The Mystery Of
The Hidden Room
BY MARION HARVEY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1922, by
Edward J. Clode
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE NOTE 1
II. THE SHOT 9
III. THE POLICE 15
IV. THE INQUEST 24
V. THE SECRETARY 36
VI. CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE 44
VII. THE LAWYER 51
VIII. LEE DARWIN 56
IX. THE VERDICT 63
X. JENKINS' ADVICE 72
XI. ARTHUR TRENTON 79
XII. AN EXPLANATION 85
XIII. THE SUICIDE 92
XIV. GRAYDON MCKELVIE 100
XV. THE INTERVIEW 108
XVI. THE EXHIBITS 115
XVII. THE LAMP 121
XVIII. THE SECRET ENTRANCE 133
XIX. THE LAWYER AGAIN 141
XX. DEDUCTIONS 146
XXI. THE STEWARD 157
XXII. ORTON'S ALIBI 167
XXIII. GRAMERCY PARK 177
XXIV. THE SIGNET RING 192
XXV. THE DECEPTION 200
XXVI. JAMES GILMORE 208
XXVII. THE STRONG BOX 216
XXVIII. GOLD AND BLUE 222
XXIX. THE REWARD 229
XXX. THE CURIO SHOP 236
XXXI. THE RESCUE 243
XXXII. LEE'S STORY 250
XXXIII. THE SECOND BULLET 257
XXXIV. THE WOMAN IN THE CASE 265
XXXV. A STRANGE ACCOUNT 273
XXXVI. THE TRAP 282
XXXVII. MCKELVIE'S TRIUMPH 288
XXXVIII. THE MOTIVE 297
XXXIX. CONCLUSION 309
THE MYSTERY OF
THE HIDDEN ROOM
CHAPTER I
THE NOTE
I had intended spending the evening at the Club; but after my solitary
meal, I found that I was too tired to care to leave my own inviting
fireside. Drawing up a chair before the open grate in my library, for
the October night was chill and the landlord had not sufficiently
relented to order the steam-heat, I settled myself comfortably with my
book and pipe. The story I had chosen was a murder mystery, extremely
clever and well-written, and so engrossed did I become that I was
entirely oblivious to the passage of time.
The entrance of my man, Jenkins, brought me back to my surroundings with
a start to find that the clock on the mantel was chiming eleven. A
little impatient at the interruption for I had not concluded the story,
I grew sarcastic.
"What is it, Jenkins? Have you come to remind me that it is long past my
bed-time?" I inquired.
Jenkins' face grew longer if such a thing were possible in a countenance
already attenuated by nature into the semblance of perpetual gloom, and
shook his head with a grieved air as though he considered my remark an
aspersion upon his knowledge of his duties as a valet.
"A man who claims to be Mrs. Darwin's chauffeur, sir," he replied in a
tone that indicated that he at least would not be responsible for the
veracity of the statement, "has just brought this note. He says that he
will await the answer below in his machine, sir."
He extended an unaddressed white envelope with a funereal air. The note
was from Ruth. The message was brief and to the point.
"Will you return at once with my chauffeur? I need you."
"My hat and coat, Jenkins," I cried, flinging aside my jacket. "You need
not wait up for me. I have my key," I added.
I could have descended the stairs a half dozen times before the elevator
finally arrived, or so it seemed to my impatience. The moment we reached
the lobby I was out of the elevator and down the steps into the waiting
motor before the boy had recovered his wits sufficiently to follow me to
the door.
The chauffeur evidently had his instructions, for I was hardly within
before the machine was speeding toward the Drive. My bachelor apartments
were situated on 72nd Street, just off the Park, and I knew we could not
cover the distance to the Darwin home on the outskirts of Riverside
Drive in less than twenty minutes, even at the rate at which we were
traveling.
I had stuffed Ruth's note into my pocket as I left. Mechanically I drew
it forth and tore it to shreds, flinging the scraps from the window.
Letters are compromising things.
What had possessed Ruth to commit herself to writing after the compact
we had made to have no further communication with each other! It was she
who had suggested that we become as strangers, and I could only read in
this sudden appeal and the haste with which I was being whirled toward
her some dread calamity. Nor was my anxiety lessened by the fact that I
was hopelessly in love with her. Yes, hopelessly, I speak advisedly,
because she was another man's wife, and while that man lived she would
be true to him although he deserved it less than anyone I knew.
To think that a few short months ago Ruth and I had been engaged! If I
had had my way we should have been married at once without any fuss, and
so should have avoided the trouble that befell us, but Ruth wanted a
trousseau and a big wedding, so like many a better man before me I
humored her to the extent of promising to wait another month.
Did I say a month? Six have passed and I am waiting yet, while Ruth has
had her wish, for her wedding was a sort of nine days' wonder, Philip
Darwin having long been voted by his feminine friends as "the type of
man who never marries, my dear."
In letting my bitterness run away with my discretion, I have begun my
story at the wrong end, giving a false impression of the facts of the
case, for I never once dreamed of blaming or censuring Ruth for the
misery that her decision cost me.
Two weeks before the date set for my wedding, Ruth came to me with tears
in her eyes, and laying the ring I had given her upon the table begged
me if I loved her never to see her again. I was decidedly taken aback,
but I retained sufficient presence of mind to laugh at her and to
request her not to be absurd. She was not to be diverted, however, nor
would she say anything beyond a reiteration of the fact that if I loved
her I would be willing to obey her without questioning her motives.
