"It doesn’t seem a very efficient affair," I remarked. "it has such a wretchedly small field."
"Yes," he admitted, "that is the trouble with keyholes. But this is only an experimental form. If it seems suitable in principle, we can easily devise something more efficient. What we have to ascertain first of all is whether we can see through the keyhole at all. Looking at the plan, there seems to be nothing structural in the way; but there may be some piece of furniture that will cut off the view of the room. If there is, the keyhole will be of no use to us."
I handed the little toy back to him with a shade of impatience. "But why," I asked, "all this fuss? Why go about a perfectly simple inquiry in this complicated, roundabout way? If there is good reason to believe that someone has entered the room, why not just walk in and investigate in a reasonable, straightforward manner? It seems to me that you and Brodribb are standing on rather pedantic legal scruples."
He shook his head. "I don’t think so, Jervis," said he. "When you get clear instructions, you ought to assume that the instructor means what he says. But there is another matter, which I could only hint at to Woodburn. This man, Toke, is extraordinarily secretive. He has not only fastened up every opening with locks and bolts and screws, and put seals on the fastenings, but he has forbidden his solicitor, in the most emphatic way, to enter those rooms. Now, seals furnish no security against burglars. Their security is against his own trusted man of business. You or I or any reasonable person would have left the seal with Woodburn and asked him to inspect the place from time to time to see that all was well. Why has he shut out Woodburn in this secretive fashion? We must assume that he has his reasons. But what can they be? It may be mere crankiness, or it may not. Mr. Toke may be, and probably is, a most respectable gentleman. But supposing he is not? Supposing that his activities as a dealer in works of art cover some other activities of a less reputable kind? And supposing that the products of those other activities should happen to be hidden in those sealed rooms? It is not impossible.
"But if Woodburn—or we, as his agents—should enter in the face of explicit instructions to the contrary, and discover something illicit, the position would be extremely awkward. Professional secrecy does not cover that kind of thing."
"Still," I objected, "you are prepared to enter if you find evidence that someone else has."
"Certainly," he replied. "We should have to enter or inform the police. But we should then have no choice, whereas we have at present. And that raises another question. If we break in and find traces of unlawful visitors, we shall probably spoil our chances of making a capture. We are not ready now, and our entry would almost certainly leave some traces that would warn them not to reappear. Whereas, if we should discover evidences of visitors before we make our own entry, we should be able to make arrangements to catch them when they make their next visit."
I agreed without much enthusiasm, for it seemed to me that Thorndyke was taking a mere rumour much more seriously than the circumstances justified. In fact, I ventured a hint to that effect.
"That is quite true, Jervis," he admitted. "It is a mere report, at present. Yet I shall be a little surprised if we find a mare’s nest. There is something distinctly abnormal about the whole affair. But we shall be better able to judge when we have got a statement from the servants."
"We have heard what they have to say," I replied, still extremely sceptical of the whole affair. "But, possibly, cross-examination may elicit something more definite. As you say, we shall see."
With this the discussion dropped, and we smoked our pipes in silence as we watched, from the window, the gradual transition from the grey and rather dreary suburbs to the fresh green of the country. At Hartsden Junction, Mr. Woodburn was waiting on the platform, looking more like a smart livery stable keeper than a lawyer, and evidently keenly interested in our arrival.
"I am glad to see you," he said, as we walked out to the approach, "for, the more I think about this affair, the more do I suspect that there is something amiss. And I have been reflecting on what you said about the seals. I had no idea that it was possible to forge a seal."
"I don’t think," said Thorndyke, "that you need attach much weight to the forgery question. It is merely a possibility that has to be borne in mind. In the present case, it is highly improbable, as an intruder would have to pass through the house to reach the sealed door."
"Still," objected Mr. Woodburn, "that door seems to be the only way in. Otherwise, why should Mr. Toke have sealed it?"
