He stood erect and held the flask up to the light. It was half full
of the red liquid.

"Enough to decimate France," he said, screwed the stopper carefully
into place, and put the flask in his pocket. "Release the drawer, if
you please, monsieur," he added to Simmonds.

It sprang back into place on the instant, the arabesqued handle
snapping up with a little click.

"You will observe its ingenuity," said M. Pigot. "It is really most
clever. For whenever the hand, struck by the poisoned fangs, loosened
its hold on the drawer, the drawer sprang shut as you see, and
everything was as before--except that one man more had tasted death.
Now I open it. The fangs fall again; they strike the gauntlet; but
for that, they would pierce the hand, but death no longer follows. By
turning this button, I lock the spring, and the drawer remains open.
The man who devised this mechanism was so proud of it that he
described it in a secret memoir for the entertainment of the Grand
Louis. There is a copy of that memoir among the archives of the
Bibliothèque Nationale; the original is owned by Crochard. It was he
who connected that memoir with this cabinet, who rediscovered the
mechanism, rewound the spring, and renewed the poison. No doubt the
stroke with the poisoned fangs, which he used to punish traitors, was
the result of reading that memoir."

"This Croshar--or whatever his name is,--seems to be a 'strordinary
feller," observed Grady, relighting his cigar.

"He is," agreed M. Pigot, quietly; "a most extraordinary man. But