The Mystery of the Hidden Room Part 48

I glanced at Jones and Grenville and saw to my amus.e.m.e.nt that the police detective was sound asleep. He reminded me of a watchdog that though he might doze would yet be instantly on the alert at the least hint of danger. The District Attorney caught my look and smiled, then he leaned back in his chair and set himself to wait with what patience he might possess.

I turned to my thoughts, thankful that McKelvie had spared Mr. Trenton this ordeal, for now that Cunningham was exonerated, the burden of the crime must fall upon d.i.c.k, who, after all, was the only one well enough acquainted with circ.u.mstances to have attempted the schemes which McKelvie had foiled. Yet it seemed such a mad thing to do, to put his head in the noose a second time when he had just been cleared of his first crime, unless James Gilmore's story was all of a piece with the other deceptions d.i.c.k had practised upon us. Who was Gilmore any way?

Had we any proof that his story was true? He may have been paid to put us off the scent by making us believe that d.i.c.k could not commit another crime since he was innocent of the first one. But, again, there was McKelvie's statement that with the exception of the Chinamen and those two ruffians, the criminal had steered clear of confederates. I could not divine d.i.c.k's motive for the deed, since the murder was not and never had been, one of impulse.

I wished heartily that the whole thing was over and this suspense ended, yet when the lamp suddenly lighted on the table and I knew that the hour was at hand, since it must have been the criminal's hand that had pressed the switch in the safe, I closed my eyes. I did not want to see the door swing open and d.i.c.k step out of that safe.

I heard a metallic click as McKelvie snapped on the handcuffs, and I opened my eyes with a start as I realized by the snarl of rage that had come from the murderer's lips that we had caught the man as neatly as one traps a wild and dangerous animal.

McKelvie laughed as he slammed the door of the safe, and the three of us rose precipitately (Jones had wakened when the lamp went on), for we could make out the criminal's figure as he came rapidly toward us. When he stood within the circle of light, confronting the muzzle of Jones'

gun, I looked into his face, then I gasped audibly.

The man before me was not d.i.c.k, but the lawyer--Cunningham!

"This is an outrage!" he exclaimed furiously. "What do you mean by putting such an indignity upon me?" and he glared at McKelvie.

McKelvie smiled in an exasperating manner. "I was expecting the criminal to come through that entrance, since he alone possesses a key to it. I saw a man appear and clapped on the bracelets. It happened to be you.

How do you explain the circ.u.mstance?" he inquired politely.

"Very easily," retorted Cunningham coolly, recovering his poise, "I was going over a lot of old papers and came across a sealed envelope addressed to me in Darwin's hand. Wondering what it could portend I opened it. Inside I found a small key and the explanation of the secret of the entrance. Darwin also went on to say that he was taking me into his confidence in case anything should ever happen to him. Having a fondness for amateur detective work, like yourself, Mr. McKelvie," here he bowed ironically to McKelvie, "I decided to use the opportunity which fate had bestowed upon me to do a little investigating on my own account."

"Very ingenious, but it won't do," returned McKelvie, adding with a sarcastic inflection, "I suppose he also told you the six-letter combination that I used to lock the safe--after he was dead?"

Cunningham flushed and bit his lip, but before he could think of an appropriate retort, McKelvie had turned to Jones.

"You won't need to use that gun, Jones," he said with a twinkle. "Our prisoner is too valuable to shoot--as yet. Call in the others, please, and light the room as you pa.s.s the switch."

Jones pocketed his gun, and departed on his errand, lighting the study, as we had agreed to do, for the guidance of the men outside. In a second he was back again with Lee and Cora. As Cunningham's eyes rested on the girl, who had her arm around Lee and was helping him tenderly to a chair, the man's face darkened and his eyes blazed upon her.

"Miss Manning, have you ever seen this man before?" asked McKelvie when Lee was seated and Cora had turned toward us.

The girl looked Cunningham up and down, from the sole of his patent leather shoes to the crown of his gray-streaked red hair, then she shook her head and answered simply, "No, Mr. McKelvie, I have never seen him before."

"Now I trust that you are satisfied?" demanded Cunningham, insolently, a gleam of triumph in his eyes. "You will oblige me by removing these things."

Though he held out his manacled hands to McKelvie, his eyes remained on Cora's face with a look impossible to mistake. The man was in love with her, though how that was possible when she did not know him, I was at a loss to decide. McKelvie took a step forward and I thought he was going to comply with Cunningham's request, but he made no move to release his prisoner.

"Sorry to have to refuse a gentleman of your standing, but you are far safer to me with the bracelets on," returned McKelvie imperturbably.

"You are undoubtedly clever or you could not have evaded me so long, but the trouble with you, as it is with all clever criminals, is that you are egotistical. You commit a crime and get away with it and then you immediately think yourself a genius, so much more wonderful than your fellows who have paid the penalty for their deeds, so infinitely superior to the police and the detectives that you have no fear of being caught. But like all your cla.s.s, there is a weak joint in your armor.

There is no such thing as an infallible criminal and a perfect crime.

You may get away once, or perhaps a score of times, but in the end your weakness trips you and you fall into the hands of the authorities. In your case the thing that tripped you and delivered you to us was--love for a woman. A dangerous game to play, the woman game, Mr. Cunningham, but love knows no reason. You were so desperately infatuated with Cora Manning that the thought of going away and leaving her to a more successful rival was agony to you, and so you remained to persuade her to go with you. That is why you are here now, facing arrest under an accusation of murder."

In wondering silence we listened to McKelvie's words and Cora said quickly, "In love with me? But I never saw him before."

