"
"How do you know?"
"Because I read the extra myself."
"But even then?"
"Then he began to pay more attention. It was easy enough to fake when he
knew what was doing. For all I know, he could hear Eldridge giving his
directions."
The company present ruminated over the disclosures thus far made.
"About the City Hall affair?" asked Helen finally.
"I used to sit where I could command the hall," said Darrow, "and,
therefore, I was aware that Monsieur X never left his room. To make the
matter certain, I powdered the sill of the door with talcum, which I
renewed every day after the cleaners. You remember we got to talking very
earnestly in the hall, so earnestly that I, for one, forgot to watch. When
I realized my remissness, I saw that the powder on the sill had been
disturbed, that Monsieur X had gone out.
"My first thought then was to warn the people. To that end I was on my way
to the _Despatch_ office when sheer chance switched me into the City Hall
tragedy. I possessed myself of the apparatus--"
"That was the square black bag!" cried Jack.
"Of course--and hustled back to the Atlas Building. You can bet I was
relieved when I found that Monsieur X had returned to his lair."
"Talcum disturbed again?" asked Jack.
"Precisely."
"And the black bag?"
"Contained merely a model wireless apparatus with a clockwork arrangement
set to close the circuit at a certain time.
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