Mechanically she watched Billy cross to the table, lay the key upon it, and return to the hall without so much as a glance at the tense, suspicious circle of faces focused upon herself and her lover.
"I put it--somewhere else," she repeated, her eyes going back to the Doctor.
"Did you give it to Bailey?"
"No--I hid it--and then I told where it was--to the Doctor--" Dale swayed on her feet. All turned surprisedly toward the Doctor. Miss Cornelia rose from her chair.
The Doctor bore the battery of eyes unflinchingly. "That"s rather inaccurate," he said, with a tight little smile. "You told me where you had placed it, but when I went to look for it, it was gone."
"Are you quite sure of that?" queried Miss Cornelia acidly.
"Absolutely," he said. He ignored the rest of the party, addressing himself directly to Anderson.
"She said she had hidden it inside one of the rolls that were on the tray on that table," he continued in tones of easy explanation, approaching the table as he did so, and tapping it with the box of sleeping-powders he had brought for Miss Cornelia.
"She was in such distress that I finally went to look for it. It wasn"t there."
"Do you realize the significance of this paper?" Anderson boomed at once.
"Nothing, beyond the fact that Miss Ogden was afraid it linked her with the crime." The Doctor"s voice was very clear and firm.
Anderson pondered an instant. Then--
"I"d like to have a few minutes with the Doctor alone," he said somberly.
The group about him dissolved at once. Miss Cornelia, her arm around her niece"s waist, led the latter gently to the door. As the two lovers pa.s.sed each other a glance flashed between them--a glance, pathetically brief, of longing and love. Dale"s finger tips brushed Bailey"s hand gently in pa.s.sing.
"Beresford," commanded the detective, "take Bailey to the library and see that he stays there."
Beresford tapped his pocket with a significant gesture and motioned Bailey to the door. Then they, too, left the room. The door closed.
The Doctor and the detective were alone.
The detective spoke at once--and surprisingly.
"Doctor, I"ll have that blue-print!" he said sternly, his eyes the color of steel.
The Doctor gave him a wary little glance.
"But I"ve just made the statement that I didn"t find the blue-print,"
he affirmed flatly.
"I heard you!" Anderson"s voice was very dry. "Now this situation is between you and me, Doctor Wells." His forefinger sought the Doctor"s chest. "It has nothing to do with that poor fool of a cashier. He hasn"t got either those securities or the money from them and you know it. It"s in this house and you know that, too!"
"In this house?" repeated the Doctor as if stalling for time.
"In this house! Tonight, when you claimed to be making a professional call, you were in this house--and I think you were on that staircase when Richard Fleming was killed!"
"No, Anderson, I"ll swear I was not!" The Doctor might be acting, but if he was, it was incomparable acting. The terror in his voice seemed too real to be feigned.
But Anderson was remorseless.
"I"ll tell you this," he continued. "Miss Van Gorder very cleverly got a thumbprint of yours tonight. Does that mean anything to you?"
His eyes bored into the Doctor--the eyes of a poker player bluffing on a hidden card. But the Doctor did not flinch.
"Nothing," he said firmly. "I have not been upstairs in this house in three months."
The accent of truth in his voice seemed so unmistakable that even Anderson"s shrewd brain was puzzled by it. But he persisted in his attempt to wring a confession from this latest suspect.
"Before Courtleigh Fleming died--did he tell you anything about a Hidden Room in this house?" he queried cannily.
The Doctor"s confident air of honesty lessened, a furtive look appeared in his eyes.
"No," he insisted, but not as convincingly as he had made his previous denial.
The detective hammered at the point again.
"You haven"t been trying to frighten these women out of here with anonymous letters so you could get in?"
"No. Certainly not." But again the Doctor"s air had that odd mixture of truth and falsehood in it.
The detective paused for an instant.
"Let me see your key ring!" he ordered. The Doctor pa.s.sed it over silently. The detective glanced at the keys--then, suddenly, his revolver glittered in his other hand.
The Doctor watched him anxiously. A puff of wind rattled the panes of the French windows. The storm, quieted for a while, was gathering its strength for a fresh unleashing of its dogs of thunder.
The detective stepped to the terrace door, opened it, and then quietly proceeded to try the Doctor"s keys in the lock. Thus located he was out of visual range, and Wells took advantage of it at once. He moved swiftly toward the fireplace, extracting the missing piece of blue-print from an inside pocket as he did so. The secret the blue-print guarded was already graven on his mind in indelible characters--now he would destroy all evidence that it had ever been in his possession and bluff through the rest of the situation as best he might.
He threw the paper toward the flames with a nervous gesture of relief.
But for once his cunning failed--the throw was too hurried to be sure and the light sc.r.a.p of paper wavered and settled to the floor just outside the fireplace. The Doctor swore noiselessly and stooped to pick it up and make sure of its destruction. But he was not quick enough. Through the window the detective had seen the incident, and the next moment the Doctor heard his voice bark behind him. He turned, and stared at the leveled muzzle of Anderson"s revolver.
"Hands up and stand back!" he commanded.
As he did so Anderson picked up the paper and a sardonic smile crossed his face as his eyes took in the significance of the print. He laid his revolver down on the table where he could s.n.a.t.c.h it up again at a moment"s notice.
"Behind a fireplace, eh?" he muttered. "What fireplace? In what room?"
"I won"t tell you!" The Doctor"s voice was sullen. He inched, gingerly, cautiously, toward the other side of the table.
"All right--I"ll find it, you know." The detective"s eyes turned swiftly back to the blue-print. Experience should have taught him never to underrate an adversary, even of the Doctor"s caliber, but long familiarity with danger can make the shrewdest careless. For a moment, as he bent over the paper again, he was off guard.
The Doctor seized the moment with a savage prompt.i.tude and sprang.
There followed a silent, furious struggle between the two. Under normal circ.u.mstances Anderson would have been the stronger and quicker, but the Doctor fought with an added strength of despair and his initial leap had pinioned the detective"s arms behind him. Now the detective shook one hand free and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the revolver--in vain--for the Doctor, with a groan of desperation, struck at his hand as its fingers were about to close on the smooth b.u.t.t and the revolver skidded from the table to the floor. With a sudden terrible movement he pinioned both the detective"s arms behind him again and reached for the telephone. Its heavy base descended on the back of the detective"s head with stunning force. The next moment the battle was ended and the Doctor, panting with exhaustion, held the limp form of an unconscious man in his arms.
He lowered the detective to the floor and straightened up again, listening tensely. So brief and intense had been the struggle that even now he could hardly believe in its reality. It seemed impossible, too, that the struggle had not been heard. Then he realized dully, as a louder roll of thunder smote on his ears, that the elements themselves had played into his hand. The storm, with its wind and fury, had returned just in time to save him and drown out all sounds of conflict from the rest of the house with its giant clamor.
He bent swiftly over Anderson, listening to his heart. Good--the man still breathed; he had enough on his conscience without adding the murder of a detective to the black weight. Now he pocketed the revolver and the blue-print--gagged Anderson rapidly with a knotted handkerchief and proceeded to wrap his own m.u.f.fler around the detective"s head as an additional silencer. Anderson gave a faint sigh.