"A little farther," he said; and as Simmonds, with evident effort, drew the drawer out to its full length, a tiny, two-tined prong pushed itself forward from underneath the cabinet. "There are the fangs," said M. Pigot. He held the mouth of the flask under first one and then the other, passing his other hand carefully behind and above them. "The poison is held in place by what we in French call _attraction capillaire_--I do not know the English; but I drive it out by introducing the air behind it--ah, you see!" 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 even he is not infallible; for, since the memoir made no mention of the other secret drawer--the one in which Madame la Duchesse concealed her love letters--Crochard knew nothing of it. It was that fact which defeated his combinations--a pure accident which he could not foresee. And now, gentlemen, it shall be my pleasure to display before you some very beautiful brilliants." Not until that instant had I thought of what the drawer contained; I had been too fascinated by the poisoned fangs and by the story told so quietly but so effectively by the French detective; but now I perceived that the drawer was filled with little rolls of cotton, which had been pressed into it quite tightly.