“Suppose,” she said, “that the Bat, or whoever it was shut in there
with you, killed Richard Fleming. Say that he is the one Lizzie saw
coming in by the terrace door. Then he knew where the money was for he
went directly up the stairs. But that is two hours ago or more. Why
didn’t he get the money, if it was here, and get away?”
“He may have had trouble with the combination.”
“Perhaps. Anyhow, he was on the small staircase when Dick Fleming
started up, and of course he shot him. That’s clear enough. Then he
finally got the safe open, after locking us in below, and my coming up
interrupted him. How on earth did he get out on the roof?”
Bailey glanced out the window.
“It would be possible from here. Possible, but not easy.”
“But, if he could do that,” she persisted, “he could have got away,
too. There are trellises and porches. Instead of that he came back here
to this room.” She stared at the window. “Could a man have done that
with one hand?”
“Never in the world.”
Saying nothing, but deeply thoughtful, Miss Cornelia made a fresh
progress around the room.
“I know very little about bank-currency,” she said finally. “Could such
a sum as was looted from the Union Bank be carried away in a man’s
pocket?”
Bailey considered the question.
“Even in bills of large denomination it would make a pretty sizeable
bundle,” he said.
But that Miss Cornelia’s deductions were correct, whatever they were,
was in question when Lizzie returned with the elderberry wine.
Apparently Miss Cornelia was to be like the man who repaired the clock:
she still had certain things left over.
For Lizzie announced that the Unknown was ranging the second floor
hall. From the time they had escaped from the living-room this man had
not been seen or thought of, but that he was a part of the mystery
there could be no doubt. It flashed over Miss Cornelia that, although
he could not possibly have locked them in, in the darkness that
followed he could easily have fastened the bat to the door. For the
first time it occurred to her that the archcriminal might not be
working alone, and that the entrance of the Unknown might have been a
carefully devised ruse to draw them all together and hold them there.
Nor was Beresford’s arrival with the statement that the Unknown was
moving through the house below particularly comforting.
“He may be dazed, or he may not,” he said. “Personally, this is not a
time to trust anybody.”
Beresford knew nothing of what had just occurred, and now seeing Bailey
he favored him with an ugly glance.
“In the absence of Anderson, Bailey,” he added, “I don’t propose to
trust you too far. I’m making it my business from now on to see that
you don’t try to get away. Get that?”
But Bailey heard him without particular resentment.
“All right,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this. Anderson is here and has
arrested the Doctor. Keep your eye on me, if you think it’s your duty,
but don’t talk to me as if I were a criminal. You don’t know that yet.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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