hole in the ceiling that I could not
understand, and which Ralph Hammond assured me was not there Saturday
morning before Nita was killed.... Miles joined a piece of electric wire
to the dining room bell wires, and pushed it down through the hole he
had bored into the basement ceiling. Now if you'll come down with me--"

When the three men stood staring upward at the basement ceiling, Dundee
continued:

"See this long wire running along the ceiling from the hole beneath the
dining room bell? The tacks Miles used to secure it were also returned
to the tool chest, but he could not get rid of either the augur hole or
the tiny holes showing the course of the wire.... Let's follow it."

He led them across the basement to a door leading into a dank,
unfinished portion of the cellar, directly east of Lydia's bedroom and
beneath Nita's. The wire whose course they were following led under the
top frame of the door, and, with a flashlight in his hand, Dundee showed
how it continued along a rafter until it reached the place where it was
joined, by adhesive tape, to the wire Sprague had dropped from Nita's
bedroom floor above.

"Miles simply cut the wire here where it enters another hole through
Lydia's bedroom wall, and attached the new wire," Dundee explained. "The
connection between the dining room bell and the electro-magnet in the
lamp upstairs was then complete.... Sprague had bought yards too much of
the wire--fortunately for Miles' scheme."

"But what a chance Miles took on the bullet's not hitting her in a fatal
spot!" Sanderson commented in an awed voice.

"Not much of a chance!" Dundee denied. "He would fire the gun only when
he knew Nita was seated before her dressing-table. Experienced marksman
that he was, he could calculate the path of the bullet to a nicety. Of
course the machine had to be used that very day. As you know Nita
herself gave him his chance. Miles, standing at the sideboard, which was
separated from Nita's dressing table only by a thin wall, listened until
the first faint notes of _Juanita_ told him that Nita was powdering her
face. He could be almost positive that Nita was sitting down to her
task.... The poor girl saw nothing to alarm her, but the gun kicked when
the shot was fired by Lois' innocent stepping upon the dining room bell,
and the big lamp was rocked so that it banged against the window frame,
shattering the one bulb Miles had left in it. Of course he moved the
lamp a foot or so, in