"I believe so, but I never looked inside. It opened with a spring, the secret of which he alone knew." "Who made it? The man who constructed it knew the secret, no doubt. He may be one of those implicated." "The piece of board with the spring he brought home with him from Paris one day. It was made there, he said. The steel box was made somewhere in Chelsea." "And who fitted the board so evenly?" "He did himself. He is an amateur cabinetmaker, and at one time used to make furniture. He made that table over there," she added, pointing to a small round table standing near the corner where was the secret cavity. "Then no workman was actually employed in fitting it up?" remarked the inspector, disappointedly. "No. He did it himself, so that nobody should know. And he would not even let me know the secret of the spring." "Which showed some distrust," remarked the inspector. "He evidently possessed something there which he did not wish you to see." "Yes. That, however, is not surprising," she remarked. "Many husbands have secrets--family affairs and such like--with which they hesitate to trouble their wives." "Certainly," he said, glancing dubiously at me, and no doubt recollecting that gruesome object now in the doctor's pocket. "But it seems very strange that thieves should come here so boldly, attack both you and the maid-servant, and go straight to that secret hiding-place if there was not some very strong motive. They evidently knew there was something there--something of which they desired to obtain possession." "But they didn't know the secret of the spring, for they prised it open." I placed my hand in my overcoat pocket, and it came in contact with the portrait which I had succeeded in taking--the picture of the dead unknown. Why had it been kept in such a prominent position in her room? I longed to question her, but at that moment was unable. The mystery of the murderous attack in which the maid had lost her life; the mystery of that tall, thin man who crept across the apartment; the mystery of the theft; the mystery of the human eye, were all enigmas utterly beyond solution. I took Laking aside and obtained a promise from him not to explain the circumstances under which we had met. Then to Mrs Parham I introduced myself later as a casual passer-by who had been alarmed by the startling discovery. I did this because I intended to call again and make the acquaintance of her husband. Half an hour later, after all inquiry of Mrs Parham had failed to elicit a single fact regarding any person who might have a motive for the outrage and robbery, I left the house, and walked down the dark, deserted suburban thoroughfare accompanied by the police inspector, who was on his way back to the station to telegraph the curious facts to Scotland Yard. "Well?" I asked, when we were out in the roadway, "and what do you make of the affair?"