All of which was folly to my way of thinking, and being very much in
love, I refused to be disposed of in any such high-handed fashion,
particularly as I felt that as her affianced husband I was entitled to
some say in the proceedings. Never in the course of my life before had I
been called upon to plead so skillfully, and plead I did; for it was
more than my life I was fighting for, it was our love, our happiness,
our future home. Gradually I wore down her defenses and finally she
sobbed out the whole pitiful story.
Her brother, her adored and darling Dick, whom she had mothered almost
from the time that he was born, had fallen of late under the influence
of Philip Darwin, director of the bank of which her father was president
and Dick assistant cashier. Handsome, spoiled, the boy had been
flattered by the attentions of the older man, who explained his interest
on the ground that Dick reminded him strongly of what he had been ten
years before. Under his tutelage, then, the boy early became a devotee
of the twin gods of gambling and of drink.
Two nights before in a questionable gambling den to which Philip Darwin
had taken him, Dick, his temper inflamed by the strong liquor he had
been drinking, quarreled with his neighbor, accusing him of trying to
cheat. The fellow, a big, powerful chap, made for Dick, who pulled out a
pistol which Darwin had given him, and fired. His opponent went down
like a log, and as the man fell, Darwin extinguished the light. In the
confusion that ensued the older man got the boy away to his home, where
Dick gathered some things together and with the connivance of his father
left for the West.
Of course the affair came out in the papers, I recalled it as Ruth
spoke, and the police were on the hunt for the unknown assailant of the
dead man. Fortunately for Dick, both he and Darwin attended these places
in disguise and a trip West for the scion of a wealthy family was no
unusual event, hence his absence from social circles was easily
accounted for, and Ruth and her father were merely waiting for the
furore to abate before sending for the boy, when Darwin exploded a bomb
in their midst.
He had always admired Ruth, he had always wanted to make her his wife.
She had spurned his love and he had accepted defeat stoically. But now
things were different. Her brother was wanted by the police for murder.
The police, to be sure, didn't know it was her brother that they wanted
but he, Philip Darwin, was quite willing to supply them with the
information unless Ruth agreed to become his bride.
"What was there for me to do, Carlton, but to acquiesce?" she had ended
with a sob. "Philip Darwin is an implacable man. And even if Dick eluded
the police, think of the disgrace for Daddy and for me. It's terrible
enough that he should have killed a man, but that he should become a
hunted thing, my little brother--! No, no! I'd rather sacrifice my love
than have that happen!"
I remained silent, for I could think of no argument that would suffice
to meet the situation, and taking my apparent immobility for acceptance,
she continued: "It's a big sacrifice, dear, I know, but you will bear
it bravely for my sake, because--because there is more in life than
love alone and it's the honor of my name that is at stake."
In the face of her sublime unselfishness I felt that I could do no less
than prove myself as noble as she deemed me. I agreed, therefore, to
give her up and when she said we had better not meet again I consented
dumbly, comprehending the wisdom of her decision even while my heart
rebelled against its enforcement.
When she had gone my resentment flared full and strong, but curiously
enough not against the one who had been the chief cause of the ruin of
my happiness. I felt only pity, a profound and sincere pity, for the
misguided boy who had committed the crime. My anger blazed toward that
man who by his foolish adoration of his only son had spoiled and
indulged the boy to his own undoing. What right had any man to bring up
a son in that fashion? How dared his father let him loose upon the world
without teaching him the first principles of self-restraint?
It was not Dick but Mr. Trenton who was to blame for the boy's act.
Almost from the moment that he could make his wants known the boy had
been given to understand that what he wanted was his for the asking.
Everyone in the home had to give way before him. He was never crossed
and never denied. Small wonder that when he grew to manhood he should
expect the world to give as much and more than his father had done, that
when he ran across temptation he had no moral strength to resist, and
that he became an easy prey to a man of Philip Darwin's type.
Here my thoughts veered abruptly to the man who would soon become Ruth's
husband and for a moment I saw red. Ruth, pure, sweet Ruth, married to
that vile wretch! I could not endure it.
I had actually grasped my hat and was on the point of hastening to her
home to plead with her not to sacrifice herself in so dreadful a manner,
even if she never married me, when I paused, for the horrible
alternative flashed across my mind. With a groan I returned to my
library where the remainder of the night I wrestled with what to me
seemed the only solution to the problem, the instant and speedy death of
Philip Darwin.
By morning I was saner. There was not much use in jumping out of the
frying-pan into the fire, and besides what did I know of Philip Darwin
beyond the fact that he had been the one to lead Dick astray? For ought
I knew to the contrary he might make Ruth a very good and devoted
husband. There were hundreds of cases on record where a man had been
reformed and steadied by marriage.
Though all this philosophizing by no means alleviated the pain in my
heart, still it helped to allay the fever in my tortured brain, and from
that time on I resolutely put Ruth from my mind and plunged into my work
in an effort to forget.
Forget! How much had I forgotten in the six months that had passed? Not
one single detail had escaped my memory and it all came back with
tenfold force for having been thrust out of sight so long. With a groan
I buried my head in my hands.
How long I remained thus oblivious to time and space I do not know. The
chauffeur's voice brought me back to a realization that we had arrived
at our destination. I alighted and as he backed the car down the drive I
paused a moment before ascending the steps to try to distinguish
something of this home whose mistress Ruth had become.
It was very dark, a dull, cloudy night, and all I beheld was a great
black bulk looming before me like some Plutonian monster, harbinger of
evil, and the soughing of the wind in the branches of the nearby trees
gave me such a feeling of superstitious dread that I raced up the steps
and rang the bell as though in fear of my life.