Arthur Somers Roche

“ But when there is nothing else to do but take a chance in a million, what can one do? Doesn’t a drowning man snatch at a straw? You’ve brought the major’s revolver? You’ve loaded it with blank cartridges? Then we’ll try it. And if we fail—doctor, the name and happiness of a woman depends on success. ”

“ Sound will shatter glass if the vibration of the sound is equal to the vibration of the glass. Huge buildings could be destroyed by sound, if one could only create the properly vibrating sound. And here is the principle.
“Let us say—I do not pretend to be exact—that the mass of a glass vibrates four hundred times a second. Let a sound be made that vibrates four hundred times a second, near to the glass. Those vibrations of the sound—waves, so to speak—will accelerate the vibration of the glass. ”

“ I’m not much on science. I’ve forgotten about all the physics I ever learned at school. But I remember this much—all matter vibrates. Everything vibrates, even sound. And in the text-books at school they tell you that a sound will shatter glass. It is that knowledge that was brought back to me by the word of the youth at the picture theater, and by the sight of a tuning-fork while the recollection of his word was fresh in my memory.
“The tumbler that held the major’s revolver was shattered. There was no jar to shatter it. ”

“ Reese’s evidence is proof enough of that, and that evidence we can not doubt. So then, of the three methods by which the major may have died, murder, suicide and accident, we eliminate the first two. There remains only accident.
“The testimony at the inquest was conclusive, it appeared, that there had been no jar of the building sufficient to overturn the glass which held the major’s revolver. Therefore, we all dismissed the idea of accident at once. Yes, even you jurymen, who brought in a verdict of accidental death! You did not believe that accident was the cause of death. ”

“ I could stand it myself, knowing of my innocence, but for you to have a wife whom constantly you would feel it necessary to defend—I could not. I know that my friends believe in me; your friends might come to believe in me, too. ”

“ So, when, the pressure of the sound vibration is released, coincident with the cessation of its own inward vibration, the edges swing back and outward, unimpeded by a following blow of the second vibration.
“As a swing is accelerated by pushes that are all of equal strength, and yet flies higher each time, so does the glass act. With each continuing vibration of sound its edges go farther in, then farther out, than is normal. The strain becomes too great—the glass is shattered. ”

“ For instance, let us say that the sound vibrations measure eight hundred to the second and that the glass vibrations measure four hundred. The edges of the glass draw together. They are struck by the first wave of the sound. They draw closer together. But as they react and draw apart, they are struck by the second wave of the sound. They are struck just as they are swinging back into the normal, prepared to spread outward instead of inward.
“But that second blow from the sound vibration checks the tendency to swing outward. It stops the vibratory movement for a fraction of a second. ”

“ Reese, had sworn that my uncle did not kill himself, and that all the evidence went to prove that it was not by accident that he died? Have you forgotten that, and what sneering comments were editorially made about the manner in which women murderers were treated in this country? How it was easy for any woman to kill, provided that she were reasonably young and not too ugly? ”

“ There seems little connection between a moving picture of German infantry crossing a little wooden bridge in France and an ordinary piano repairer’s tuning-fork, and the death of Major Penrose. But there is, and I will show you the connection.
“Early yesterday afternoon I saw, in the moving pictures, German soldiers breaking ranks to cross a bridge. I heard a young man tell his girl companion that they did so lest vibration shake down the bridge. ”