But I had only located the hidden room. I was
not in it, and no amount of pressing on the carving
of the wooden mantels, no search of the floors for
loose boards, none of the customary methods availed
at all. That there was a means of entrance, and
probably a simple one, I could be certain. But
what? What would I find if I did get in?
Was the detective right, and were the bonds and money
from the Traders’ Bank there? Or was our
whole theory wrong? Would not Paul Armstrong
have taken his booty with him? If he had not,
and if Doctor Walker was in the secret, he would have
known how to enter the chimney room. Then—who
had dug the other hole in the false partition?
ANNE WATSON’S STORY
Liddy discovered the fresh break in the trunk-room
wall while we were at luncheon, and ran shrieking
down the stairs. She maintained that, as she
entered, unseen hands had been digging at the plaster;
that they had stopped when she went in, and she had
felt a gust of cold damp air. In support of her
story she carried in my wet and muddy boots, that
I had unluckily forgotten to hide, and held them out
to the detective and myself.
“What did I tell you?” she said dramatically.
“Look at ’em. They’re yours,
Miss Rachel—and covered with mud and soaked
to the tops. I tell you, you can scoff all you
like; something has been wearing your shoes.
As sure as you sit there, there’s the smell
of the graveyard on them. How do we know they
weren’t tramping through the Casanova churchyard
last night, and sitting on the graves!”
Mr. Jamieson almost choked to death. “I
wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were doing
that very thing, Liddy,” he said, when he got
his breath. “They certainly look like it.”
I think the detective had a plan, on which he was
working, and which was meant to be a coup. But
things went so fast there was no time to carry it
into effect. The first thing that occurred was
a message from the Charity Hospital that Mrs. Watson
was dying, and had asked for me. I did not care
much about going. There is a sort of melancholy
pleasure to be had out of a funeral, with its pomp
and ceremony, but I shrank from a death-bed.
However, Liddy got out the black things and the crape
veil I keep for such occasions, and I went.
I left Mr. Jamieson and the day detective going over
every inch of the circular staircase, pounding, probing
and measuring. I was inwardly elated to think
of the surprise I was going to give them that night;
as it turned out, I did surprise them almost into
spasms.
I drove from the train to the Charity Hospital, and
was at once taken to a ward. There, in a gray-walled
room in a high iron bed, lay Mrs. Watson. She
was very weak, and she only opened her eyes and looked
at me when I sat down beside her. I was conscience-stricken.
We had been so engrossed that I had left this poor
creature to die without even a word of sympathy.