There was a fairly obvious reply to this, but Thorndyke made no rejoinder; and by this time we had reached the car, into which Mr. Woodburn ushered us and then took his place at the steering-wheel, looking as unsuitable for his post as if he had been at the tiller of a fishing smack.
As the car was of the saloon type, we saw little of our surroundings and nothing of the house until, entering through an open gate, we passed up a shady drive and stopped opposite a handsome stone porch. The door stood open and framed the figure of a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman.
"This," said Mr. Woodburn, introducing us, "is Mr. Toke’s housekeeper, Mrs. Gibbins. I have told her about you, and she is as much interested in you as I am."
Mrs. Gibbins confirmed this by a smile and a curtsy. "I am sure, gentlemen," said she, "we shall all be very grateful to you if you can find out what these mysterious sounds are, and put a stop to them. It is very uncomfortable to feel that strangers—and dishonest strangers, too—are creeping about the house in the dead of the night."
"It must be," Thorndyke agreed, warmly. "But, before we start to find out what those sounds are, we want to be quite sure that they really exist."
"There is no doubt about their existing," Mrs. Gibbins rejoined, with intense conviction. "We have all heard them. And they certainly come from the gallery wing, for my nephew, Edward, got out of bed on two occasions and went part of the way down the corridor and listened; and he was quite sure that the sounds came from the gallery or the rooms that open out of it. And it wasn’t rats. Everybody knows the kind of sound that rats make, scampering about an empty room. It wasn’t like that, at all. It was like someone moving about quietly and, now and again, moving things. But there is another thing that can’t be explained away. This house is supplied with water from an Artesian well. The water is pumped up by a windmill into a tank, which is on the level of the top floor, and it runs from the tank into the pipes that supply the house. The tank being so high up, the pressure of the water is quite considerable, and whenever a tap is running in any part of the house, you can hear a distinct hum in the main pipe. Of course, you can hear it much more distinctly at night when everything else is quiet.
"Now, I am a rather light sleeper, especially towards morning, and, on several occasions—over and over again—I have heard the water humming in the pipe when all the household were in bed and asleep. And always about the same time—just before it begins to get light."
"That is very remarkable, Mrs. Gibbins," said Woodburn. "You did not tell me about the water. It is a most striking fact. Don’t you think so, Doctor?"
"I do," replied Thorndyke, "especially when taken with the other sounds. I take it, Mrs. Gibbins, that there is water laid on in the gallery wing?"
"Yes, sir. There is a lavatory with a fixed basin and a cold-water tap over it, and there is also a peculiar sort of sink—Mr. Toke calls it a chemical sink, I believe—in the work-room."
"And you say that the sound of running water occurs always at the same time? Do you never hear it at other times?"
"Oh, yes," she replied, "we hear it occasionally at other times. Not very often, though. But it seems to occur always when we have heard the other sounds. It is just as if the person had been doing some job and had a wash before he went away."
Mr. Woodburn laughed cheerfully. "Tidy fellow, this," said he. I wonder what he does in there It’s a quaint situation. He’ll be ringing for his breakfast next."
"Can you form any idea," Thorndyke asked, "h
ow often these sounds occur?"
"I should say," replied Mrs. Gibbins, "that they happen pretty regularly twice a week—generally on Wednesdays and Fridays."
Mr. Woodburn laughed heartily. Thorndyke’s appearance on the scene had evidently acted favourably on his spirits.
"Quite a methodical chap," he chuckled. "Keeps regular hours, and has a wash and brush up before he goes home."
"We mustn’t take him too much for granted," Thorndyke reminded him. "We have got to establish his existence as a matter of undoubted fact, though I must admit that Mrs. Gibbins’s account is extremely circumstantial and convincing. It establishes a case for a very thorough investigation and I think we had better begin by having a look at the door of the gallery. What will be about the height of that keyhole that you spoke of?"
Mr. Woodburn indicated the height by reference to a point on his own waistcoat. "But I am afraid the keyhole won’t help you much," he added. "As I think I told you, I couldn’t see anything through it, excepting a patch of the opposite wall."
