UNDER LOCK AND KEY
David Curtis rose from his seat by the window and stretched his cramped
muscles. He had sat in the same position for what seemed to him
interminable hours, waiting in watchful silence for the return of his
mysterious visitor. But the remainder of the night had proved
uneventful. The servants were astir early and he heard doors and windows
being opened on the lower floor as they went about their work. He had
about completed dressing when a knock sounded on his door, and he
crossed the room and, turning the key, threw it open.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Fernando, with your breakfast, honorable sir.” The Filipino set the
tray on the chair and, removing some magazines and books from a small
table, put it in front of the window and then arranged the tray. Turning
about he saw Curtis struggling to tie his cravat and went to assist him.
“I get your cane, sir. The table—it is this way,” and he walked
solicitously across the room with Curtis and pulled back his chair
before the improvised breakfast table.
Curtis ate half-heartedly; he had little appetite. “You may pour out
another cup of coffee,” he said, “and then you need not wait. But
first,” his voice deepened, “why did you tell me you were Fernando?”
“I—I—” The Filipino, taken completely by surprise, came to a stammering
halt.
“Just so, Damason.” Curtis smiled grimly. “Why are you masquerading as
your twin brother?”
“He sick,” Damason passed one moist hand uneasily over the other. “I
take his place; it is all the same.” He cast a quick, suspicious glance
at Curtis. “How you know?”
“By your height,” calmly. “You will recollect that I rested my hand on
your shoulder when you tied my cravat. Your brother must be two inches
shorter than you. Your voices, however, are identical. Is Fernando very
ill?”
“Oh, no, sir. He what you call,” hunting about for a word, “sick to his
stomach. He drink soda and be all right.”
“If I can do anything, let me know. I am a physician.”
“Thanks, honorable sir.” Damason bowed low. “If you want anything,
please ring, sir, and I come.”
“Very well, Damason,” and the Filipino started for the door just as it
opened and admitted Leonard McLane.
“It’s Leonard, Dave; I came right up,” he said, nodding to Damason as
the chauffeur slipped into the hall, closing the door behind him. “What
is it, old man?” laying his hand on Curtis’ shoulder to keep him in his
seat. “Don’t rise. I found your urgent message about three this morning
and came over as soon as I decently could and not awaken the household.”
He gazed keenly at Curtis, and asked in concern: “Has anything of
importance happened? You look as if you had had a night of it.”
“I had,” laconically. “Sit down, Leonard. I want your advice.”
McLane listened enthralled as Curtis rapidly told of the arrival of
Frank Elliott and the latter’s claim to the one hundred thousand
dollars, of the duplicate key in the safe deposit box, of his drive to
Frederick in Anne’s car and finding a similar key hanging on her gold
chain.
“Here is the key.” As he spoke, Curtis drew it out of his pocket and
exhibited it.
“And you don’t know what this key unlocks?” asked McLane.
“No. But it must be of some importance or Anne would not carry it on her
person, nor Meredith have its duplicate in a safe deposit box,” replied
Curtis doggedly. “And I am commencing to believe that when we find what
this key opens we will have gone a long way in solving the problem of
who killed Meredith and why.”
“I agree with you,” declared McLane, with heartening vigor. “Is that all
that transpired?”
“No. I was awakened early this morning by a monkey—”
“In this room?”
“Yes. And just as I got a firm grip on its hand—I can’t call it a
paw—and tried to drag the beast back inside the window, the hand was
severed from the body and left in my grasp.”
McLane half rose in his seat and then sank back. “You are kidding me!”
he exclaimed.
Curtis left his chair and went over to his bureau. When he came back to
the window he unwrapped a bloodstained handkerchief and displayed its
contents.
“Are you convinced?” he asked. “Look at the window sill and tell me what
you see.”
McLane bent over the sill and studied it in silence. “There is a streak
of blood and a mark on the stone ledge where a sharp blade struck. It
must have been driven with terrific force.”
“By whom?”
McLane leaned far out of the window and scanned the brick walls. “Some
one must have been crouching on this balcony just outside your window,
Dave,” he said.
