“I wish to God they’d flash sooner. If they had, you might have spent a more comfortable day yesterday.” He was definitely cross. But he was abashed, too; I knew he thought he should have thought that out about the window himself. But knowing how he felt about Mrs. Garr’s death, I could imagine how perfunctorily he had gone over the room, after his squad of fingerprinters and photographers had finished that night.
By that time, Van was evidently outside, because a key sailed through the window. It hit the edge of the table, then fell to the floor.
“Throw more to the right,” the lieutenant called.
The second key came in with a nice curve and landed on the table with a little metallic clink; the lieutenant flourished a handkerchief over his face.
“Not three inches from where that other damn key was. That’s enough, Van.”
He sat down on the edge of the table to think, juggling the keys in his hands, until Van came back.
“Okay.” The lieutenant’s eyes were now bright beneath their hoods. “Someone has guilty knowledge of Mrs. Garr’s death. Guilty, because why, if it wasn’t, would he throw in the key? And now, Mrs. Dacres, you know another little reason why you’ve had your two little experiences. You are suspected of having heard that key land, and the murderer’s suspicions on that point are only too well confirmed. When I think how he grieves now over not having done a complete job on you, I could almost feel sorry for him. By heaven, if I’d ever lapsed from virtue anywhere near you, I’d want you murdered, too!”
He turned to the staircase from which I’d recalled him.
“Now I’m going back to where I was before you jerked me off it. And boy, was I in a whale of a place.”
He took me by the shoulders, pulled me to the first step, played his flashlight ahead up the stairs.
“See those steps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Notice anything about ’em?”
“They look like ordinary steps to me.”
“That all?”
“The paint’s almost worn off.”
“Not that. Notice anything about ’em that should be remarked, taking in mind something that was brought out at the inquest?”
He gave me time to think; I thought hard, too. The two detectives were staring over my head. I gave up.
“Okay.” There was soothed satisfaction in the word. “Well, I didn’t put two and two together, either, when I looked at ’em yesterday. But the minute I stepped foot to ’em this morning it hit me. One of those flashes you talk about. Remember now?”
I couldn’t. The other two men were as unknowing as I was.
Greater satisfaction lit the lieutenant’s voice.
“Well, I’ll just repeat a few words we brought out in Jerry Foster’s evidence. This is what those words were: ‘The dust of those stairs was undisturbed.’”
We got it then.
“And now what?” the lieutenant went on triumphantly, over our exclamations. “Those stairs have been swept! Swept! Who swept ’em? Not Tewman. She beat it out of here right after the inquest. Swears she wouldn’t stay in the house. Not Halloran. Says she hasn’t been near the place except when we dragged her over for questioning yesterday afternoon. We got her out of bed at three in the afternoon, Tuesday. Not my squad when I told ’em to clean up here. I was in here after they’d finished and I remember thinking how like the lazy bums it was not to sweep the stairs. No, there’s only one person who would have had an interest in sweeping those stairs. And that’s the guy who wanted to chloroform Mrs. Dacres. He needed those stairs. He didn’t want footsteps to show. He knew fresh footsteps on dust couldn’t get by. But there was a chance we wouldn’t notice swept stairs. He got through that door up there somehow!”
He charged up.
We followed as far as the landing. He was working at the door, playing his light on the four screws in the door casing, with their heads tight against the door.
“We tested the knob for fingerprints last night. Clean. That’s suspicious, too. Clean, after all the time this door hasn’t been used. But I can’t budge it.”
Again his flash played up and down the door by the screwheads. He gave an exclamation of delight. I could see it, too.
In the old gray paint of the door, a tiny, fresh scratch!
“A scratch! See that? A scratch! Bolt or no bolt, I’m taking these screws out of here and seeing what happens.”
He took a knife from his pocket, worked at one screw with a flat-end blade that worked like a screwdriver. The screw turned tightly for the first four or five turns, then came with surprising ease the rest of the way. It wasn’t five minutes before he had all four screws out.
“Golly, that was easy!”
He took the doorknob in his hand, turned it, pulled back hard.
I reached out a hand to keep him from falling backward on us.
The door had come open!
It sprang open at his first touch! As easily, as freely as any door, it flew open to reveal my everyday kitchen beyond.
It was so sudden, I couldn’t think what it meant for a while.
Then I looked at the bolt.
The bolt had parted neatly, right at the edge of the door.
We all stepped through to the kitchen but stood clustering around the door, the men swearing excitedly under their breath. Both ends of the bolt were rusted solidly in their sockets; when the door was closed again both ends met; it was impossible to see the break with the door closed.
“Sawed!” Lieutenant Strom repeated for the tenth time, admiringly.
I was considering, startled, what I could sleep through.
“Wouldn’t you think I’d wake up? It must have made some noise.”
“You didn’t get home until three a.m., did you?” The lieutenant decried my lack of imagination. “Plenty of time between midnight and three a.m. for anyone to saw a dozen bolts.”
“You mean when I came home, he—it—was