"Perhaps we can manage to get a better view," said Thorndyke; "that is, if there is nothing in the way. Probably, Mrs. Gibbins can tell us about that. How was the furniture arranged when you were in there last?"
"There is very little furniture in there, at all," the housekeeper replied, "unless you call the wall-cases furniture. There is a large table across the end of the room, and there are three chairs, one arm-chair and two ordinary dining-room chairs. The arm-chair is behind the table, nearly in the middle, and the other two are at the ends of the table."
"You say they ‘are’," Thorndyke remarked. "Do you mean that that is how they were placed when you were last in the room?"
"Yes, sir. But I think they must be like that still, because the last time I was in there was on the day when Mr. Toke went away. I helped him to shut up the room and seal the door. They couldn’t very well have been moved after that."
"Apparently not," Thorndyke admitted. "Then, in that case, we may as well go and have a look at the door and see if it is possible to get a glimpse of the inside of the room. And perhaps we had better take a chair with us, as the keyhole is at a rather inconvenient height."
Mr. Woodburn picked up a chair and led the way out of the morning room in which we had been holding our conversation, across the hall and into a narrow passage, which became almost dark as a sharp turn cut off the light from the doorway by which we had entered.
"Queer old place," he remarked as the corridor took another turn. "All holes and corners. I am wondering how you are going to see into that room. I couldn’t; but I suppose a man who can produce another man’s seal out of a top hat won’t make any difficulty about seeing round a corner."
"We have only undertaken to try," Thorndyke reminded him. "Don’t let us take credit prematurely."
The disclaimer was not entirely unnecessary; for, when the corridor took yet another abrupt turn and brought us to a blind end in which was a massive door it became clear to me, from the manner both of Mrs Gibbins and Mr. Woodburn, that there was an expectation of some sort of display of occult powers on Thorndyke’s part. So much so that, for the first time, I felt quite grateful to Polton.
"There you are," said Mr. Woodburn, placing the chair in position, and standing back expectantly to watch the proceedings, as if he had some hopes of seeing Thorndyke put his head through the keyhole, "Let us see how you do it."
My colleague seated himself with a deprecating smile, and, laying the research case on the floor, unfastened the catch and raised the lid; whereupon Mr. Woodburn and Mrs. Gibbins craned forward to peer in, Having taken a preliminary peep through the keyhole, Thorndyke produced the little wooden case and drew out Polton’s diminutive spy-glass, which he inserted easily enough into the roomy opening. As he applied his eye to the tiny eyepiece and turned the milled ring to adjust the mirror, the two observers watched him with bated breath; as, indeed, did I, and with no small anxiety. For, apart from the importance of the result, a complete failure would have been a shocking anticlimax. Great, therefore, was my relief when Thorndyke announced:
"Well, at any rate, there is no obstruction to the view, such as it is. But it is not easy to make out the arrangement and relative positions of things with such a very restricted field of vision. However, as far as I can see, there are no signs of any appreciable disturbance. I can see the wall-cases at the end of the room, and their shelves are filled with what look like Bow and Chelsea figures. So there has been no robbery there. The cases at the sides of the room are not so easy to see, but I think I can make out the contents, and they appear to contain their full complement. Evidently, so far as the collection is concerned, there has been no robbery on any considerable scale.
"Then the position of the furniture corresponds generally with Mrs. Gibbins’s description. There is an arm-chair behind the table and an ordinary dining-chair at each end. I can also see what looks like a shallow box or case of some kind on the table."
"A box on the table?" exclaimed Mrs. Gibbins. "That is curious. I don’t remember any box, or anything else, on the table."
"Perhaps Mr. Toke put it there after you left," suggested Mr. Woodburn.
"But he couldn’t," Mrs. Gibbins objected. "I went out with him and helped him to seal up the door. He couldn’t have gone back after that."
"No. That is obvious," Woodburn admitted. "So it looks as if someone had been in the room, after all."
