The Mystery of the Hidden Room Part 22

"Jenkins!" McKelvie sat up with a suddenness that startled me. "Open that safe."

As Jenkins knelt before the huge contraption and manipulated the dial with deft fingers, McKelvie turned to me with a quizzical smile.

"Don't become annoyed, Mr. Davies," he said quietly. "Each man his own method, you know. I was just trying to decide a certain small point and now 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, "I didn't mean to criticize----"

"No harm done," he interrupted lightly, rising and laying a hand on my arm for a moment. Then he addressed my man. "You're mighty slow for an adept, Jenkins."

"An adept! Jenkins!" I could hardly articulate the words.

"A former adept in the art of safe-cracking," answered McKelvie with a flourish. "But I trust you won't count that against him since he reformed some years ago."

"No, of course not," I murmured hastily, as Jenkins looked up at me with pleading in his somber eyes. "He's a very good servant, whatever else he 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 rather interesting facts."

He turned to the lamp upon the table and gazed at it thoughtfully for a moment, then he snapped it on and off. "Did you notice anything odd about it?" he asked.

In imitation of his manner, I too gazed steadily at the lamp. I had paid no great attention to it before, being too overwrought to notice details, 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 in the shape of a bacchante who wore on her hair a crown of leaves and about her bare shoulders a wreath of the grapevine, so exceedingly heavy that she held it away from her graceful body with her hands, from which depended a rather large cl.u.s.ter of magnificent grapes.

"It is very beautiful," I responded, "but odd for a lamp, and that bunch of 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 tendril clinging to the wreath, and a pleasant glow suffused the table, but much as I looked I could detect nothing amiss.

McKelvie smiled involuntarily at my anxious endeavor to discover the flaw. "Don't you see that the light comes from the right side of that cl.u.s.ter and not from the center?" he remarked. "Which means a double socket 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 may be broken."

He nodded. "We'll soon settle that." He unscrewed the bunch of grapes and revealed the double socket, each part of which was provided with a bulb. He exchanged the bulbs and when he pulled the cord the same condition obtained. Only the bulb on the right lighted.

"It isn't broken, you see. Therefore, it must be lighted from some other source. I divined as much when Mrs. Darwin declared she hadn't touched it, and that if it had been lighted from the table she would have seen the person who pulled the cord. The only thing remaining is to find the switch that operates it."

Without a moment's hesitation he made for the safe and I followed him hastily. Now that I was in front of it I saw that the safe was nothing but a closet containing three shelves, which were built into the side walls at such a height that by stooping slightly a man could pa.s.s under them with ease. I glanced along the lowest shelf, although I knew that it was empty since Jones' entrance at the inquest, but McKelvie paid no attention to the bareness of the cupboard. He was engrossed in fingering the wall beyond the door. Then with a grunt of satisfaction he caught my hand and placed it where his had been. Instantly my fingers came in contact with a small b.u.t.ton. I pushed it, and lo! the left bulb of the lamp sprang suddenly into being.

"Well, I'll be hanged!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, looking at McKelvie. "Why does any sane 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," he returned impressively.

"Not a safe?" I exclaimed.

"No."

"Then what--?"

"I'm going to show you." McKelvie again fingered lightly the wall, but this 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 a knife. Opening the knife he pried the point into what looked by the aid of 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 were stooping 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 in the lock but without success. Then he spoke to Jenkins. "Tell Mason to give 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, one after the other, but the door remained as securely locked as before.

"Strange," he said, looking annoyed. "You are sure you brought me all the 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's shoulder, spoke suddenly. "No need to smash it, sir. I still have my old tool kit and if I'm not mistaken I have a master key that will fit this lock."

"Off with you, then. Break all traffic laws if necessary. Only be back as soon as possible," cried McKelvie gayly, and I never saw the solemn Jenkins move so fast before.

While we awaited the man's return McKelvie came out of the safe and resumed his indolent pose. Again I found myself growing exasperated with his att.i.tude. Surely there were clues to be found in the room, and he wasn't thinking because those brilliant black eyes were wide-open and wore 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 he laughed oddly.

I ceased trying to understand him and welcomed the opening that he gave me. "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 to know why if Lee Darwin was outside that study window he did not leave footprints for the police to discover, as they did the ones that he made in the morning."

"Because there is a flower-bed under all the windows except the first two. Beneath those two the cement walk reaches to the wall. He stood on this walk that night, but in the morning having just come in the door he rushed out of the window nearest to him and stepped into the flower-bed."

"I see. Now here's question two. How did you know so unerringly that the lamp 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 remains improbable must be the truth.' Mrs. Darwin didn't kill her husband or I should not be here. The case is one of murder, not suicide, therefore someone else must have been in the room at midnight. He couldn't leave by 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 a secret one, since it wasn't discovered."

I nodded. So far it was absurdly simple and clear. I was a trifle mortified that I had not divined it myself, but then such things were not in my line and the affair stuck too close to home to leave me any capacity for ratiocination.