“Still, we may be able to combat that,” observed the colonel.  “Now let me understand you about this watch, Mr. Kettridge.  You don’t believe Darcy ever put that poison needle arrangement in it?”

“No, I don’t.  That mechanism was built into the watch after it was originally made, I’m sure.  But even so it was done a number of years ago.  I can tell that by the type of small screws used.  They don’t make that kind in this country.  Darcy never could have got possession of any, to say nothing of some of the other parts used.”

Following some days of strenuous work after Amy Mason had expressed her belief in her lover’s innocence in spite of the finding of the electric wires, and had urged the detective to use every endeavor to clear Darcy, the colonel had summoned Mr. Kettridge to hold a sort of autopsy over the Indian watch which was still in possession of the old detective.  With the suicide of the East Indian the case had been dropped by Donovan and the authorities, they taking it for granted that Singa Phut had killed Shere Ali and then ended his own life, by help from outside in getting poison.  So if Donovan thought anything about the watch, he said nothing.

“Then you think Darcy is cleared of any connection with the poison watch?” asked the colonel.

“I think so—­yes,” answered the jeweler.  “As a matter of fact, I don’t believe Jimmie did any repair work on it at all.  Singa Phut brought it in to have it fixed, it is true, but Jimmie was a great chap for promising work and then not having it ready on time.  I’ve known him to do that more than once, and he lost Mrs. Darcy customers that way.  He probably promised Singa Phut to have the watch ready for him, and then, either in working on his pet invention, the electric lathe, or because of his quarrel with his cousin, forgot about the East Indian’s watch.  He may, as he says, have gotten up early to redeem his promise to repair it.”

“But he never did?” asked the colonel.

“It bears no evidence of it,” and the jeweler focused his glass on the dismembered timepiece.

“Do you think he knew the deadly nature of the watch?” went on the detective.

“It is doubtful.  This watch is of peculiar construction.  As I have showed you, the poison needle could only be made to protrude when the watch reached a certain time, which time could be set in advance as an alarm clock is set.  I think this is what happened, though I may be wrong.

“Singa Phut, for purposes of his own, had this poisoned watch in his possession.  He, of course, knew just what it would do, and how to set it so that if a person, at a certain hour, took it into his or her hands, and exerted any pressure on the rim, the needle would shoot out and puncture the flesh.  The poison on the point then caused death.”

“And very speedy death,” added the colonel.  “Witness what happened to poor little Chet.  The watch was wound up—­I wound it myself as a matter of fact, though I did not dream that the time mechanism had anything to do with the poisoned needle.  Then the dog, playing with it, as he would with a bone, bit on the rim, just at the time when the needle was set to operate.  It shot out, punctured his lip, and Chet died.”