where he met Peter Quint to trade gold for bank-notes. So long as he had the only key to the shed where the oars were kept, he was master of either situation. This lawn was where Miss Temple had first seen Maria Jessel. I thought how easily a tragic boating accident might have been arranged for Miles and his governess as they wooed their ghosts!
Swain made no objection when Holmes opened his useful pocket-knife to deal with the lock. Then he drew apart the shutters and opened the glass doors. Dappled sunlight through the glass revealed a dilapidated lounge equipped with bamboo furniture and scattered cushions. It was flanked by two smaller rooms on each side. The whole place was a tribute to the colonial tropics, familiar to three generations of the Mordaunt family. Against the far wall stood an upright Broadwood piano in tortoise-shell lacquer, no doubt a memento of lanterns, parties and music on summer evenings! Holmes touched the keyboard casually. Half of the notes were now dumb and several of them sank down, never to rise. It had served no purpose for many years.
“One hesitates to condemn any musical instrument as beyond saving,” said my friend casually, “yet I fear this must be so.”
Before I could say that Mordaunt should have jumped at the chance to have the wreck dismantled and removed on the cattle raft, as Mrs Grose described it, my companions moved on.
A smaller room with two wall-mirrors and a miniature dressing-table had presumably been set apart for female guests. Another, on the far side, had a leather chair and a table—perhaps this was the counting house where Mordaunt and Quint exchanged coins for bank-notes. A shelf in the adjoining room held a flame-darkened primus stove and rusted tins labelled for tea, sugar and coffee. Holmes made a little routine of opening the drawers in the furniture and closing them without finding anything of interest. Or so it seemed. Standing in the mirrored room with his back to Swain, he “palmed” a small bottle from the dressing-table drawer. It had a cosmetic or theatrical look about it.
I could not see that there was anything here for us. Only the broken-down piano, retained for no obvious use, seemed worth my friend’s inspection. Holmes stooped and used his pocket-knife blade to loosen a screw under the keyboard so that the pedal-board might be lifted out. This revealed only the iron frame with its strings and the pedal mechanism. Straightening up and lifting the top, Holmes then peered down into the musty space of felted hammers and treble wire. Shaking his head, he closed the lid and turned away.
As though it were a last resort, he dropped down on one knee and unfolded his pocket magnifying-glass to examine the wooden floorboards just in front of the two foremost casters.
“Most curious,” he said quietly, folding the glass and returning it to his watch-pocket. “Unless the instrument is lifted a little, the weight on the casters is bound to mark floorboards of softwood timber as it is moved over them. In this case, it seems that the right-hand caster alone has been moved repeatedly in a brief arc. Put more simply, someone who had no companion to help him lift the weight from the boards has had to pull the right-hand side of the piano from the wall on numerous occasions. Two men would have been able to lift it clear of the boards. Why did he always do this alone—and so often? It is a small matter but well worth our attention. This particular model of the Messrs Broadwood has a very substantial iron frame. Perhaps, Mr Swain, you would be kind enough to assist me.”
The inspector eased his right arm and the edge of his shoulder into the narrow gap between the back of the tall piano and the wall.
“You will find, Mr Swain that there is a hand-hold about halfway down. I shall lift from under the keyboard.”
Holmes drew the piano carefully forward. The floorboards at the far end groaned as the left-hand brass casters ground into them. A few seconds later the right-hand end of the upright piano was at a slight angle to the wall, revealing the back of the instrument.
The structure was not solid, as I had supposed. A fine wire mesh on a wooden frame fitted into the back of the instrument and was screwed into place. It required only the loosening of half a dozen screws to remove it. This was done easily with the edge of a penny coin.
Once the mesh on its frame was lifted out, I doubt whether, even among pianists, many knew that their instruments had a concealed recess below the strings. It was large enough to hold a book or even a small painting, though its original intention was presumably to house furniture polish, dusters, methylated spirits and all the essential cleaning materials for rosewood, brass, ivory and ebony.
When I saw what lay in this recess I knew we were on the right road, though I could not yet tell where it led! It was a large steel key. Only the man who put it there would ever have looked for it in such a place or even have known that such a recess existed. It was plain at a glance that the key did not fit any door or item of furniture around us. In the first place, it was too old.
I guessed that it had not been made in the last forty years. It was about four inches long, the oval of its handle decorated with filigree work of mid-century. Holmes held it in his hand and intoned two lines from his store of street literature.
“My name is Chubb, that makes the Patent Locks;
Look on my works, ye burglars, and despair.”
Then he gazed about him.
“Up there, I think,” he said presently. “There is nothing down here worthy of it.”
An inspection-trap was recessed in the centre of the main ceiling, giving access to a loft or roof-space. It seemed the only place where there might be a lock to match the key. Holmes stared at it.
“A curiosity of the deviant mind, Mr Swain, is that a man who works to frustrate detection invariably draws his pursuer onto a trail pointing the way he has gone. As if the poor devil wanted to be caught.”
“I can’t see that here, Mr Holmes.”
“Can you not, Mr Swain? Of the garden sheds, only one was locked. How could it fail to attract interest? It contained a pair of sculls. Had it not been locked, they might not have signified. The need to make the only boat unusable by all but one person gave them importance. No one could cross to the island without Mordaunt’s authority. On our arrival here, what do we find? A piano whose voice is defunct, which might have been removed on several occasions but was kept here by his orders on at least one occasion. The damage to the floorboard indicates that the only function of the poor voiceless instrument was to be moved to and fro at frequent intervals, making the right-hand side of its back accessible. It beckons the investigator to that hiding place behind the covering of metal gauze.”
“But if you are correct, Mr Holmes—”
“I am, Mr Swain. One more thing, however. No matter how thoroughly this room might be searched, the piano with its iron frame could be moved only by someone with sufficient strength.”
“Excluding Maria Jessel and, for that matter, Victoria Temple,” I said suddenly.
“Precisely. Now, if you please, gentlemen, there remains the inspection hatch.”
“We had best proceed quickly, sir.” Swain glanced at the window, as if expecting Superintendent Truscott’s shadow to fall across it. “I can hold you standing on my shoulders if you can balance there, Mr Holmes. You could easily reach the ledge of the hatch. I am a little younger and therefore can bear your weight easily.”
“Younger, and therefore had better stand on my shoulders,” said Holmes peremptorily. “The greater strength will be needed in pulling up through the hatch.”
“As you wish, sir.”
With a balance that might have graced a circus acrobat, Swain crouched on my friend’s back in stocking’d feet as Holmes straightened up. The inspector’s soles and heels moulded themselves to the changing posture until he had only to lift his hands and push the white-painted trap aside. He pulled himself up and slid into the roof- space.
“A main beam and a rope attached to it, Mr Holmes. He probably pushed the trap up with a pole and hooked the rope down. He might nudge it closed afterwards and take the pole with him. Stand away a little, if you please.”
A length of knotted rope swung down, hanging level with our knees. It was a simple device that every scouting party in rough terrain would be familiar with. In my training for Afghanistan, I should have thought nothing of climbing it. Now I was not so sure.
Holmes stepped in front of me.
“Wait a bit, Watson!”
He took the rope between his hands, locked his feet on the lowest section and swarmed up as if he had done
