LIGHT BEGINS TO BREAK.
It has been written many times in history that the most trivial things
have changed the destiny of nations. A famous preacher once made the
declaration that “there are no such things as little things.” And so
this tiny rubber stopper for a miniature bottle, not so large as the end
of one’s finger, proved to be the great thing of immediate necessity.
If you should apply to a chemist who knew you, and should induce him to
supply you with a bottle of chloroform, he would use just such a stopper
as that one was in putting it up for your use.
Not but what the same sort of a stopper is used for many other purposes
than sealing bottles of chloroform against the escape of fumes.
But conditions are regulated and understood more or less perfectly, by
comparisons and circumstances; for instance, the presence of chloroform
in that room, at the time when Mr. Lynne was induced or compelled to
leave it, explained many things hitherto unexplainable.
It accounted in part for the finding of the handkerchief on the floor
beside the chair upon which the woman had presumably seated herself.
It accounted, unquestionably, for the diamond star that Nick found in
the upholstery of Lynne’s chair, since, without doubt, it had been
dropped there while the chloroform was being administered; while there
was the semblance of a struggle going on between the man and the woman;
and it must be remembered that Lynne, in his weakened condition
resulting from his long illness, could have been no match in strength
for Madge Babbington, even if she was a woman.
But none of these considerations was the important one which the
discovery of the article suggested to the active mind of the detective;
nor was it the rubber stopper itself that brought about the suggestion.
It was the place where Patsy found it.
In considering that, and in arriving at the reasons that Nick Carter had
for his immediate conclusions, we must read the thoughts that flashed
through his mind the instant the stopper was shown to him, and when
Patsy indicated where he had found it.
Timothy Tucker, the gardener, had stated that the woman who had passed
him on the path between the gate and the house wore a long coat like
those he had seen worn by women when they were motoring; hence, a long,
linen duster.
Linen dusters have pockets at the sides, even those worn by women.
A small bottle of chloroform purchased at a drug store and intended for
immediate use would be taken from the paper in which it was originally
wrapped, and deposited handily, where the possessor could get at it with
the least possible delay and trouble.
Hence, in one of those side pockets already mentioned into which the
hand could be casually dropped at any instant.
The paper wrappings having been removed, the bottle would be exposed
unless some other wrapper for it were improvised. The likeliest thing
for that purpose, the one least likely to attract attention or comment,
would be a handkerchief.
The woman, seated upon the chair at the moment for using the contents of
the bottle, would remove, or partly remove, the handkerchief in which it
was wrapped, and would do it with the one hand that was in that pocket
with the bottle, before she rose from the chair.
What more natural than that the handkerchief should be dropped in that
manner, just at the point where it had been dropped--and just an instant
before the woman rose from her chair to pass around to the side of the
chair in which Lynne had been seated?
Now the next point.
The rubber stopper was picked up by Patsy twenty feet away from that
chair--from either of them.
The woman would not have thrown it from her at that time; such an act
was not necessary. If she had merely dropped it, five or six feet would
have been the extent of the distance it might have rolled away across
the floor on the soft rug.
The position of the two chairs was such that in approaching the one upon
which Lynne was seated at the time, the woman would have been stationed
exactly between Lynne and the spot where the rubber stopper was found
twenty feet away; and so, if it had been knocked from her hand in a
struggle with the man to whom she was going to administer the drug, it
was next to impossible that it should have rolled to the spot where
Patsy picked it up.
Ergo, how did it get there?
If you ask yourself the question from the detective standpoint--and that
is what you inevitably should do in following out the Nick Carter
histories--the logical answer is obvious.
The woman, upon entering the room--upon stepping into it--realizing that
she must be prepared for instant action, at once prepared the bottle for
instant use; she would do so by removing the stopper, and by pressing a
fold of the handkerchief, reënforced by the pad of her thumb, against
the uncorked bottle. This to keep the fumes from escaping.
She would be compelled to do all that with one hand by reason of the
exigencies of the occasion, and therefore would simply drop the stopper
back into the pocket, or it would escape from her grasp and roll upon
the floor--a few inches, or a foot or two.
Hence--and this is the important point so laboriously arrived at--the
stopper would have been dropped very close to the point where the woman
entered the room.
Now, the life-size portrait of J. Cephas Lynne beneath which the stopper
was found was nowhere near any door in that room.