"Do you say, positively, Mrs. Gibbins, that there was nothing on the table when you left the room with Mr. Toke?" Thorndyke asked.
"Well, sir," the housekeeper replied, "one doesn’t like to be too positive, but I certainly thought that there was nothing on the table. In fact, I feel sure that there wasn’t."
"That seems pretty conclusive," said Woodburn. "What do you think, Doctor?"
"It is conclusive enough to us," Thorndyke replied, diplomatically. "But, as a lawyer, you will realize the difficulty of coming to a definite decision on negative evidence. To justify you in acting in direct opposition to your client’s instructions, you ought to have undeniable positive evidence. We are not considering our own beliefs, but the legal position."
"Yes, that is true," Mr. Woodburn conceded, evidently interpreting Thorndyke’s polite hint that ladies are sometimes apt to confuse the subjective with the objective aspects of certainty.
"Do you see anything else?"
"No. I think that is the sum of my observations, But remember that the room is strange to me. Perhaps if you, who know the room, were to take a look through the instrument, you might detect some change that would not be apparent to me."
To say that Woodburn jumped at the offer would be to understate the case. In his eagerness to occupy the seat of observation, he nearly sat on Thorndyke’s lap. But, apparently, Polton’s "contraption" did not come up to his expectations, for, after peering in at the eyepiece for some seconds, he said in a tone of slight disappointment: "I don’t seem to make much of it. I can only see a tiny bit at a time, and everything looks in its wrong place. The table seems to be right opposite this door instead of where I know it to be."
"You must disregard the positions of things," Thorndyke explained. "Remember that you are looking into a mirror."
"Oh, I hadn’t realized that," said Woodburn, hastily. "Of course, that explains the odd appearance of the room." He reapplied his eye to the instrument, and now was able to manage it better, for he presently reported:
"I think the cases look all right and everything else appears as usual. As to that box, of course, I can say nothing. I have never seen it before, and I can’t quite make out what sort of box it is. It looks like metal."
"That was what I thought," said Thorndyke. "Perhaps Mrs. Gibbins may recognize it." The suggestion was evidently acceptable, for the housekeeper "outed" Mr. Woodburn with great promptness, and, having seated herself, applied her eye to the instrument. But she was even less successful than her predecessor, for, after a prolonged stare through the eyepiece, she a
nnounced that she could se nothing but the carpet, which appeared, unreasonably, to have affixed itself to the opposite wall. However, Thorndyke came to her aid, and eventually enabled her to see the mysterious box on the table; concerning which she again asserted with deep conviction that, not only was she quite sure that it had not been there when she and Mr. Toke had vacated the room, but that she was equally certain that she had never seen the box before at all.
When she had finished her observations (which seemed to concern themselves principally with the floor and the ceiling), I came into the reversion of the chair, by way, ostensibly, of confirming the previous observations. And, when I came to look through the little instrument in the conditions for which it was designed, I was disposed to be apologetic to Polton. The field of view was, indeed, extremely small, but the little circular picture at which one looked was beautifully clear and bright; and the fine adjustment for moving the mirror enabled one to shift the field of vision gradually and preserve a continuity in the things seen that had, to some extent, the effect of a larger field.
"Well," said Woodburn, as I rose from the chair, "what have we arrived at? Or haven’t we arrived at any conclusion?"
"I think," said Thorndyke, "that we must conclude that our observations tend to confirm the suspicion that someone had obtained access to this room. But I do not think that we have enough evidence to justify us in disregarding Mr. Toke’s very definite instructions."
"Then," said Woodburn, "what do you suggest that we ought to do?"
"I suggest that we make a careful survey of the house to see if we can find any means of access to this room that the seals do not cover; and if, as I expect, we fail to find any such means, then we must make some more exact and continuous observations from this door."
"You don’t suggest that we post someone at this keyhole to keep watch continuously, do you?" exclaimed Woodburn.
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