Mr. Clemens and I stepped forward to inspect it more closely. There was a small hinge that let the circular piece flap down, revealing an opening through the wall. Mr. Clemens bent over a bit and put his eye to it. “I can’t see anything,” he complained.
Martha nodded. “You need to push that lever to move aside the picture in the other room. That’s to make sure that no one in the other room will see the opening. We also keep this room dark so that no telltale light comes through.”
“That’s interesting,” I said. “Mr. McPhee had the lights on, and was playing some sort of card game, when we came to tell him what had happened. Why wasn’t he at the spy hole?”
“Maybe he was,” said Mr. Clemens, looking at Martha. “I’d guess that Ed saw everything that happened and decided it was time for him to put on his poker face. I didn’t hear everything you two talked about after the shooting—did he let on that he’d seen anything unexpected?”
Martha shook her head. “Do you think I didn’t ask him that? It was the first thing I wanted to know. But he didn’t really bother to watch—he couldn’t have seen much, in any case, once the lights were out. But he could hear everything that was said at the table. All he had to do was listen, and pull the appropriate rope from time to time.”
“Still, the lights were on in here,” said Mr. Clemens. “Wouldn’t he have been worried that somebody at the table would see the gleam?”
“He didn’t light the gas until after the . . . the killing,” said Martha. “He realized rather quickly that something had happened, and he knew that people would be coming here. So he quickly closed the peephole and lit the gas, hoping to prevent anyone from guessing about the apparatus.”
“Lot of good that did him, once Lestrade got here,” said Mr. Twain. “I suppose he had to give it his best try, though. Was he in this room the whole time?”
Martha shook her head. “So he told me, and I believe him. If he had left, there would have been no one to work the apparatus.”
“I suppose that’s so, unless Mulligan had stayed,” said Mr. Clemens, nodding. “Was Ed by himself the whole time? Did anybody come in and go back out during the séance?”
“I asked him that, as well. He was alone the entire time.”
Mr. Clemens looked her in the eye, then asked, “You don’t think he’d lie to you? Say, to protect somebody else?”
Martha raised her chin. “He might try to, but I very much doubt he would have any success at it. I know Edward far too well for what.”
Mr. Clemens peered intently at her for a moment, then said, “I guess you would, wouldn’t you? We’ll consider that settled, then. Let’s take a look around the other room.”
“Fine,” I said. “What are we looking for?”
“Damned if I know,” said Mr. Clemens. “We’ll just have to look for anything that shouldn’t be here, or for anything that should be here and isn’t, or anything at all that don’t make sense.”
Chuckling at this description of our tasks, my employer led us into the room we were to search. The window shades were up today, and even though muted by lace curtains, the sunlight gave the room a far different aspect than it had had in gas- and candlelight (let alone in the darkness of the séance). I thought to myself that if I had been leading the police investigation, I would have sent my detectives back for a second search. Perhaps Lestrade felt he already had enough evidence to make a case against McPhee. But I thought it a missed opportunity—which we should take advantage of ourselves so as not to miss any clues that might remain.
After walking over and peering out the windows, Mr. Clemens looked around the room and asked, “Have you moved anything since last night, or taken anything away? Other than the body, that is—I can see that’s gone. But I guess you didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Martha laughed nervously. “No, thank goodness. The policemen finally took the poor man away, though it seemed they waited forever to do it.” She glanced involuntarily at where we had lain Dr. Parkhurst right after the shooting. My gaze followed hers, and I saw that a dark brown stain covered the cushions on one end of the sofa, a grim reminder of why we were here.
Mr. Clemens must have noticed our reaction, because he cleared his throat and asked, “Has anything else been moved or removed, as far as you know?”
“Well, of course I put a few of my own things away. And everybody took home the things they’d brought with them, their coats and umbrellas and the things they’d brought for the sitting. The police looked in all the coat pockets, of course, but otherwise they didn’t greatly disturb things. I suppose it would’ve been different if they’d caught somebody trying to smuggle a pistol out the door.”
“Yes, I reckon even Lestrade would have noticed that,” said Mr. Clemens. He looked around the room again. “Time to begin, I guess. Wentworth, you start over by the doorway; I’ll search by the big table, and Miss Martha can take the middle of the room. Sing out if you spot anything you think might be important.”
I bent to my task—quite literally, examining the carpet and peering underneath the furniture. There was nothing worth “singing out” about, unless one considered dust a discovery of significance. I looked under and behind the large sofa, in case someone had dropped something there for concealment, and under the cushions of all the chairs. I looked behind all the pictures on the wall, and
