The Bolted Door
(Tuesday, September 11; 10.30 a. m.)
Markham and Heath and Vance and I were now alone in the apartment.
Dark, low-hanging clouds had drifted across the sun, and the gray
spectral light intensified the tragic atmosphere of the rooms. Markham
had lighted a cigar, and stood leaning against the piano, looking
about him with a disconsolate but determined air. Vance had moved over
to one of the pictures on the side wall of the living-room—Boucher’s
“La Bergère Endormie” I think it was—and stood looking at it with
cynical contempt.
“Dimpled nudities, gambolling Cupids and woolly clouds for royal
cocottes,” he commented. His distaste for all the painting of the
French decadence under Louis XV was profound. “One wonders what
pictures courtesans hung in their boudoirs before the invention of
these amorous eclogues, with their blue verdure and beribboned sheep.”
“I’m more interested at present in what took place in this particular
boudoir last night,” retorted Markham impatiently.
“There’s not much doubt about that, sir,” said Heath encouragingly.
“And I’ve an idea that when Dubois checks up those finger-prints with
our files, we’ll about know who did it.”
Vance turned toward him with a rueful smile.
“You’re so trusting, Sergeant. I, in turn, have an idea that, long
before this touchin’ case is clarified, you’ll wish the irascible
Captain with the insect-powder had never found those finger-prints.”
He made a playful gesture of emphasis. “Permit me to whisper into your
ear that the person who left his sign-manuals on yonder rosewood table
and cut-glass door-knob had nothing whatever to do with the
precipitate demise of the fair Mademoiselle Odell.”
“What is it you suspect?” demanded Markham sharply.
“Not a thing, old dear,” blandly declared Vance. “I’m wandering about
in a mental murk as empty of sign-posts as interplanetary space. The
jaws of darkness do devour me up; I’m in the dead vast and middle of
the night. My mental darkness is Egyptian, Stygian, Cimmerian—I’m in a
perfect Erebus of tenebrosity.”
Markham’s jaw tightened in exasperation; he was familiar with this
evasive loquacity of Vance’s. Dismissing the subject, he addressed
himself to Heath.
“Have you done any questioning of the people in the house here?”
“I talked to Odell’s maid and to the janitor and the switchboard
operators, but I didn’t go much into details—I was waiting for you.
I’ll say this, though: what they did tell me made my head swim. If
they don’t back down on some of their statements, we’re up against
it.”
“Let’s have them in now, then,” suggested Markham; “the maid first.”
He sat down on the piano-bench with his back to the keyboard.
Heath rose, but instead of going to the door, walked to the oriel
window.
“There’s one thing I want to call your attention to, sir, before you
interview these people, and that’s the matter of entrances and exits
in this apartment.” He drew aside the gold-gauze curtain. “Look at
that iron grating. All the windows in this place, including the ones
in the bathroom, are equipped with iron bars just like these. It’s
only eight or ten feet to the ground here, and whoever built this
house wasn’t taking any chances of burglars getting in through the
windows.”
He released the curtain, and strode into the foyer.
“Now, there’s only one entrance to this apartment, and that’s this
door here opening off the main hall. There isn’t a transom or an
air-shaft or a dumb-waiter in the place, and that means that the only
way—the _only way_—that anybody can get in or out of this apartment is
through this door. Just keep that fact in your mind, sir, while you’re
listening to the stories of these people. . . . Now, I’ll have the
maid brought in.”
In response to Heath’s order a detective led in a mulatto woman about
thirty years old. She was neatly dressed, and gave one the impression
of capability. When she spoke it was with a quiet, clear enunciation
which attested to a greater degree of education than is ordinarily
found in members of her class.
Her name, we learned, was Amy Gibson; and the information elicited by
Markham’s preliminary questioning consisted of the following facts:
She had arrived at the apartment that morning a few minutes after
seven, and, as was her custom, had let herself in with her own key, as
her mistress generally slept till late.
Once or twice a week she came early to do sewing and mending for Miss
Odell before the latter arose. On this particular morning she had come
early to make an alteration in a gown.
As soon as she had opened the door she had been confronted by the
disorder of the apartment, for the Venetian-glass doors of the foyer
were wide open; and almost simultaneously she had noticed the body of
her mistress on the davenport.