“Sure—the man who hadn’t the courage to steal into my room, but had to
send a poor dumb beast to do his dirty work,” declared Curtis savagely.
McLane straightened up. “I had almost forgotten,” he exclaimed. “I saw
an impression of a hand on your counterpane yesterday. At first glance I
thought it was a child’s soiled hand.”
“That proves the monkey has made other visits to my bedroom,” broke in
Curtis grimly. “With what object, I wonder—”
“To steal—”
“What?”
McLane shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll answer that later—when I know,” he
added dryly. “I wasn’t entirely convinced that it was a child’s hand
which I had seen on the counterpane, so I came back to your room, Dave,
just before leaving the house, only to find that the counterpane had
been changed in our absence.”
Curtis whistled softly. “I’ll be everlastingly blessed!” he ejaculated.
“Well, we have one clue to go upon which will enable us to identify the
person so interested in my room,” he spoke with renewed energy. “And
that is the monkey. People who possess monkeys in this vicinity are not
numerous. We should have little difficulty in locating the owner of my
midnight visitor.”
“I can tell you the owner’s name now—”
“You can?” Curtis was quick to detect the odd inflection in McLane’s
voice.
“Who is it?”
“Anne Meredith.”
The answer was unexpected. Curtis drew in his breath sharply.
“Are you sure?” he demanded. “Think, Leonard, what you are implying-”
McLane nodded. “Her uncle, John Meredith, gave a marmosette to Anne for
Christmas. It is a wonderfully intelligent little beast. Anne called it
her thinking machine.”
“I never heard of it—”
“How many days have you been here?” quickly. “I came last Friday,”
stopping to count; “this is Wednesday morning, four days in all.”
“And John Meredith was killed on Sunday night,” put in McLane. “It is
hardly surprising that you are not familiar with everything about Ten
Acres and its inmates.”
“I’ve found it a house of mystery,” groaned Curtis. “Where does Anne
keep her monkey?”
“Fernando, the Filipino, takes care of it for her—”
Curtis rose. “So that is it!” His face cleared.
“And Fernando is ill this morning. Go, Leonard, and find out if the
monkey is still alive and—if its paw is missing. If it is, swear out a
warrant for Fernando’s arrest—”
“On what grounds?”
“As a housebreaker,” grimly. “That will hold him, for the time being.
Hurry, Leonard.” He pushed his friend impatiently toward the door and
into the corridor. They had reached the head of the circular staircase
when Gretchen intercepted them.
“Doctor McLane,” she called timidly, and the two men halted. “Plees come
and see Mees Lucille.”
“Is she ill?” inquired McLane, observing Curtis’ impatient frown at the
interruption to their plans.
Gretchen bowed her head and McLane, looking at her closely, saw that she
was crying.
“Which is Miss Lucille’s bedroom?” he asked. Gretchen pointed dumbly
down the left hand corridor. “Stay here, Dave, and I’ll return as
quickly as possible.”
As Curtis rested his hand on the banisters he caught a faint sob on his
right as Gretchen buried her face in her apron.
“What is it?” he asked kindly. “What distresses you, Gretchen?”
“Mees Lucille,” she stammered. “She got the bad news on the phone.”
“What news?” quickly.
“Her father was hurt las’ night in his car.” Gretchen drew a sobbing
breath. “Mees Lucille fear to tell her mother. Poor Mees Lucille!”
Curtis’ kind heart was touch by her genuine grief. “Perhaps Miss Lucille
is unduly alarmed,” he suggested. “Her father may not be seriously
hurt.” Gretchen looked unconvinced. “It was what you call a ‘bad
smash,’” she repeated the words almost as if she had learned them by
rote. “I feel so because we come togedder from my country, and she is my
dear young Mees.”
Curtis had a retentive memory. Where had he heard Gretchen use that
phrase before in the same agitated tones? Before he could question her
further she had darted down the corridor toward Lucille’s bedroom. He
lingered by the staircase for over five minutes, then becoming restive,
turned and paced up and down the hall, each turn taking him a little
further from the staircase. He paused abruptly before a closed door and
touched the knob somewhat doubtfully—a piece of twine still hung from
it.
