows the shop and the goods pretty well.  She’s quick if she is old, so I got her down about nine o’clock and we started in.”

“Then exactly how it happened I don’t know.  I was puttering around the work table where Darcy used to do his jewel setting and his repair work, and Sallie was over near the showcase.  I wanted more light on a certain piece of jewelry I had in my hand, and I thoughtlessly threw over a switch I saw on Darcy’s table.  It was a switch I hadn’t noticed before—­in fact, I accidentally uncovered it by moving a collection of his tools I hadn’t previously disturbed.

“No sooner had I closed the circuit than I heard a scream from Sallie and saw her fall backwards.  I had given her a shock without knowing it.”

“That was queer,” murmured the colonel.  “Let me have a look at that switch.”

“And, while you’re about it, I’ll look too,” said another voice in the dimly-lighted store, and, as the two turned in startled surprise, they saw Detective Carroll smiling at them.

“I heard there was another accident up here,” he went on, still smiling, “so I came to have a look.  The side door was open and I walked in.  Guess you didn’t hear me.  These rubber heels don’t make much noise.”

“They don’t, indeed, when you walk on them and not on the soles,” observed the colonel grimly.  “The question is, what do you want to see?”