She had called at once to Jessup, the night telephone operator then on
duty, who, after one glance into the living-room, had notified the
police. She had then sat down in the public reception-room and waited
for the arrival of the officers.
Her testimony had been simple and direct and intelligently stated. If
she was nervous or excited, she managed to keep her feelings well
under control.
“Now,” continued Markham, after a short pause, “let us go back to last
night.—At what time did you leave Miss Odell?”
“A few minutes before seven, sir,” the woman answered, in a colorless,
even tone which seemed to be characteristic of her speech.
“Is that your usual hour for leaving?”
“No; I generally go about six. But last night Miss Odell wanted me to
help her dress for dinner.”
“Don’t you always help her dress for dinner?”
“No, sir. But last night she was going with some gentleman to dinner
and the theatre, and wanted to look specially nice.”
“Ah!” Markham leaned forward. “And who was this gentleman?”
“I don’t know, sir—Miss Odell didn’t say.”
“And you couldn’t suggest who it might have been?”
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
“And when did Miss Odell tell you that she wanted you to come early
this morning?”
“When I was leaving last night.”
“So she evidently didn’t anticipate any danger, or have any fear of
her companion.”
“It doesn’t look that way.” The woman paused, as if considering. “No,
I know she didn’t. She was in good spirits.”
Markham turned to Heath.
“Any other questions you want to ask, Sergeant?”
Heath removed an unlighted cigar from his mouth, and bent forward,
resting his hands on his knees.
“What jewellery did this Odell woman have on last night?” he demanded
gruffly.
The maid’s manner became cool and a bit haughty.
“Miss Odell”—she emphasized the “Miss,” by way of reproaching him for
the disrespect implied in his omission—“wore all her rings, five or
six of them, and three bracelets—one of square diamonds, one of
rubies, and one of diamonds and emeralds. She also had on a sunburst
of pear-shaped diamonds on a chain round her neck, and she carried a
platinum lorgnette set with diamonds and pearls.”
“Did she own any other jewellery?”
“A few small pieces, maybe, but I’m not sure.”
“And did she keep ’em in a steel jewel-case in the bedroom?”
“Yes—when she wasn’t wearing them.” There was more than a suggestion
of sarcasm in the reply.
“Oh, I thought maybe she kept ’em locked up when she had ’em on.”
Heath’s antagonism had been aroused by the maid’s attitude; he could
not have failed to note that she had consistently omitted the
punctilious “sir” when answering him. He now stood up and pointed
loweringly to the black document-box on the rosewood table.
“Ever see that before?”
The woman nodded indifferently. “Many times.”
“Where was it generally kept?”
“In that thing.” She indicated the Boule cabinet with a motion of the
head.
“What was in the box?”
“How should I know?”
“You don’t know—huh?” Heath thrust out his jaw, but his bullying
attitude had no effect upon the impassive maid.
“I’ve got no idea,” she replied calmly. “It was always kept locked,
and I never saw Miss Odell open it.”
The Sergeant walked over to the door of the living-room closet.
“See that key?” he asked angrily.
Again the woman nodded; but this time I detected a look of mild
astonishment in her eyes.
“Was that key always kept on the inside of the door?”
“No; it was always on the outside.”
Heath shot Vance a curious look. Then, after a moment’s frowning
contemplation of the knob, he waved his hand to the detective who had
brought the maid in.
“Take her back to the reception-room, Snitkin, and get a detailed
description from her of all the Odell jewellery. . . . And keep her
outside; I’ll want her again.”
When Snitkin and the maid had gone out, Vance lay back lazily on the
davenport, where he had sat during the interview, and sent a spiral of
cigarette smoke toward the ceiling.
“Rather illuminatin’, what?” he remarked. “The dusky demoiselle got us
considerably forrader. Now we know that the closet key is on the wrong
side of the door, and that our _fille de joie_ went to the theatre
with one of her favorite _inamorati_, who presumably brought her home
shortly before she took her departure from this wicked world.”
“You think that’s helpful, do you?” Heath’s tone was contemptuously
triumphant. “Wait till you hear the crazy story the telephone
operator’s got to tell.”