It did occupy, frame and all, a space between two of the windows at the
north side of the room; a space which extended from the floor nearly to
the ceiling, and which was in width between four and five feet; and it
was fastened, as such portraits not infrequently are, flat against the
wall.
Nick Carter had already determined that there must be a secret entrance
to that room from another part of the house, or from the outside, but he
had not even begun the search for such a place as yet.
If Madge Babbington had entered the room by one of the doors, had opened
the bottle and dropped the stopper at once upon entering, it would have
been in the vicinity of one of the doors, according to the argument
already advanced, all of which shot through his mind the instant when
Patsy indicated the spot where it had been found.
Architecture, ancient and modern, had ever been a favorite study with
the detective, as a pastime. The life and employment of the famous
priest who created so many of the secret stairways, rooms, passages, and
doors in the old castles of England and Scotland had always interested
him.
He knew how to look for them, where to search for them, and much of the
principle upon which they were constructed, just as one may have studied
and learned to know the moves in a game of chess.
To offer an opportunity for a secret entrance and passage, there must be
space--space between two walls.
And so, when Nick Carter started across the room exclaiming to Patsy:
“Found it there, did you? Show me just where you found it,” he did not
wait for the answer, but hastened at once to one of the windows,
stepped upon the sill and, leaning far out of it, studied the general
construction of that north wall of the main building.
A mere glance sufficed him.
He knew already that that part of the house was very old; had stood
there where it was through several generations until it had been
remodeled, enlarged, reconstructed, and embellished into a part and
parcel of the great mansion.
That mere glance outside the window satisfied him that there was more
than sufficient space between the outer wall and the wall of the room
inside for a passageway.
And that was practically all he needed to assure himself that he had
discovered the most likely place for a secret passage and entrance to
that room, if one existed.
Moreover, what more likely place could be found for such a secret
entrance as must exist than the life-size portrait itself and the
space--that is, breadth--behind it?
He stepped back into the room again.
As he did so, and before he could begin his search for the secret
entrance, Thomas returned from his hasty inventory of Lynne’s wearing
apparel.
“Well?” Nick asked him, pausing.
“Only a few articles of clothing are missing,” Thomas replied. “A suit
of his clothing, a few----”
“You need not enumerate them, Thomas. That is unnecessary, now. Tell me
only if the missing articles are such things as Mr. Lynne would have
taken away with him had he had the selection?”
“Decidedly not, sir. Quite the contrary.”
“You think that he would have chosen differently, in that case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Thomas. That decides another point for us.”
“What is that, sir, if you please?”
“That he was probably unconscious, probably from the chloroform, when he
was taken from this room, and therefore that there must have been a
third person present here, or within call, to assist the woman in taking
him away.”
“Red Mike,” said Patsy, speaking as one making a statement, rather than
as one who asks a question.
The detective nodded.
“That accounts for this, I suppose,” said Patsy, holding up his right
hand, with the thumb and finger tips pressed tightly together.
Nick Carter stepped nearer to him and looked more closely, and he found
that Patsy was holding a single red hair between his thumb and
forefinger.
“I found it clinging to the frame of that picture, about six feet from
the floor,” the assistant announced. “It was exactly at the point where
it might have caught and lodged, if Red Mike had stood right here”--he
backed across the room to the portrait--“and had leaned his head against
the frame, so;” he assumed the attitude he was attempting to describe.
Nick nodded his head again.
“Red Mike was here with Madge,” he said. “He either followed her into
the room at once, or he entered it a moment later in response to some
signal she gave, and he stood there, waiting for something else to
happen before he took an active part in the proceedings.”
“But he couldn’t come through the picture, could he?” Thomas asked.
“No, but he could come from behind it, if the picture is movable, and if
there is an opening of some sort behind it.”
Patsy nodded with emphasis.
“I thought that was the idea when you looked out of the window just
now,” he said.
“It has been my idea for some minutes,” replied the detective. “The
discovery of the rubber bottle stopper decided me where to look for it.”
“And now----?” asked Patsy.
“We won’t bother to search for secret springs; that would occupy too
much time. Thomas, find me a hammer, a screw driver, and a short iron
bar, preferably flat, if you have such articles in the house.”
“Yes, sir, in the garage. I will procure them at once.”