The Mystery of the Hidden Room Part 25

"Are you a criminal lawyer, Mr. Cunningham?" queried McKelvie suddenly.

He had arisen again when Cunningham began to talk and had been pacing the room in apparent indifference to our conversation.

"No, I am not," answered the lawyer promptly, just a little surprised.

"What an infinite pity! You would make a great success in that line I am sure," responded McKelvie, and in his flexible voice I again detected traces of irony.

Cunningham looked at McKelvie undecided whether to take the remark as an insult or a compliment, and I saw McKelvie's lip curl just a trifle before he continued suavely, "I meant it, Mr. Cunningham. You would make a great criminal lawyer. I advise you to try your hand at that branch of the profession."

Cunningham laughed. "Thanks, but I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks.

Besides, I am planning to take a little vacation presently. I expect to travel for the next few years, but I do not mean to intrude my own uninteresting affairs upon you. You have no time to waste in this case.

Have you discovered anything of value so far?" he continued with friendly interest.

McKelvie shook his head and sighed. "I am afraid so far it is a losing game," he said with an air of great candor. "The trouble is, as I explained to Mr. Davies, that the scent is cold. The clues are in the hands of the police. Ah, if only I could have been here from the first!"

"It is a pity. They say you are a great detective. I should hate to see you defeated," answered the lawyer, giving McKelvie a Roland for his Oliver.

McKelvie laughed--a short, hard laugh.

"Don't fool yourself, Mr. Cunningham. I am not going to be defeated," he said tersely. "No, not even if the criminal is the cleverest fellow living."

"Pride goeth before destruction, Mr. McKelvie. By this time the criminal has doubtless betaken himself to other parts," returned the lawyer, sardonically.

"The world is small, and I am going to get him if it takes me the rest of my life." McKelvie's jaw snapped with grim determination.

The lawyer rose. "I must be going. Good-by, Mr. Davies. Farewell, Mr.

McKelvie. Long life to you, sir."

"d.a.m.n his impudence," said McKelvie as the front door slammed, "but he's right. I have no time to waste. I'll call you up in the morning if I have news, and in the meantime say nothing to anyone of our discoveries."

"Not even Mr. Trenton?"

"Not even Mr. Trenton. I'm trusting no one but you and--Jenkins. Also, I do not want that meddlesome old lawyer hanging around when I want to work. Good-by."

"Just a moment. How does what Cunningham told us affect the case as it now stands?"

"Not a hair's breadth. I told you before there was more than enough evidence against her. And I'm hanged if I don't believe he knew it, too!"

CHAPTER XX

DEDUCTIONS

Naturally, Mr. Trenton was eager to know what we had accomplished and bombarded me with questions the moment I stepped foot in my apartments, which was not until late, for I had stopped at the office to attend to some pressing business first. I put him off, however, by saying that McKelvie was just getting his bearings and we'd have definite news when I heard from him again. I expected that he would call me up next day, but I received no word from him, so that I had plenty of time to speculate on the little I knew.

Personally, I was not sorry that Philip Darwin had failed, because I did not relish the idea of Ruth's inheriting his money, but I could not understand why McKelvie had disparaged Cunningham's motive in giving us this information. Not that I wanted to side with the man. I felt the same unreasonable antagonism that McKelvie evidently experienced toward him, but I wanted to be fair, and as far as I could see he was desirous of helping us as much as he could.

At any rate, motives for the crime, as far as Ruth was concerned, were valueless, since we knew of the existence of the secret entrance. What troubled me most was this point. Why should any sane man (I presume that the criminal was sane, if criminality is not another form of insanity) I repeat, why should any sane man shoot another one in the dark in the presence of a third person with the chances ten to one against his. .h.i.tting the one at whom he aimed, and ten to one in favor of his being discovered? It was absurd on the face of it, yet it was just what had happened in the study that night, and twist it as I would I could make neither rhyme nor reason out of it. McKelvie had said the criminal was a clever man and clever criminals don't usually leave anything to chance, for only chance could have directed his aim in a room so dark that he could not possibly see his prospective victim!

Though I thought about it continually, this point was still a puzzle when McKelvie phoned me, early the second day after our visit to Riverside Drive, and asked me to meet him there at ten o'clock, but to tell no one where I was going. As I was in the habit of leaving for the office about eight I said nothing of my ultimate destination to Mr.

Trenton, but I ordered Jenkins to be at the office as near nine-thirty as possible. I did not know whether McKelvie wanted him or not, and it was simpler to dismiss him than to send for him.

When we entered Darwin's study at ten o'clock sharp McKelvie was standing at one of the windows whistling. He greeted us with a smile and the remark, "Well, I'm all ready to tell you how the murder was committed."

"You have discovered something new?" I asked quickly.

"One or two things, but nothing bearing on my statement. I knew before I entered this room day before yesterday how it was done. For another that might seem impossible, but for me, no. It was simplicity itself."

I couldn't help smiling at this piece of conceit and catching my look he laughed good-humoredly.

"All great detectives--and I am one, according to my friend, Cunningham--are egotistical," he said.

"Is that the reason that Sherlock Holmes is an egotist, sir?" asked Jenkins suddenly.

"Undoubtedly; and why not, since he is the greatest of his kind.

You see great detectives seldom fail, and so naturally they become--well--self-opinionated," returned McKelvie.

But I had not come there to discuss the failings of detectives, great or small, so I proceeded to dismount him from his hobby.

"You said you knew how the murder was done. So does anyone who reads the papers. The coroner's inquest made that fact plain," I said to get him started. I had learned already that he disliked having his statements belittled.

"The coroner's inquest!" he scoffed. "Haven't you the wit to see that the inquest was in the hands of the police from the start? Jones questioned Orton in the morning and then calmly used Graves and his jury as a vehicle for tightening the net in which Mrs. Darwin had become entangled. What chance then had the truth for even so much as lifting its head? I suppose the police explained to your satisfaction how the murderer shot so accurately in the dark?" he ended, cynically.

I smiled inwardly as I realized that I had drawn the very fire I wanted.

Now I would have the answer to my puzzle.

"Well, how did he do it?" I asked, unruffled.

"He didn't. He shot Darwin while the lamp was lighted, like any right-minded person," he answered triumphantly. "By the way, Jenkins, I don't believe I'll need you to-day."

"Very well, sir."

I waited until Jenkins had gone and then I replied to McKelvie's statement. "What you have just remarked is utterly impossible," I retorted. "Ruth heard the shot before she saw the lamp spring into being, and she was speaking the truth."

He laughed. "Certainly, I am not disputing that point. I am merely making the a.s.sertion that the murderer shot his victim while the lamp, and for all I know, all the lights were lighted."

"But----"

"On second thoughts I don't believe I'll tell you. You might be as skeptical of my information as you were triumphant just now at having roused my ire," he answered laconically, and I knew that I had not deceived him long with my pretense of blockheadedness.

"I promise to believe anything you may say and swallow it all, hook, line and sinker," I pleaded.

"Well, perhaps under those circ.u.mstances--" he appeared to reflect, then said abruptly, "Would you call Dr. Haskins a man who knew his business?"

"Yes, decidedly so," I replied, surprised at the turn in the conversation.

"He remarked, if you remember, that Philip Darwin lived twenty minutes after the bullet had penetrated his lung, and yet he also agreed with the coroner's physician that Philip Darwin died at midnight or shortly thereafter. You yourself can testify that the shot was fired at midnight. How then do you account for the discrepancies in these various facts, for facts they are?"