Cunningham only smiled coolly. "You have no proof, my dear sir, no proof at all."

"Haven't I? I am not as amateurish as I look," said McKelvie, dryly.

Then he faced the man before him squarely and addressed him in a tone of grim earnestness from which all hint of banter had fled. "You demand proofs. I will give them to you. I know why the murder was committed, why Mrs. Darwin was implicated, because I know exactly what took place in this room on the night of October seventh, from the moment when Richard Trenton stepped through that French window to the moment when the murderer left the room by the secret entrance. In other words, the game is up--Mr. Philip Darwin!" and McKelvie's hand shot out toward his prisoner's face.

I heard Lee's wondering, "Uncle Phil?" and unable to believe my ears I took a second look. Then, "Good G.o.d!" I cried, for the red hair and beard were gone and the man standing where Cunningham had been was indeed Ruth's husband, for whose murder she was even now enduring the horrors of prison life, Philip Darwin, but Philip Darwin without his eyegla.s.ses and without his beard!

Who, then, was the man we had found dead in this room, the man we had buried under Darwin's name? A sudden conviction borne of McKelvie's last words flashed across my mind.

"Was it--?" I began.

"Yes," replied McKelvie, "the man who was so foully murdered in this room that night was--Richard Trenton!"

Cora cried cut, "d.i.c.k, oh, not d.i.c.k!" and I put my hand to my head, for my brain was in a whirl. Yet I was conscious of a feeling of thankfulness that he was the victim rather than the perpetrator of the crime.

With a snarl of rage Darwin broke from McKelvie's hand and fled toward the safe. Jones started to follow, but McKelvie checked him with a laugh.

"Let him go, Jones. Have you forgotten that there are three men guarding the outer door?" he said.

Darwin paused abruptly and turned a hate-distorted face toward us, then he recovered his cool manner and walked back calmly to where we stood.

"You win," he said to McKelvie with a shrug. "What do you want of me?"

"If you will kindly be seated I should like to explain, with your corroboration, just exactly what did take place in this room that night," answered McKelvie.

"No," returned Darwin, "let me tell the story, for you would bungle the tale. I'll accept your word that you know what happened, since otherwise you could not have unmasked me. Kindly take off those bracelets, they annoy me, and give me a cigar. I swear to you that I shall make no attempt to leave this room."

For a long minute the two men looked into one another's eyes, then McKelvie stepped forward and removed the handcuffs. He bestowed them in his pocket, took out a cigar, and offered it to Darwin.

The man accepted the cigar with a bow, lighted it, and then drawing a chair into the center of the circle which we had formed, he leaned back nonchalantly and began his tale.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

THE MOTIVE

"You must know, then," said Philip Darwin, "that I was the child of a second marriage contracted between my father and a young woman who had just begun to earn a name for herself upon the stage. She endured two years of walking the straight and narrow path as his wife, and then she eloped with an actor friend. My father hushed the scandal and withdrew from social life, becoming morose and bitter and narrower than ever, watching over me with a zealous eye as I grew older, and endeavoring to eradicate the talents which I had inherited from her, looking with particular disfavor on my ability to act and mimic the speech of those about me.

"Knowing my inherited love of pleasures of all kinds he strove to curb me by refusing to let me go out in the evenings with my young companions. This I considered an indignity since I was then old enough to be my own master, and so I took matters into my own hand, retiring early and then sneaking away from my rooms to join my friends. This practice I continued until by an unforeseen chance I was among those arrested in a raid upon a gambling-house. I would have given a false name but unfortunately the Sergeant knew me, and of course the affair came to the ears of my father.

"He was exceedingly wroth and threatened to disinherit me if I ever disobeyed him again. I did not want to lose my chance to secure his fortune, which would come to me intact since Robert, my older brother, was dead, and my sister, Leila, had run away from home, so I remained at home on my best behavior. It was just at this time that I came across an old book in the study that gave the history of the house from which ours had been copied. I investigated and found the door in the masonry, took an impression of the lock, had a key made, and so discovered the secret room. That room gave me an idea. I knew that it was next the study although it had never been cut through, but this fact did not trouble me. My father had planned to take me to Europe with him, but I told him that I preferred to remain at home and look after the business, into which I had been taken as junior partner on my twenty-first birthday.

Thinking that I had reformed he gave his permission for me to have a safe built in the study, since I had pointed out to him that now that I was a man of affairs I needed such a contrivance for my personal papers.

But though he left for Europe without me he did not altogether trust me, for I discovered that his lawyer had orders to telegraph my father if at any time he learned that I had deviated from the rule of conduct laid down for me to follow.

"I determined to outwit him. I sent Mason away, hired some workmen, had a door cut between the study and the secret room and had a safe built into the wall as a blind. Then I spent the rest of the year in evolving the character of Cunningham. He should be a young law student, red-haired, red-bearded, fastidious. Also as Darwin, I adopted gla.s.ses to make myself and Cunningham as opposite as possible in appearance.

"When my father returned he heard no scandal of me for Cunningham had taken young Darwin's place in the beaumonde. Thereafter I had no difficulty in getting away, retiring early and then leaving the house by the secret entrance, after changing to Cunningham in the little room.

"After my father's death Cunningham was of no further value to me, but I was too clever to utterly destroy him, since I had no idea when I might need him again. So he told his friends that a relative had died abroad, leaving him a fortune, and that he was going on a trip around the world.

Then Darwin came back and took his place in the social world.

"I pa.s.s over the next few years, in which I played the fool and speculated beyond my means. Eight months ago I was in desperate need of money, although none knew of it, and I saw that my only course lay in marrying some wealthy woman.