“Then you knew it was unsafe.”

“I knew he wanted the cable to slip at the third pull. He said the main frame would catch it.”

Daniel stared. “Did you believe him?”

Silas looked toward the large hanging counterweight. “I wanted to.”

“You brought the bracelet into my shop.”

Silas’s silence answered him.

“Why?”

“Pike told me your drawer was where the lady’s bracelet belonged. Said you were a thief and he wanted it found. I did not think they would put the other charge on you.”

“Would you have cared about the first?”

Silas opened his mouth but found no defense.

Daniel stepped closer, chain scraping against the ground. “You may have set that weight to fall on innocent people. You will show me exactly what you installed.”

Silas said, “Pike will kill me.”

“He may. But the weight will fall whether you are afraid or not.”

Silas glanced toward the door where Aaron stood watch. Then he reached into his pocket and took out a second brass pin. It was longer than the hinge pin, darkened with grease.

“That is the trigger,” he said. “And it is not where you think.”

5. THREE PULLS

Silas laid the pin across Daniel’s palm. At one end a notch had been filed into the metal, narrowing it just enough to break under repeated load. A sound pin would hold the carriage through hundreds of cycles. This one might hold twice, perhaps three times, and then shear.

“Pike told me to make it look like a carpenter’s mistake,” Silas said.

Daniel turned it over. “He wanted an accident that would be certain, but not immediate.”

“He said the third opening would be the grand one.”

At the third pull, the committee members would have crowded forward, believing the device had already passed two successful tests. If the pin sheared then, the counterweight would tear the bracket sideways and swing the frame toward the gallery. Fiske had financial control over the credit syndicate. A dead Fiske would leave his younger partner, Pike’s cousin, free to renegotiate Alden’s debts. Daniel knew none of the contractual details and did not need them to understand the murder.

“Where is the real pin?” Daniel asked.

“In the upper bracket. This one is the spare. Same cut.”

“Can you remove it?”

“With a ladder and time.”

“Then do it.”

Silas recoiled. “Pike has a man there day and night.”

Daniel glanced at the chain on his ankle. “You can work in front of him. I cannot.”

“What would I say?”

“That the bracket needs grease.”

Silas shook his head. “He watches every bolt I turn.”

Daniel considered the geometry. If the bracket could not be reached, perhaps the movement could be changed. The machine used two hand levers: one lowered the sliding frame, the other raised it. The third pull in the planned demonstration would be the final raise. Daniel could detach the gallery-side connecting rod and direct that motion inward, toward an empty loading bay. But changing the rod would be visible. Pike would notice before the inspection.