Heath was not merely astonished—he was dumbfounded. Markham had halted abruptly, and stood staring down the empty passageway as if he saw a ghost. After a momentary hesitation Heath walked rapidly to the door. But he did not open it at once. He went down on his knees before the lock and scrutinized the bolt carefully. Then he took out his pocketknife and inserted the blade into the crack between the door and the casing. The point halted against the inner moulding, and the edge of the blade scraped upon the circular bolt. There was no question that the heavy oak casings and mouldings of the door were solid and well fitted, and that the bolt had been securely thrown from the inside. Heath, however, was still suspicious, and, grasping the doorknob, he tugged at it violently. But the door held firmly. At length he threw the bolt-handle to a vertical position and opened the door. Vance was standing in the court, placidly smoking and inspecting the brickwork of the alley wall.
“I say, Markham,” he remarked, “here’s a curious thing. This wall, d’ ye know, must be very old. It wasn’t built in these latter days of breathless efficiency. The beauty-loving mason who erected it laid the bricks in Flemish bond instead of the Running—or Stretcher—bond of our own restless age. And up there a bit”—he pointed toward the rear yard—“is a Rowlock and Checkerboard pattern. Very neat and very pretty—more pleasing even than the popular English Cross bond. And the mortar joints are all V-tooled. … Fancy!”
Markham was fuming.
“Damn it, Vance! I’m not building brick walls. What I want to know is how you got out here and left the door bolted on the inside.”
“Oh, that!” Vance crushed out his cigarette and re-entered the building. “I merely made use of a bit of clever criminal mechanism. It’s very simple, like all truly effective appliances—oh, simple beyond words. I blush at its simplicity. … Observe!”
He took from his pocket a tiny pair of tweezers to the end of which was tied a piece of purple twine about four feet long. Placing the tweezers over the vertical bolt-handle, he turned them at a very slight angle to the left and then ran the twine under the door so that about a foot of it projected over the sill. Stepping into the court, he closed the door. The tweezers still held the bolt-handle as in a vise, and the string extended straight to the floor and disappeared under the door into the court. The three of us stood watching the bolt with fascinated attention. Slowly the string became taut, as Vance gently pulled upon the loose end outside, and then the downward tug began slowly but surely to turn the bolt-handle. When the bolt had been thrown and the handle was in a horizontal position, there came a slight jerk on the string. The tweezers were disengaged from the bolt-handle, and fell noiselessly to the carpeted floor. Then as the string was pulled from without, the tweezers disappeared under the crack between the bottom of the door and the sill.
“Childish, what?” commented Vance, when Heath had let him in. “Silly, too, isn’t it? And yet, Sergeant dear, that’s how the deceased Tony left these premises last Monday night. … But let’s go into the lady’s apartment, and I’ll tell you a story. I see that Mr. Spively has returned from his promenade; so he can resume his telephonic duties and leave us free for a causerie.”
“When did you think up that hocus-pocus with the tweezers and string?” demanded Markham irritably, when we were seated in the Odell living-room.
“I didn’t think it up at all, don’t y’ know,” Vance told him carelessly, selecting a cigarette with annoying deliberation. “It was Mr. Skeel’s idea. Ingenious lad—eh, what?”
“Come, come!” Markham’s equanimity was at last shaken. “How can you possibly know that Skeel used this means of locking himself out?”
“I found the little apparatus in his evening clothes yesterday morning.”
“What!” cried Heath belligerently. “You took that outa Skeel’s room yesterday during the search, without saying anything about it?”
“Oh, only after your ferrets had passed it by. In fact, I didn’t even look at the gentleman’s clothes until your experienced searchers had inspected them and relocked the wardrobe door. Y’ see, Sergeant, this little thingumbob was stuffed away in one of the pockets of Skeel’s dress waistcoat, under the silver cigarette-case. I’ll admit I went over his evening suit rather lovin’ly. He wore it, y’ know, on the night the lady departed this life, and I hoped to find some slight indication of his collaboration in the event. When I found this little eyebrow-plucker, I hadn’t the slightest inkling of its significance. And the purple twine attached to it bothered me frightfully, don’t y’ know. I could see that Mr. Skeel didn’t pluck his eyebrows; and even if he had been addicted to the practice, why the twine? The tweezers are a delicate little gold affair—just what the ravishin’ Margaret might have used; and last Tuesday morning I noticed a small lacquer tray containing similar toilet accessories on her dressing-table near the jewel-case.—But that wasn’t all.”
He pointed to the little vellum wastebasket beside the escritoire, in which lay a large crumpled mass of heavy paper.
“I
