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 strong-room 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 my uncle hated being overlooked, I

went on to the door of the vault. It was locked and I rapped on the

ventilator but had no reply. Then I peeped through. It was horrible,”

he shuddered. “As fast as I could I ran up the stairs into the street,

intending to call a policeman and I saw you.”

“Whilst you were in the house you heard no sound to suggest that there

was anybody else present? Where are the servants?”

“There is only the cook,” said Rex and Carver went in search of her.

But the kitchen was closed and deserted. It was apparently the cook’s

day off.

“I’ll make a search of the house,” said Carver. “Come along, Tab, you

are in this case now and you had better stay with it.”

The search did not take a very long time. There were two rooms used by

Mr. Trasmere, the remainder were locked up and apparently unused. A

passage-way led to Walters’ sleeping apartment, which had originally

been designed as a guest room and was larger than servants’ quarters

usually are. The room was meagrely furnished and there was evidence

that Mr. Walters had not anticipated so hurried a flight. Some of his

clothing hung on pegs behind the door, others were found in a wardrobe,

whilst a cup filled with coffee stood on the table. Carver dipped his

little finger into the liquid. It was still warm.

A cloth had been thrown hurriedly over some bulky object at one end of

the table, and this the detective removed. He whistled. Clamped to the

edge of the table was a small vice and scattered about were a number

of files and other tools. Carver turned the screw of the vice and

released the object in its grip. It was a small key of peculiar shape,

and the man must have been working upon it recently, for steel filings

covered the base of the tool.

“Then friend Walters was making a key,” said Carver. “Look at that

plaster cast! That is an old dodge of his. I suppose he got an

impression of the key on soap or wax and has been working at it ever

since.” He looked at the thing in his palm curiously. “This may save us

a great deal of trouble,” he said, “for unless I am mistaken, this is

the key of the strong-room.”

A few minutes later the house was filled with detectives, police

photographers and coroner’s officers. They came on a useless errand,

for the door remained locked. Tab took advantage of their arrival to

escort his friend home.

Before he went, Carver drew him aside.

“We shall have to keep in touch with Mr. Lander,” he said. “He may be

able to throw a great deal of light upon this murder. In the meantime I

have sent out all station calls to pull in Felling--who is Wellington

Brown?”

“Wellington Brown? That is the man who has been threatening Trasmere--I

told you about him at lunch.”

Carver pulled an old pair of gloves from his pocket.

“Mr. Wellington Brown was in that underground corridor,” he said

quietly, “and was sufficiently indiscreet to leave his gloves

behind--his name is written inside!”

“You will charge him with the murder?” asked Tab, and Carver nodded.

“I think so. Either he or Walters. At any rate, we shall hold them on

suspicion, but I cannot be more definite until we’ve got inside that

vault.”

Tab escorted his friend to the flat, and leaving him, hurried back to

Mayfield, by which fanciful name Trasmere had called his grim house.

“We’ve found no weapon of any kind,” said the detective whom he found

sitting in Trasmere’s dining-room with a plan of the house before

him. “Maybe it is in the vault, in which event it looks like a case

of suicide. I have been on the telephone with the boss of Mortimers,

the builders. They say that there is only one key in existence for

that vault--I was speaking to Mr. Mortimer himself and he knows.

Trasmere made a special point about the lock and had twenty or thirty

manufactured by different locksmiths. Nobody knows which one he used,

and Mortimer says that the orders were so imperative that there

should be no duplicate key, that it is unlikely--in fact, I think,

impossible--that the murderer could have entered the vault except by

the aid of Trasmere’s own key. However, we shall soon know; I have the

best workman in town working at the unfinished key in Felling’s room

and he says it is so far advanced that he is in no doubt he will be

able to open the vault tonight.”

“Then it is useless in its present state?”

The other nodded.

“Quite useless, we have tried it and the locksmith, who is an expert,

says that it wouldn’t fit into the keyhole as it was when we found it.”

“Then you suggest it is a case of suicide? That old man Trasmere went

into the vault, locked himself in and then shot himself.”

Carver shook his head.

“If the revolver is found in the vault, yours would be a very sound

theory, though why Trasmere should shoot himself is entirely beyond me.”

At a quarter to eleven that night three men stood before the door of

the Trasmere vault, and the shirt-sleeved workman inserting the key,

the lock snapped back. He was pushing the door open when Carver caught

his arm.

“Just leave it as it is,” he said and the locksmith, obviously

disappointed that he should be denied a full view of the tragedy which

he had only half glimpsed went back to gather up his tools.

“Now,” said Carver, drawing a long breath and pulling a pair of white

gloves from his pocket, he put them on.

Tab followed him into the chamber of death.

“I’ve telephoned for the doctor. He’ll be here in a few seconds,” said

Carver, looking down at the silent figure leaning against the table

legs. He pointed to the table. In the exact centre lay a key, but what

brought the exclamation to the detective’s lips, was the fact that the

one half was stained red. The fluid which had run from it had soaked

into the porous surface of the table.

“Blood,” whispered the detective and gingerly lifted the flat steel.

There was no doubt about it. Though the handle was clean, the lower

wards appeared as though they had been dipped in blood.

