“What is wrong, Mr. Reeder? Who put the corridor light on? I heard somebody speaking in the vestibule.”
“It was only I.”
His smile would in ordinary circumstances have been very reassuring, but now she was frightened, childishly frightened. She had an insane desire to cling to him and weep.
“Something has been happening here,” she said. “I’ve been lying in bed listening and haven’t had the courage to get up. I’m horribly scared, Mr. Reeder.”
He beckoned her to him, and as she came, wondering, he slipped past her and took her place at the banisters. She saw him lean over and the light from a hand lamp sweep the space below.
“There’s nobody there,” he said airily.
She was whiter than he had ever seen her.
“There was somebody there,” she insisted. “I heard footsteps on the tiled paving after you put on your flashlamp.”
“Probably Mrs. Burton,” he suggested. “I thought I heard her voice.”
And now arrived a newcomer on the scene. Mr. Daver had appeared at the end of the corridor. He wore a flowered silk dressing gown buttoned up to his chin.
“Whatever is the matter, Miss Belman?” he asked. “Don’t tell me that he tried to get into your window! I’m afraid you’re going to tell me that! I hope you’re not, but I’m afraid you will! Dear me, what an unpleasant thing to happen!”
“What has happened?” asked Mr. Reeder.
“I don’t know, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that somebody has been trying to break into this house,” said Mr. Daver.
He was genuinely agitated; the girl could almost hear his teeth chatter.
“I heard somebody trying the catch of my window and looked out, and I’ll swear I saw—something! What a dreadful thing to happen! I have half a mind to telephone for the police.”
“An excellent idea,” murmured Mr. Reeder, suddenly his old deferential and agreeable self. “You were asleep, I suppose, when you heard the noise?”
Mr. Daver hesitated.
“Not exactly asleep,” he said. “Between sleeping and waking. I was very restless tonight for some reason.”
He put up his hand to his throat, his dressing gown had gaped for a second. He was not quite quick enough.
“You were probably restless,” said Mr. Reeder softly, “because you omitted to take off your collar and tie. I know of nothing more disturbing.”
Mr. Daver made a characteristic grimace.
“I dressed myself rather hurriedly—” he began.
“Better to undress yourself hurriedly,” chided Mr. Reeder, almost playfully. “People who go to bed in stiff white collars occasionally choke themselves to death. And there is sorrow in the home of the cheated hangman. Your burglar probably saved your life.”
Daver made as though to speak, suddenly retreated, and slammed the door.
Margaret was looking at Mr. Reeder apprehensively.
“What is the mystery—was there a burglar? Oh, please tell me the truth! I shall get hysterical if you don’t!”
“The truth,” said Mr. Reeder, his eyes twinkling, “is very nearly what that curious man told you—there was somebody in the house, somebody who had no right to be here, but I think he has gone, and you can go to bed without the slightest anxiety.”
She looked at him oddly.
“Are you going to bed, too?”
“In a very few moments,” said Mr. Reeder cheerfully.
She held out her hand with an impulsive gesture. He took it in both of his.
“You are my idea of a guardian angel,” she smiled, though she was near to tears.
“I’ve never heard,” said Mr. Reeder, “of guardian angels with side whiskers.”
It was a mean advantage to take of her, yet he was ridiculously pleased as he repeated his little jeu d’esprit to himself in the seclusion of his room.
XI
Mr. Reeder closed the door, put on the lights, and set himself to unravel the inexplicable mystery of its opening. Before he went to bed he had shot home the bolt, had turned the key in the lock, and the key was still on the inside. It struck him, as he turned it, that he had never heard a lock that moved so silently or a bolt that slipped so easily into its groove. Both lock and bolt had been recently oiled. He began a scrutiny of the inside face of the door, and provided a simple solution to the somewhat baffling incident of its opening.
The door consisted of eight panels, carved in small lozenge-shaped ornaments. The panel immediately above the lock moved slightly when he pressed it, but it was a long time before he found the tiny spring which held it in place. When that was found, the panel opened like a miniature door. He could thrust his hand through the aperture and slide back the bolt with the greatest ease.
There was nothing very unusual or sinister about this. He knew that many hotels and boarding houses had methods by which a door could be unlocked from the outside—a very necessary precaution in certain eventualities. Mr. Reeder wondered whether he would find a similar safety panel on the door of Margaret Belman’s room.
By the time he had completed his inspection, it was daylight, and, pulling back the curtains, he drew a chair to the window and made a survey of as much of the grounds as lay within his line of vision.
There were two or three matters which were puzzling him. If Larmes Keep was the headquarters of the Flack gang, in what manner and for what reason had Olga Crewe been brought into the confederation? He judged her age at twenty-four; she had been a constant visitor, if not a resident, at Larmes Keep for at least ten years, and he knew enough of the ways of the underworld to realize that they did not employ children. Also she had been to a
