CHAPTER XVII
THE LAMP
The moment we drew up before the house, McKelvie sprang out anddisappeared from view. I switched off the motor and clambered out tofind Jenkins waiting for me. He nodded in the direction of the groundsand as I had no mind to hunt for McKelvie I was on the point ofascending the steps when he appeared suddenly from behind a clump ofbushes.
"Just taking stock of the general atmosphere, as it were," he said,waving his hand in the direction of the grounds, which made me take asecond look at my surroundings.
My first visit had not been conducive to leisurely inspection and I nowsaw that the house was exceedingly unusual, a replica of the relic of abygone age, although by no means so very old itself. It had been modeledafter a type of dwelling that is now obsolete, but which was much invogue when the English held sway over the Island of Manhattan, and was amassive affair with the servants' wing tacked on at the back like anafter-thought (which it probably was, since it looked newer than theoriginal domicile), and connected with the main building by a narrowenclosed passageway.
The entire structure, including the garage in the rear, stood directlyin the center of the vast grounds, and was completely screened from theview of the curious by the forest of trees that surrounded it. It was anodd house, and it is a great pity it is no longer standing, but in away I can hardly blame the heirs for having had it torn down and amodern home built on the site, since it must forever have remainedcoupled in their minds with associations which we who were in any wayconnected with the events which took place in that house, were all of usendeavoring to forget.
"Only two things to be learned here," said McKelvie. "First, that itwould be easy for anyone to enter or leave the grounds unnoticed on adark night."
"And it was dark that night, beastly dark," I interrupted.
"And secondly, that there is more space occupied by the left side of thehouse than by the right."
He pointed to the building and I saw what he meant. The left side juttedout almost beyond the steps. The right side was cut off level with thetopmost gradient and in line with the front door.
"What a curious way to build a house," I remarked. "What's theinterpretation, McKelvie?"
His answer was to spring up the steps and ring the bell. He waited a fewminutes, then hearing no sound rang again.
"It's no good," said McKelvie, with a shrug, after our third attempt torouse the inmates. "They've probably deserted the ship. It's a habitwith servants when things go wrong in a house. Jenkins, go around backand see if you can unearth the butler. He can be depended upon to haveremained behind. Tell him that Mr. Davies wishes to enter the house."
As Jenkins disappeared, McKelvie continued: "Strange that Orton hasn'tthe gumption to find out what's wanted."
"He left the house for good after the inquest," I returned. "I doubt ifthere is anyone living here now."
"What about young Darwin?"
"Lee? The last I heard of him he had gone South."
"Lee Darwin gone South?" he repeated. "How do you know?"
"I forgot to mention it last night, but when I first called on you Ialso went to the Yale Club. They told me Lee had left for the South theprevious afternoon. At the time I thought it queer that he should go sosoon after the murder, without waiting to attend his uncle's funeral."
"It was odd. I'll have to start somebody on his trail at once. Did youknow that he was here the night of the murder?"
"Here in the house?" I gasped.
"No. Outside the study window," he returned.
"But McKelvie," I answered, thinking to trip him, "that footprint wasmade by Lee Darwin in leaving the study."
"What footprint?" He stared at me in evident surprise.
"I understood you to mean that you had deduced Lee's presence from thefootprint that Jones discovered," I returned abashed.
He laughed heartily. "My dear man, where are your reasoning powers?Footprints don't last forever and we have had a shower since the murder.Besides I'm not clairvoyant enough to guess by a look at the imprintwhose shoe made it. No, I base my deduction on this."
He held up a stick-pin of a peculiar dull brown hue, made in the shapeof the head of a bulldog. On the gold setting around the base of thehead had been engraved the name, L. Darwin.
"Where did you find it?" I asked eagerly, as he slipped it into hiswallet.
"Beneath the first two windows of the study the ivy has grown verythickly. I found the pin close to the wall and directly beneath thesecond window, entangled in the vine. The head is exactly the color ofthe ivy stem and it had remained unnoticed. I saw it because I washoping to find proof of his presence there."
"But I do not see how you could possibly know he had been there," Iobjected.
"I've learned to read between the lines and I spent the night inthoroughly acquainting myself with the inquest. Besides, Mr. Davies, youhave a very retentive mind and you told me more than you guessed lastnight. One of the things you emphasized was the fact that Lee Darwin hadseemed to know that his uncle was dead when he saw the coroner, and thathe had turned deathly pale when suddenly accused of being outside thestudy that fatal night. You ended by saying that although that point wascleared up to everyone's satisfaction you were still persuaded that theyoung man knew more than he gave out, and I agree with you there."
"But if he witnessed events, why doesn't he clear Ruth then?" Iprotested.
"I didn't say he saw anything. I merely said he was there," he retorted,and refused to discuss the point further, which was just as wellperhaps, for Jenkins was holding the door open and there was much to bedone if McKelvie was to clear Ruth before her trial.
As we entered I noticed Mason hovering in the background, and I noddedto him. "Mason, this gentleman is a detective who has come to solve themystery of your master's death. I should be obliged if you would let himin whenever he comes here."
