The Mystery of the Hidden Room Part 32

"There was a young man here not so very many days ago who talked like that. I told him all I knew and he went and printed it in the paper. If that's the kind you are I shan't say one word," she retorted, her fat face flus.h.i.+ng at the trick played upon her.

"We are not reporters, if that is what you mean," returned McKelvie soothingly.

Under the spell of his voice she heaved an enormous sigh of relief and lowered herself into a very wide arm-chair.

"You said that on the night of the seventh of October, Miss Manning went away from here?" McKelvie began.

"Yes, she left somewhere around eleven o'clock."

"On foot or in a taxi?"

"She went on foot and I watched her cross Gramercy Park and go toward the Subway," said Mrs. Harmon.

"Didn't you think it peculiar that she should leave suddenly at that time of night without leaving her address behind?" he continued.

The woman rocked back and forth several times before she answered.

"Well, no. You see I didn't tell that other young man so, because he didn't ask me, and besides I didn't like his looks. But I guess you're all right. You have an honest face. I know pretty well why she wanted to go away. I would have gone, too, in her place, poor girl.

"It all comes of taking up with these idle rich young men who have more money than brains, say I," she went on with a self-righteous toss of her head. I smiled. I couldn't imagine any young man, rich or poor, taking a fancy to Mrs. Harmon. I wondered what kind of man Mr. Harmon had been, but then she may have been slimmer when he first met and married her. "I told Miss Manning she was doing a foolish thing, but she wouldn't listen and engaged herself to a young chap named Lee Darwin," the good lady continued. "I hadn't anything against the young man, he seemed a nice boy, but after a while another man took to coming around. He was older and wore a beard and eyegla.s.ses. I didn't like him and told her there would be trouble, but she thought she knew best, and so there was trouble." Mrs. Harmon closed her lips on the words complacently.

"The morning of the seventh, Lee Darwin came here looking like a madman, and they had some kind of a quarrel in this very room. I don't know what it was about, but I heard him telling her that he was through with the likes of her, and then he bounced out again. Well, she acted kind of dazed for a while and then she made an appointment on the phone. When she came back from her lessons he just mooned around, and at ten-thirty that night she packed her bag and said she was going on a long journey, and if anyone inquired where she was, to say I didn't know. But she wouldn't tell me where she was going, and I figured she had decided to hide away till she got over her hurt."

"Yes, I guess you're right," said McKelvie. "And now one more request. I should like to see her room."

Mrs. Harmon eyed him suspiciously, but he gave her his best smile, which would have melted a harder heart than hers, and hoisting herself to her feet she led the way up the stairs to Cora Manning's room.

It was a small room but nicely furnished and very dainty, as befitted the bedroom of a refined young woman, but McKelvie hardly looked at it.

He opened a handkerchief box on the dresser and when Mrs. Harmon had her back turned he slipped something into his pocket.

"Thank you, Mrs. Harmon, you have been most kind," he said, as we left the room.

"Not at all. I guess you can find your way out. It's kind of hard for me, climbing stairs so much. Give the door a bang and it'll lock itself," she returned, and we followed directions while she watched our departure from the head of the stairs.

"Well?" I said, as we descended the steps.

"It's hers. Look!" He removed from his pocket the article he had taken from Cora Manning's room and held it out on his palm. It was a tiny yellow satin sachet bag embroidered in blue!

"This is getting ridiculous," I said, as we took our places in the car.

"How many more of these blooming things are we likely to run across anyway? That's the third one I've seen."

"Third? I have knowledge of only two, this one and Lee's, and it's not difficult to conjecture where he got his," McKelvie said, with raised brows, as he repocketed the bag.

I told him of my discovery that d.i.c.k possessed one of these sachets also, adding, "It's identical with this one. Do you suppose she gave it to him?"

"Richard Trenton," he mused, glancing at his watch. "We'll just have time before dinner. Take me up to Riverside Drive, if you will be so kind. I want another look at that secret room."

I turned my car, and drove as swiftly as I dared along Broadway, asking him, "Do you think that Cora Manning is in hiding because of that quarrel?"

He did not answer until we were skimming along the Drive. "No," he said quietly then, "I don't think so."

"Do you believe she killed Darwin?" I persisted.

"No, I don't. It was not a woman's job, but I do believe she can prove for us when he died," he answered. "And through her I hope to locate the criminal."

"If she is the woman in the case, she must be s.h.i.+elding the man or she would have come forward long ago to free Ruth," I pointed out.

"Or he may be holding her a prisoner because she knows too much for his peace of mind and body," he retorted. "That puts a different complexion on it."

"In that case he will murder her, too, before we can reach her," I said in a horrified voice.

"A man kills the woman he loves for only one reason, which does not exist in this case," he replied.

"Good heavens!" I said. "The criminal in love with Cora Manning! Then you mean that Lee killed his uncle?"

McKelvie shrugged. "That I can't presume to say. Perhaps it's Lee--perhaps it's another. Remember this. If Richard Trenton knew her, ten to one he was in love with her, too. I have seen her picture."

Which statement, since I was a man, only increased my eagerness to see the fair Cora.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SIGNET RING

At McKelvie's request I parked my car a block from the house and we traversed that distance in silence, entering the grounds as though we had come on no good errand. When we reached the house McKelvie piloted me to the back and rang the servants' bell. It was late, after six, and growing dark so that Mason was hardly to be blamed if he failed to recognize us, especially as he did not expect to see us again so soon.

"It's Mr. Davies, Mason," said McKelvie. "Will you let us in to the main wing through the pa.s.sageway, please?"

"Yes, sir," returned Mason. "This way, sir, if you please."

He led us through the pa.s.sageway and opened the door into the main wing, going ahead of us to switch on the light in the hall.

"That is all. Leave the door open into the pa.s.sageway. We shall probably depart the way we entered."

"Very good, sir."

McKelvie waited until the old man had shuffled away before he approached the study door. It was little more than six hours since we had been in that room, yet it seemed more like a week to me, so many things had cropped up in the interval, and I waited impatiently for McKelvie to turn the k.n.o.b of the door.

"I thought I heard someone in there," he whispered, and flung open the door.

For one swift instant I had the impression of a glaring eye that winked and faded as I looked, then only darkness confronted us, darkness and a brooding stillness in which I could hear my very heart-beats.

McKelvie stepped into the room and found the switch, then as the study was flooded with light, he turned and sped toward the safe with me at his heels.

"The windows," he said tersely, as he spun the dial. "See if anyone is hiding behind those curtains."

I hurried to the windows and swept back the hangings. There was no one there, and I turned back to the safe just as McKelvie stood up and swung open the door.