"Yet unless we intervene it is precisely what a coroner's jury will decide has happened. Do you know whether your brother-in-law has any practical knowledge of electricity, Mr Hollyer?" "I cannot say. He was so reserved, and we really knew so little of him----" "Yet in 1896 an Austin Creake contributed an article on 'Alternating Currents' to the American _Scientific World_. That would argue a fairly intimate acquaintanceship." "But do you mean that he is going to direct a flash of lightning?" "Only into the minds of the doctor who conducts the post-mortem, and the coroner. This storm, the opportunity for which he has been waiting for weeks, is merely the cloak to his act. The weapon which he has planned to use--scarcely less powerful than lightning but much more tractable--is the high voltage current of electricity that flows along the tram wire at his gate." "Oh!" exclaimed Lieutenant Hollyer, as the sudden revelation struck him. "Some time between eleven o'clock to-night--about the hour when your sister goes to bed--and one-thirty in the morning--the time up to which he can rely on the current--Creake will throw a stone up at the balcony window. Most of his preparation has long been made; it only remains for him to connect up a short length to the window handle and a longer one at the other end to tap the live wire. That done, he will wake his wife in the way I have said. The moment she moves the catch of the window--and he has carefully filed its parts to ensure perfect contact--she will be electrocuted as effectually as if she sat in the executioner's chair in Sing Sing prison." "But what are we doing here!" exclaimed Hollyer, starting to his feet, pale and horrified. "It is past ten now and anything may happen." "Quite natural, Mr Hollyer," said Carrados reassuringly, "but you need have no anxiety. Creake is being watched, the house is being watched, and your sister is as safe as if she slept to-night in Windsor Castle. Be assured that whatever happens he will not be allowed to complete his scheme; but it is desirable to let him implicate himself to the fullest limit. Your brother-in-law, Mr Hollyer, is a man with a peculiar capacity for taking pains." "He is a damned cold-blooded scoundrel!" exclaimed the young officer fiercely. "When I think of Millicent five years ago----" "Well, for that matter, an enlightened nation has decided that electrocution is the most humane way of removing its superfluous citizens," suggested Carrados mildly. "He is certainly an ingenious-minded gentleman. It is his misfortune that in Mr Carlyle he was fated to be opposed by an even subtler brain----" "No, no! Really, Max!" protested the embarrassed gentleman.