"Yes, sir, indeed I will, sir. Master was my master and I'm not sayinganything against the dead, sir, but I'd like to see someone else swingfor it, indeed I would, sir," he said in a troubled whisper.
"Thank you, Mason. That is all. If we need you we shall call you."
He moved slowly toward the servants' entrance and I turned to look forMcKelvie. He had been examining the lock of the front door, and now hewas employed in measuring the respective distances of the stairs and thedrawing-room door from that of the study. As Mason disappeared, however,McKelvie looked up at me with a smile.
"Ready?" he inquired, and when I nodded he opened the door of the studywith an eager air and the light of battle in his eyes.
I had expected to see him whip out a lens and begin a minute examinationof the room. Instead he adjusted the chair in the position in which ithad stood on the fatal night, and seating himself in, closed his eyes.
This procedure did not at all impress me as the right way to go aboutsolving the crime, when every moment was precious. I was on the point ofremonstrating with him when Jenkins enjoined silence upon me.
"He's thinking, sir," he said low.
Thinking! I was thoroughly disgusted. With my intimate knowledge of thecase thinking for five consecutive days had brought me nowhere, yet herewas this man whom I had engaged to find clues and investigate the murderthoroughly, sitting back in a chair thinking--goodness knows about what,since all the thinking in the world would not produce the tangiblematerial evidence of which we stood in such dire need!
"Jenkins!" McKelvie sat up with a suddenness that startled me. "Openthat safe."
As Jenkins knelt before the huge contraption and manipulated the dialwith deft fingers, McKelvie turned to me with a quizzical smile.
"Don't become annoyed, Mr. Davies," he said quietly. "Each man his ownmethod, you know. I was just trying to decide a certain small point andnow that I have satisfied myself as to my correctness in the matter,I'll be as energetic as anyone could possibly wish."
I felt the blood surge into my cheeks, as I said a little stiffly, "Ididn't mean to criticize----"
/> "No harm done," he interrupted lightly, rising and laying a hand on myarm for a moment. Then he addressed my man. "You're mighty slow for anadept, Jenkins."
"An adept! Jenkins!" I could hardly articulate the words.
"A former adept in the art of safe-cracking," answered McKelvie with aflourish. "But I trust you won't count that against him since hereformed some years ago."
"No, of course not," I murmured hastily, as Jenkins looked up at me withpleading in his somber eyes. "He's a very good servant, whatever elsehe may have been."
With a beaming smile Jenkins rose and opened the door of the safe.
"Now," said McKelvie, "I'm going to show you several curious, but ratherinteresting facts."
He turned to the lamp upon the table and gazed at it thoughtfully for amoment, then he snapped it on and off. "Did you notice anything oddabout it?" he asked.
In imitation of his manner, I too gazed steadily at the lamp. I had paidno great attention to it before, being too overwrought to noticedetails, but now I saw, or thought I saw, what he meant.
In keeping with the style of the room, the lamp though small was made inthe shape of a bacchante who wore on her hair a crown of leaves andabout her bare shoulders a wreath of the grapevine, so exceedingly heavythat she held it away from her graceful body with her hands, from whichdepended a rather large cluster of magnificent grapes.
"It is very beautiful," I responded, "but odd for a lamp, and that bunchof grapes seems almost out of all proportion to the rest of the figure."
"True, but that is not what I referred to," he returned. "Look here!"
Again he pulled the cord which cleverly imitated a stray tendrilclinging to the wreath, and a pleasant glow suffused the table, but muchas I looked I could detect nothing amiss.
McKelvie smiled involuntarily at my anxious endeavor to discover theflaw. "Don't you see that the light comes from the right side of thatcluster and not from the center?" he remarked. "Which means a doublesocket of course. Why then doesn't the other bulb light also?"
"There may be no bulb in the left-hand socket," I suggested. "Or it maybe broken."
He nodded. "We'll soon settle that." He unscrewed the bunch of grapesand revealed the double socket, each part of which was provided with abulb. He exchanged the bulbs and when he pulled the cord the samecondition obtained. Only the bulb on the right lighted.
"It isn't broken, you see. Therefore, it must be lighted from some othersource. I divined as much when Mrs. Darwin declared she hadn't touchedit, and that if it had been lighted from the table she would have seenthe person who pulled the cord. The only thing remaining is to find theswitch that operates it."
Without a moment's hesitation he made for the safe and I followed himhastily. Now that I was in front of it I saw that the safe was nothingbut a closet containing three shelves, which were built into the sidewalls at such a height that by stooping slightly a man could pass underthem with ease. I glanced along the lowest shelf, although I knew thatit was empty since Jones' entrance at the inquest, but McKelvie paid noattention to the bareness of the cupboard. He was engrossed in fingeringthe wall beyond the door. Then with a grunt of satisfaction he caught myhand and placed it where his had been. Instantly my fingers came incontact with a small button. I pushed it, and lo! the left bulb of thelamp sprang suddenly into being.