“This disposes of the suicide theory,” said Carver.

His first search was for the pistol which had obviously slain the man.

There was no sign of any weapon. He passed his hand under the limp body

and Tab shivered to see the head drop wearily to the shoulder.

“Nothing there--shot through the body too. Suicides seldom do it that

way.”

His quick fingers searched the silent figure. There was nothing of any

value.

Carver straightened himself and stood, fist on hip, surveying the

dreadful sight.

“He was standing here when he was shot--he never knew what killed him.

As a faked suicide it is inartistic--part from the absence of weapon,

the old man was shot in the back.”

If there were any doubts on the subject they were set at rest when the

doctor made his brief examination.

“He was shot at the range of about two yards,” he said. “No, Mr.

Carver, it is impossible that he should have committed suicide,

there is no burning whatever. Besides, the bullet has entered the

back, just beneath the left shoulder and of course, death must have

been instantaneous. It is impossible that the wound can have been

self-inflicted.”

Again came the police photographers, and after they had gone, leaving

the vault thick with the mist of exploded magnesium, the two men were

left to their search. The first boxes were, for the main part, filled

with money. There was very little gold, but a great deal of paper of

various nationalities. In one box Carver found five million francs in

thousand franc notes, another was packed with English five pound notes,

another was full of hundred dollar bills fastened in packets of ten

thousand. Only two of these boxes were locked and only one that they

looked at that night contained anything in the nature of documents.

For the most part they were old leases, receipts painted on thin paper

in Chinese characters and which they only knew were receipts because

somebody had written a translation on their backs. They were bracketed

neatly in folders, on each of which was described in a fine flowing

hand, the nature of its contents.

On one thick bundle fastened with rubber bands was an old label:

“Trading correspondence, 1899.”

In his search Tab, who was looking through the box, found a folded

manuscript which he brought out.

“Here is his will,” he said, and Carver took it from him. It was

written in the crabbed boyish hand which Tab had come to know so well

and it was very short. After the conventional preamble, it went on:

“I leave my property and effects whatsoever, to my nephew, Rex Percival

Lander, the only son of my deceased sister, Mary Catherine Lander, nee

Trasmere, and I appoint him sole executor of this my will.”

It was witnessed by Mildred Green, who described herself as a cook, and

by Arthur Green, whose description of his profession was valet. Their

addresses were Mayfield.

“I think those are the two servants the old man discharged for

pilfering some six months ago. The will must have been executed a few

weeks before they left.”

Tab’s first feeling was one of pleasure that at last his friend was a

rich man. Poor Rex, little did he dream that he would come into his

inheritance in so tragic a fashion.

Carver put the document back into the box and continued the examination

of the door which Tab had interrupted.

“It isn’t a spring lock, you notice,” he said. “So, therefore, it

couldn’t have been slammed by a murderer who first shot Trasmere and

then made his escape. It has to be locked either from the inside or the

outside. If there was any reasonable possibility of Trasmere having

shot himself, the solution would have been simple. But he did not

shoot himself. He was shot here, the door was locked upon him and the

key returned to the table--how?” He took the key and tried one of the

air-holes of the ventilator. The point of the key scarcely entered.

“There must be some other entrance to the vault,” he said.

The sun was up before they finished their examination of the room. The

walls were solid. There was neither window nor fireplace. The floor was

even more substantial than the walls.

In a last hopeless endeavor to solve the mystery, Carver called in

an expert to inspect the ventilator. It was made of steel, a quarter

of an inch thick, and fastened into the door itself. There were no

screws with which it could have been taken out and even if it had been

removed, only the tiniest of mortals could have crept through.

“Still,” said Carver, “if we could suppose that the ventilator was

removable, we might have taken a leaf from Edgar Allen Poe and thought

seriously of a trained monkey being introduced.”

“There is the theory of the duplicate key--”

“Which I dismiss,” said Carver. “I am satisfied that no duplicate key

was used. If a duplicate key had been procurable, Felling or Walters

as you call him, would have found his way to it. He is the cleverest

man in that business and he has lived on duplicate keys all his life.

He must have known that it was impossible to gain admission by such

a method or he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to make one. He is a

specialist in that line of business, probably the finest locksmith of

the underworld.”

“Then you suggest that this key was used?” Tab pointed to the table.

“I not only suggest it, but I would swear to it,” said Carver quietly.

“Look!” He pulled the door open so that the light fell upon the outside

keyhole. “Do you see the little blood-spots?” he asked. “That key has

not only been used from the outside, where it has left unmistakable

markings, but the same has happened on the inside of the door.”

He swung the door again and Tab saw the tell-tale stains.

“That door was unlocked from the inside after the old man was dead and

locked again upon him.”

“But how did the key get back to the table?” asked the bewildered

reporter.

Mr. Carver shook his head.

“A medical student was once asked by a professor whether Adam was ever

a baby, and he replied: ‘God knows’--that is my answer to you!” he

said. “We will leave the other boxes until tomorrow, Tab.”

Carver led the way out of the vault, locked the door with the duplicate

key and put it in his pocket.

“My brain is dead,” said Tab.

And it was then that he saw the new pin.