"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 the resulting excitement. And if Nita had been
wounded only, living to tell how the shot was fired, Miles would have
committed suicide then and there.
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