This passage comes from page 596 of Curiosities of Popular Customs and of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities by William S. Walsh (1925).
Key of Death. (It. Chiave della Morte.) A large key preserved in the arsenal at Venice. It is so constructed that the handle may be turned around, revealing a small spring, which, being pressed, drives a very fine needle with considerable force from the other end. This needle is so delicate that the flesh closed over the wound immediately, leaving no mark. It was invented by Tebaldo, a stranger, who established himself as a merchant, in Venice, about 1600. Becoming enamoured of the daughter of an ancient house, he sought her hand in marriage, but was rejected, as she was already affianced. Enraged and seeking revenge, he waited at the church door as the maiden of his choice passed in to her marriage, and then, unperceived, he sent the needle into the breast of the bridegroom. The latter, seized with a sharp pain, fainted, was carried home, and died soon after, his strange illness baffling the skill of the physicians. Tebaldo again asked for the maiden's hand, was again refused, and in a few days both her parents died in the same mysterious manner. Upon examination of their bodies, the small steel instrument was found embedded in the flesh. The young lady went into a convent during her mourning, and here Tebaldo pressed his suit, but, with an instinctive horror of the man, she declined his offer, whereupon he contrived to wound her. Upon her return to her room she felt a pain in her breast, saw a single drop of blood, and when surgeons were hastily summoned, with ready intuition, they cut into the wounded part, extracted the needle, and saved her life. Suspicion immediately falling upon the right culprit, his house was searched, the key was discovered, and Tebaldo was executed.
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