“It isn’t exactly the Palace of the Fairy Prince, is it?” said Tab, as he pushed open the cast iron gate.
“I’ve seen prettier houses,” admitted Carver, “I wonder—”
So far he got, when the front door was flung violently open and Rex Lander rushed out. His face was the colour of chalk, his big baby eyes were staring wildly. They fell upon the two men on the concrete walk and his mouth opened to speak, but no words came.
Tab ran to him.
“What is wrong?” he demanded and that something was badly wrong one glance at Babe Lander told him.
“My uncle,” he gasped. “Go look.”
Carver rushed into the house and through the open door of the dining-room. It was empty, but at the side of the fireplace was a narrower door.
“Where is he?” asked the detective.
Rex could only point to the narrow aperture.
There was a flight of stone stairs which terminated in a narrow passage, barred by yet another door, which was also open. The corridor was well-lighted by three globes set at intervals in the ceiling, and the acrid smell of exploded cordite filled the confined space of the passage, which was empty.
“There must be a room opening from here,” said Carver, “whose are these?”
He stooped and picked up an old pair of gloves that lay on the floor and pushed them into his pocket.
He looked round for Rex Lander. That young man was sitting on the top step of the stairs, his face in his hands.
“There’s no sense in questioning him,” said Carver in an undertone, “where is his uncle?”
Tab walked rapidly down the passage and came to a door on the left. It was a narrow door painted black, and deeply recessed in the thick wall. There was no handle and only a tiny keyhole. Four inches from its top was a steel plate pierced with small holes for the purpose of ventilation. He pushed the door, but it was locked. Then he peered through the ventilator.
He saw a vault which he guessed was about ten feet long by eight feet wide. Fixed to the rough walls were a number of steel shelves, loaded up with black iron boxes. A brilliant light came from a globe in the vaulted roof, and he saw plainly.
At the farther end of the room was a plain table, but it was not at this he was looking, but at the figure crouched against one of its legs. The face was turned in his direction.
It was the face of Jesse Trasmere and he was dead.
VI
Tab gave way to the detective and waited whilst Carver looked.
“There’s no sign of a weapon—but by the smell there has been some shooting,” he said. “What is that on the table?”
Tab peered through the ventilator.
“It looks like a key to me,” he said.
They tried the door, but it resisted their combined weight.
“The door is much too thick and the lock too strong for us to force,” said Carver at last. “I’ll telephone headquarters, Tab. See what you can get out of your friend.”
“I don’t think he’ll tell me much for some time. Come along, Babe,” said Tab kindly, taking the other’s arm. “Let us get out of this beastly atmosphere.”
Unresisting, Rex Lander allowed himself to be led back to the dining-room, where he dropped into a chair.
Carver had finished his telephoning and had returned long before Rex had recovered sufficiently to give a coherent narrative. His face was blanched, he could not control his quivering lips, and it was a considerable time before he could tell his patient hearers all that he knew.
“I came to the house this afternoon by appointment,” he said. “My uncle had written to me asking me to see him about an application which I had made to him for a loan. He had previously rejected my request, but as had often happened, he relented at the last moment, for he was not a bad man at heart. As I was pressing the bell, the door opened and I saw Walters—Walters is my uncle’s valet.”
The detective nodded.
“He looked terribly agitated, and he had a brown leather bag in his hand. ‘I am just going out, Mr. Lander,’ he said—”
“Did he seem surprised to see you?”
“He seemed alarmed,” said Rex. “It struck me when I saw him that my uncle must be ill and I asked him if anything was the matter. He said that my uncle was well but he had sent him on a very important errand. The conversation did not last more than a minute, for Walters ran down the steps and into the road before I could recover from my amazement.”
“He wore no hat?” asked Carver.
Rex shook his head.
“I stood in the hall for a moment, knowing that my uncle does not like people to come in upon him unless they are properly announced. You see, Mr. Carver, the situation was rather a delicate one for me. I had come here in the role of a supplicant, and naturally I did not wish to prejudice my chance of getting the fifty which my uncle had promised me. I went to uncle’s living-room but he was not there, but the door which I knew led to the strongroom was open and he could not be far away. I sat down and waited. I must have been there ten minutes and then I began to smell something burning, as I thought, but which was, in fact, the smell of gunpowder or whatever they use in cartridges, and I was so thoroughly alarmed that I went down the steps and after a little hesitation, knowing how