“All right, Sergeant,” put in Markham impatiently. “Suppose we get on
with the ordeal.”
“I’m going to suggest, Mr. Markham, that we question the janitor
first. And I’ll show you why.” Heath went to the entrance door of the
apartment, and opened it. “Look here for just a minute, sir.”
He stepped out into the main hall, and pointed down the little
passageway on the left. It was about ten feet in length, and ran
between the Odell apartment and the blank rear wall of the
reception-room. At the end of it was a solid oak door which gave on
the court at the side of the house.
“That door,” explained Heath, “is the only side or rear entrance to
this building; and when that door is bolted nobody can get into the
house except by the front entrance. You can’t even get into the
building through the other apartments, for every window on this floor
is barred. I checked up on that point as soon as I got here.”
He led the way back into the living-room.
“Now, after I’d looked over the situation this morning,” he went on,
“I figured that our man had entered through that side door at the end
of the passageway, and had slipped into this apartment without the
night operator seeing him. So I tried the side door to see if it was
open. But it was bolted on the inside—not locked, mind you, but
bolted. And it wasn’t a slip-bolt, either, that could have been
jimmied or worked open from the outside, but a tough old-fashioned
turn-bolt of solid brass. . . . And now I want you to hear what the
janitor’s got to say about it.”
Markham nodded acquiescence, and Heath called an order to one of the
officers in the hall. A moment later a stolid, middle-aged German,
with sullen features and high cheek-bones, stood before us. His jaw
was clamped tight, and he shifted his eyes from one to the other of us
suspiciously.
Heath straightway assumed the rôle of inquisitor.
“What time do you leave here at night?” He had, for some reason,
assumed a belligerent manner.
“Six o’clock—sometimes earlier, sometimes later.” The man spoke in a
surly monotone. He was obviously resentful at this unexpected
intrusion upon his orderly routine.
“And what time do you get here in the morning?”
“Eight o’clock, regular.”
“What time did you go home last night?”
“About six—maybe quarter past.”
Heath paused and finally lighted the cigar on which he had been
chewing at intervals during the past hour.
“Now, tell me about that side door,” he went on, with undiminished
aggressiveness. “You told me you lock it every night before you
leave—is that right?”
“_Ja_—that’s right.” The man nodded his head affirmatively several
times. “Only I don’t lock it—I bolt it.”
“All right, you bolt it, then.” As Heath talked his cigar bobbed up
and down between his lips: smoke and words came simultaneously from
his mouth. “And last night you bolted it as usual about six o’clock?”
“Maybe a quarter past,” the janitor amended, with Germanic precision.
“You’re sure you bolted it last night?” The question was almost
ferocious.
“_Ja, ja._ Sure, I am. I do it every night. I never miss.”
The man’s earnestness left no doubt that the door in question had
indeed been bolted on the inside at about six o’clock of the previous
evening. Heath, however, belabored the point for several minutes, only
to be reassured doggedly that the door had been bolted. At last the
janitor was dismissed.
“Really, y’ know, Sergeant,” remarked Vance with an amused smile,
“that honest Rheinlander bolted the door.”
“Sure, he did,” spluttered Heath; “and I found it still bolted this
morning at quarter of eight. That’s just what messes things up so nice
and pretty. If that door was bolted from six o’clock last evening
until eight o’clock this morning, I’d appreciate having some one drive
up in a hearse and tell me how the Canary’s little playmate got in
here last night. And I’d also like to know how he got out.”
“Why not through the main entrance?” asked Markham. “It seems the only
logical way left, according to your own findings.”
“That’s how I had it figured out, sir,” returned Heath. “But wait till
you hear what the phone operator has to say.”
“And the phone operator’s post,” mused Vance, “is in the main hall
half-way between the front door and this apartment. Therefore, the
gentleman who caused all the disturbance hereabouts last night would
have had to pass within a few feet of the operator both on arriving
and departing—eh, what?”
“That’s it!” snapped Heath. “And, according to the operator, no such
person came or went.”
Markham seemed to have absorbed some of Heath’s irritability.
“Get the fellow in here, and let me question him,” he ordered.
Heath obeyed with a kind of malicious alacrity.