“I have been thinking this matter over carefully for some time,” began
Hamerly, in his rather careful tones, once we were seated, “and if you
do not object I should like to present my theories.”
“Go right ahead,” said Tom.
Hamerly went on somewhat thoughtfully. “I think you are wrong in saying
we ought to follow the methods of Sherlock Holmes. We ought rather to
follow Dupin, Poe’s detective, the man who preceded Sherlock Holmes.
Try to reason out what the doctor would have on hand with regard to
the power, and where he would have it. Try to analyze the action of his
brain, rather than hunt for minute data. Let’s see what we know about
Dr. Heidenmuller. He was a German of the most typical student type.
That means he would never do anything without putting it down on paper.
He had every desire to keep what he was doing from those around him.
That is evident from the fact that Swenton never knew anything about
the interior of this room. If the doctor made notes, as I believe he
must have done, he would have wanted them within reach. So he must have
had them in this room. He was a brilliant scientist, therefore he would
not by preference have used any of the ordinary methods of concealment.
His notes and apparatus were likely to take up a comparatively large
amount of space, so that we are impelled to the definite conclusion
that there is a concealed closet somewhere in that inner chamber. If
we could take the time to remove the whole of the walls, and could get
permission to do so, we could, I believe, find the hiding place, but
that would involve time, expense, and running down the people who at
present control the place and own the apparatus. I strongly question
whether that would be worth while.”
“No,” said Tom, “I don’t believe it would. If there were any chance
of the man who has hired this place being the man we are after, I’d
say go for him at any cost, but I don’t believe there’s one chance
in a thousand that it is. He’s too sharp to stay around where Dr.
Heidenmuller died under such peculiar circumstances.”
“I agree to that,” said Hamerly.
“And I, too,” I chimed in.
Dorothy said nothing, but as I watched her, I saw the rose of her
cheeks growing deeper, and that peculiar change in her eye that showed
she had already leaped beyond the reasoning of the others and grasped
the answer by intuition. “One question first,” she began, “Mr. Swenton,
did the doctor leave the door to the spectroscope room open when he
went into his private room?”
“No,” answered Swenton slowly, “he would go into the spectroscope room,
lock that door, and then you could hear the inner door open and shut.
Sometimes he would not come out again, but I have often heard him come
out into the anteroom about three or four minutes after he went in,
stay there for a minute or two, then go in again and come out once
more. After that he would be shut up there for hours together.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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