Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/88

66 "Scare me!" he suddenly commanded the inspector.

"What?" Walker bent his brows.

"Scare me, and watch the needle."

Walker, half comprehending, fumbled in the drawer of a desk, straightened suddenly, a cocked revolver in his hand, and snapped it at Trant's head. At once the needle of the galvanometer leaped across the scale, and Crowley and Walker both stared.

"Thank you, inspector," said Trant as he rose from the chair. "It works very well; you see, my palms couldn't help sweating when you snapped the gun at me before I appreciated that it wasn't loaded. Now, we'll test Caylis as we did Kanlan."

The inspector went to the door, took Caylis from Sweeny, and led him to the chair.

"Sit down," he said. "Mr. Trant wants to talk to you."

The childlike, brown eyes, covertly alert and watchful, followed Trant, and Caylis nervously grasped the two inviting knobs on the arms of his chair. Walker and Crowley, standing where they could watch both Trant and the galvanometer dial, saw that the needle stood where it had stood for Trant before Walker put the revolver to his head.

Trant quietly took from his pocket the newspaper containing the false account of Johanson's escape, and, looking about as though for a place to put it—as he had done in his trial of Kanlan—laid it, with the Johanson paragraph uppermost, in Caylis's lap. Walker smothered an exclamation; Crowley looked up startled. The needle—which had remained so