Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

Silence again. The professor looked frequently at his wrist watch. The tension grew and the group shifted feet uneasily. The thought of the locked door was not so good, if the professor really was mad, as most of them must have believed him to be. But the recollection that Caresse and the police lieutenant knew the combination was comforting. They could at least get out, no matter what happened.

At last, without a word, the professor stepped forward and, with Sale-worth watching him closely, took the crucible from the furnace.

“This must cool,” he said with a glance about at the excited faces.

It seemed like a nightmare to the lieutenant. A man making genuine diamonds before his eyes! He would never believe that. If the professor took diamonds from that crucible, then he put them there with some sleight of hand no one saw. He was just a clever crook. But what did this murder talk mean, and the sound of that invisible violin?

Saleworth himself opened the crucible when the time came. Eight exquisite diamonds rolled out into his palm.

“I insist that you take these gems and have them examined,” said the professor quietly. “To your own satisfaction.”

Chapter VI

When the Light Went Out

“By Jove, they look like the real thing!” said Saleworth, bending over the stones, puzzled and anxious.

“You can easily prove that,” said the professor. “I am most grateful to the murderer for permitting me to convince Mr. Saleworth of the genuineness of my discovery.”

As he spoke the great glaring light in the ceiling went out and the small rather horrible room was plunged into darkness. There was a choking gasp from some one and a scream from Linda Price.

Even as Lieutenant Williams put out his hand to the switch the sound of that weird violin playing the funeral march seemed to fill the room. It was dreadful beyond words, that instant of darkness, with the wailing violin notes close to them all, exactly as though one of them was playing!

When the light came again the violin ceased, and the lieutenant stood looking down grimly at the body of the professor, on the floor at their feet, a red stain widening on his white shirt front!

The criminal had chosen the only moment when such a thing could possibly happen, that brief space of time when every one was held entranced by the glittering stones Saleworth had taken from the crucible. Even the lieutenant, scoff as he did, convinced as he was of the professor’s expert trickery, had for an instant been intent upon the gems. And in that instant the murderer had struck.

But that hideous violin!

“He is dead,” said Clinton, who was kneeling by the professor. “Great Heaven! He told the truth! One of us has killed him.”

“What with?” asked the lieutenant, stooping to the body. “I carefully went over this room and every one of you. What is this?”

From the breast of the professor he drew a short gleaming dagger, its handle set with precious stones.

Linda Price screamed again and put her hand to her wealth of blond hair.

“Oh... oh, it is mine!” she cried. “I wore it in my hair. I have two of them. I always wear one in the evening. They were my mother’s. Oh... oh, do you think I killed him?”

“For crying out loud!” said the lieutenant, staring in disgust at the pretty blonde. “How the heck did I miss that thing in your hair when I searched everybody? I should have seen that if I had had any eyes!”

“You would not,” said Caresse then quietly. “Not the way Linda wears it. She puts it deep in her hair with just the handle showing.”

Williams turned to look at her then. She knew who had stabbed her husband. There was no doubt of that. But she also knew that the man, if she loved him, was lost to her forever.

“Did you hear that cursed violin?” demanded Harmer nervously. “My gosh, we are in for it now! Is that door locked?”

“Yes, it has not been unlocked,” said the lieutenant steadily. “No one could unlock it save Mrs. Wheatland and myself. Could they, Mrs. Wheatland?”

“I did not tell the murderer the combination, if that is what you mean,” said Caresse Wheatland then, meeting Williams’s eyes boldly.

The professor’s words came back to him: “Don’t flatter yourself that you ever will know Caresse, no matter what comes out of all this.”