His memory had not been at fault in the location of John Meredith’s
bedroom. He swung open the door and stepped inside.
“_Mon Dieu!_” Susanne’s excited exclamation made him pause. _“Mon Dieu,
Monsieur le Docteur!”_ She pulled herself together and lowered her voice
to its normal tone. “You haf—haf—” She reached out her hand to clutch
the door as she got to her knees, but Curtis had swung the door to
again. As he did so his hand brushed against the inside knob—from the
key in the lock was suspended a wig.
“Is this yours?” he asked politely, concealing his astonishment and also
his inclination to laugh.
“But yes, _monsieur_.” Susanne passed him and disengaged her property
from the key, caught between the hair and the pretty cap she always
wore. “Some time ago, _monsieur_, I had the fever, and my hair lef’ me.”
Her nimble fingers replaced the wig and cap. “_Monsieur_ will do me a
kindness by not speaking of my misfortune.”
“Of course, Susanne, I will say nothing.”
“_Merci, monsieur_,” and waiting for no more, Susanne hurried off, in
her haste never observing a small object hopping along the hall. She had
not entirely closed the door and through the narrow opening it passed
into John Meredith’s bedroom.
Curtis rested on his cane in deep thought. His brief conversation with
the French maid had given him time to wonder at her presence in
Meredith’s bedroom. What was she doing there? And above all, why was she
on her knees? If she had not been on her knees how had her wig become
caught in the key of the door? He had obviously swung the door against
her as he entered. If she had been directly in front of the door he
could not have opened it without using some force.
Curtis walked to the door and grasping the inside knob pulled it slowly
open, as he did so walking in the direction it swung. It brought him
against the right wall of the bedroom. Susanne must have been kneeling
there when he entered. Curtis stood where he was and pushed the door to.
Not until he heard the click of the latch did he move. Tucking his cane
under his arm he moved his hands back and forth over the high mahogany
panels with which the room was wainscoted. What had interested Mrs.
Meredith’s French maid might prove of interest to him! He worked his way
to the corner by the door, then, undiscouraged by his lack of success,
covered the ground again slowly, feeling each panel as he went along. He
had traversed some distance down the room when he paused to push a chair
out of his way.
“Watch your step!” The hoarse warning came just under his lifted foot
and he swayed back in startled surprise. His hand struck the wainscoting
a resounding blow; he distinguished a faint buzzing sound, and a panel
swung toward him. Curtis clutched it in time to regain his balance. He
heard a flutter of wings and a bird alighted on his shoulder.
“Pretty Poll, pretty Poll!” The parrot preened its feathers, then its
softer tones grew shrill. “Anne—you devil—I’ve caught you!”
Curtis scratched the parrot’s head. “I’ll wring your neck, Ruffles,” he
muttered, “some day—perhaps.”
The parrot’s chuckle carried a hint of diabolic mirth as it fluttered
down to the floor and hopped across to its old quarters. From that
vantage point the bird eyed Curtis as he turned his attention to the
open panel and the steel door which, when closed, it cleverly concealed.
Curtis’ first care was to locate the spring which he had accidentally
struck, so that he might be able to open the panel again. His diligent
search was rewarded by finding a section where the panels joined. The
spring was a clever piece of mechanism, and Curtis made sure that he
could operate it before turning his attention to the steel door. He ran
his fingers lightly over its surface and found the small keyhole. Taking
out the key which he had removed from Anne’s gold chain the night
before, he inserted it in the lock—a turn of his wrist and the door
opened slowly.
It was some seconds before Curtis put his hand inside the compartment.
He touched a number of packages lying one upon another. Taking up one he
removed the rubber band and fingered the bank notes before returning
them to their safe hiding place. Drawing up his chair, Curtis seated
himself and went deliberately through the contents of John Meredith’s
secret compartment.
Ten minutes later Curtis closed the door of the bedroom, taking the
precaution to lock it and pocket the key. There was no suggestion of
hesitancy in the blind surgeon’s movements—it was a man virile, fearless
and resourceful who walked quietly down the corridor toward the
servants’ wing of the house.