THE LOCKED ROOM
The doctor opened the door of his study, and again she hesitated.
There was no reason in the world why she should fear him any more at
that moment than she had in the past; but somehow the very atmosphere
of this house was fearful.
“You will not return to the shop, Elizabeth,” were his first words,
“and I do not doubt that you will be very pleased to know this.”
He motioned her to a chair, and with a lifetime’s habit of obedience,
she sat down.
“You will remember that a year ago, as a result of the desire
expressed by you for the privacy which, in this age of prurience and
hypocrisy, every woman regards as her due, I went to the great expense
of creating what was virtually a house within a house, a
dwelling-place in but not of my own home.”
In such magniloquent language did the doctor describe the very simple
process of fixing a door to the top landing of the house, which gave
her the floor to herself. The cost had been infinitesimal, and Laffin
had disputed every item of the carpenters’ bill. The “dwelling-place”
she had thus acquired, had been a bedroom, a bathroom, which had been
intended for the servants, two other rooms, one of which was empty,
and one containing sufficient furniture to emphasise its bareness.
“Your suite is as you left it. I have been at some pains to collect
for you the linen necessary to your comfort; there is a gas fire and a
gas ring, at which you may cook----”
“I don’t understand you, Doctor. You know that I am not returning to
the house,” she interrupted. “I am very comfortable in my own little
apartments. I thought we had settled that matter definitely?”
As usual, Laffin made no direct response.
“Before you reject an offer conceived in the very spirit of charity,
before you strike at the hand which has fed you and clothed you, which
has rescued you from the ignominy of a pauper school and the
humiliation of domestic service, child of infamous parentage, be so
good as to inspect my work of devotion and kindness, and tell me if I
have fallen short in my duty to one in whose veins runs the foul blood
of a besotted murderer.”
“Oblige me by leading the way,” he said, with over-elaborate
courtesy, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, she went before him up
the stairs, determined that nothing he could say would induce her to
remain a minute longer in that house than was absolutely necessary.
Her “suite,” as he was pleased to call it, was on the third floor.
The door at the top of the landing was locked, and, in addition, she
saw a staple and bolt which seemed to have been newly fixed.
“Do you padlock this door?” she asked.
“If you do not return, it shall be padlocked and never opened again.”
“I hope you will also throw away the key,” she said coolly, “for
these are the most dismal rooms in the house.”
There was little change in her apartment; the bed had been made up, a
fire was laid in the grate, and two or three books were on the table,
but----
“When did you have these bars put up?” She pointed to four steel rods
that barred the window.
“Quite recently,” he said.
Bedroom and bathroom were at the back of the house, overlooking a
parallelogram of disorderly gardens. She walked out of the room,
intending to go into what had been planned as her sitting-room, but
the door was locked.
“It is not my intention that you should use the rooms at the front of
the house,” said Dr. Laffin.
“It is not my intention to use any,” she answered.
To this he gave no reply, and she was so inured to his bad manners
that she did not realise that he had passed through the landing-door
until she heard it slam, and the snap of the lock as it turned.
“Let me out!” Her fists were hammering on the panel.
“You will stay until I am ready for you, my little friend.”
His voice was muffled, and only now she realised the thickness of the
door. He was fitting a padlock on the new bolt; she heard the grating
of iron against iron, and then two bolts were shot.
The first wave of her anger passed, leaving her deadly cool. The
little warning which her unconscious self had whispered, was something
more than an unreasonable fear; there was another and a more sinister
explanation for Joshua Laffin’s conduct.
The door was impossible. She went into the bedroom, opened the window
and tried to look out. The steel rods were an effective barrier to
escape, even were it possible to scale the sheer wall that dropped
fifty feet to a stone-flagged courtyard.
And then a wild hope surged in her heart, and she sprang up from the
bed on which she was sitting, and ran to the landing door. She had
heard a familiar voice below. It was Clive Lowbridge!
“Clive, Clive!” she called, and hammered with all her might on the
door. “Clive, help me!”
She listened; there came the thud of a door, and a dead silence
reigned.
To give way to hysterical fear now would be madness, she thought, and
strove to calm herself. It was not long before she had her reminder
that she had not eaten since her frugal luncheon, and she went into
the little kitchenette, where she had so often cooked surreptitious
meals in the old days, when her sole source of heat supply was one gas
burner. At the sight of the provisions on the table she grew
thoughtful. Dr. Laffin had made such preparations that she could not
doubt he expected her imprisonment to be a long one.
She finished her dinner, washed the plates and strolled back to her
room to sit down and think…
As the church bells clanged the tenth hour, Mr. William Holbrook threw
away the last of his cigarette supply and groaned. She had said in his
hearing that she would only stay a few minutes. Five hours had passed,
and the girl had not come out.
What should he do? Following the departure of the doctor, he had
knocked at the door, but his knock had gone unheeded. If Dr. Laffin
kept servants, they were beyond the sound of the summons.
Again he looked up at the window, and then:
“Pretty easy house that--to a professional, I mean,” said a voice in
his ear, and he jerked round, startled.
Toby Marsh was at his elbow--even without his thick rubber-soled
shoes, Toby had the habit of noiseless walking.