"Well, I'll be hanged!" I ejaculated, looking at McKelvie. "Why does anysane person want to light his lamp from his safe?" I asked.
"Because, Mr. Davies, it's no more a safe than I am--well--Jenkins," hereturned impressively.
"Not a safe?" I exclaimed.
"No."
"Then what--?"
"I'm going to show you." McKelvie again fingered lightly the wall, butthis time it was the wall which formed the back of the safe.
Presently with that same peculiar grunt he took out a pocket-flash and aknife. Opening the knife he pried the point into what looked by the aidof the flash like a harmless knot-hole just beneath the lowest shelf.(He was kneeling on the floor of the safe and Jenkins and I werestooping to watch him.) The next moment the knot-hole had swung aside,revealing to our astonished gaze a tiny key-hole!
The back of the safe was in reality a door!
Silently we watched as McKelvie fished out his keys and tried them inthe lock but without success. Then he spoke to Jenkins. "Tell Mason togive you all of Mr. Darwin's keys, but don't let him come in here."
"Very well, sir."
When Jenkins returned with the keys McKelvie tried them in the lock, oneafter the other, but the door remained as securely locked as before.
"Strange," he said, looking annoyed. "You are sure you brought me allthe keys?" he added abruptly.
"Yes, sir, even the ones he had in his pocket when he was shot, sir,"responded Jenkins.
"Odd. I hate to break it open. It might be useful later on."
Jenkins, who had been peering intently at the key-hole over McKelvie'sshoulder, spoke suddenly. "No need to smash it, sir. I still have my oldtool kit and if I'm not mistaken I have a master key that will fit thislock."
"Off with you, then. Break all traffic laws if necessary. Only be backas soon as possible," cried McKelvie gayly, and I never saw the solemnJenkins move so fast before.
While we awaited the man's return McKelvie came out of the safe andresumed his indolent pose. Again I found myself growing exasperated withhis attitude. Surely there were clues to be found in the room, and hewasn't thinking because those brilliant black eyes were wide-open andwore an expression of contented ease.
"Since you object to my inactivity," he remarked quietly, "let's talk.At least we shall be exercising our tongues, if nothing more," and helaughed oddly.
I ceased trying to understand him and welcomed the opening that he gaveme. "Will you answer me three questions?" I inquired.
"Depends on what they are," he returned laconically.
"Nothing really startling," I answered, laughing. "I merely wished toknow why if Lee Darwin was outside that study window he did not leavefootprints for the police to discover, as they did the ones that he madein the morning."
"Because there is a flower-bed under all the windows except the firsttwo. Beneath those two the cement walk reaches to the wall. He stood onthis walk that night, but in the morning having just come in the doorhe rushed out of the window nearest to him and stepped into theflower-bed."
"I see. Now here's question two. How did you know so unerringly that thelamp was also lighted from the safe?"
"Childishly simple. I had already deduced a secret entrance."
"How?" I broke in.
"Sherlock Holmes says, 'Exclude the impossible, whatever remainsimprobable must be the truth.' Mrs. Darwin didn't kill her husband or Ishould not be here. The case is one of murder, not suicide, thereforesomeone else must have been in the room at midnight. He couldn't leaveby the windows or the door and flesh and blood doesn't vanish into air,ergo he must have gone out by some other entrance, natural inference asecret one, since it wasn't discovered."
I nodded. So far it was absurdly simple and clear. I was a triflemortified that I had not divined it myself, but then such things werenot in my line and the affair stuck too close to home to leave me anycapacity for ratiocination.
"The question that had to be settled then," he continued, "was thesituation of this entrance. I called your attention to the peculiararchitecture of the house. When I entered the study I noticed that thesafe occupied the wall in question. Jenkins opened it for me and I sawthat it was the size of an ordinary closet and not very deep. What wasmore reasonable than to deduce that the remaining space between the backof the safe and the outer wall of the house was occupied by a passage ofsome kind!"
Again I nodded. "Of course. It was just a question of accounting for theextra square footage of house. But you haven't answered my originalquery."
"About the light? Mrs. Darwin said she didn't touch it, the dead manpresumably couldn't, therefore the murderer must have done so. If he hadpulled the cord
Mrs. Darwin would have seen him, hence he lighted thelamp from some other source. Where? Not at the main switch near thedoor, for he had to vanish at once, knowing the shot would rouse thehousehold. Besides, Mrs. Darwin would have heard the click when hepushed the button. The only place left was somewhere near the entrance.It was more likely to be inside than out, since, as before, Mrs. Darwinheard no sound. So I looked for it in the most plausible spot and foundit."
I smiled. "You have answered my third question, which related to thesecret entrance, but I have thought of two more to take its place. Ifthe murderer used Darwin's pistol, how is it that only Ruth'sfinger-prints are on it?"
"He'd be too clever not to use gloves," returned McKelvie shortly.
"To be sure. But here's a harder one. How did the criminal, if he wasbehind Ruth, shoot Philip Darwin with such accuracy in the dark?"
"Exactly, that's just the point," he replied enigmatically.
The Mystery of the Hidden Room Page 17
