CHAPTER IV.
A NEW EXPERIENCE FOR MR. GRYCE.
Mr. Gryce felt himself at a greater disadvantage in his attempt to solvethe mystery of this affair than in any other which he had entered uponin years. First, the victim had been a solitary man, with no householdsave his man-of-all-work, the mute. Secondly, he had lived in a portionof the city where no neighbors were possible; and he had even lacked, asit now seemed, any very active friends. Though some hours had elapsedsince his death had been noised abroad, no one had appeared at the doorwith inquiries or information. This seemed odd, considering that he hadbeen for some months a marked figure in this quarter of the town. But,then, everything about this man was odd, nor would it have been inkeeping with his surroundings and peculiar manner of living for him tohave had the ordinary associations of men of his class.
This absence of the usual means of eliciting knowledge from thesurrounding people, added to, rather than detracted from, the interestwhich Mr. Gryce was bound to feel in the case, and it was with a feelingof relief that a little before midnight he saw the army of reporters,medical men, officials, and such others as had followed in the coroner'swake, file out of the front door and leave him again, for a few hours atleast, master of the situation.
For there were yet two points which he desired to settle before he tookhis own much-needed rest. The first occupied his immediate attention.Passing before a chair in the hall on which a small boy sat dozing, heroused him with the remark:
"Come, Jake, it's time to look lively. I want you to go with me to theexact place where that lady ran across you to-day."
The boy, half dead with sleep, looked around him for his hat.
"I'd like to see my mother first," he pleaded. "She must be done upabout me. I never stayed away so long before."
"Your mother knows where you are. I sent a message to her hours ago. Shegave a very good report of you, Jake; says you're an obedient lad andthat you never have told her a falsehood."
"She's a good mother," the boy warmly declared. "I'd be as bad--as badas my father was, if I did not treat her well." Here his hand fell onhis cap, which he put on his head.
"I'm ready," said he.
Mr. Gryce at once led the way into the street.
The hour was late, and only certain portions of the city showed any realactivity. Into one of these thoroughfares they presently came, andbefore the darkened window of one of the lesser shops paused, while Jakepointed out the two stuffed frogs engaged with miniature swords inmortal combat at which he had been looking when the lady came up andspoke to him.
Mr. Gryce eyed the boy rather than the frogs, though probably the formerwould have sworn that his attention had never left that miniatureconflict.
"Was she a pretty lady?" he asked.
The boy scratched his head in some perplexity.
"She made me a good deal afraid of her," he said. "She had very splendidclothes; oh, gorgeous!" he cried, as if on this question there could beno doubt.
"And she was young, and carried a bunch of flowers, and seemed troubled?What! not young, and carried no flowers--and wasn't even anxious andtrembling?"
The boy, who had been shaking his head, looked nonplussed.
"I think as she was what you might call troubled. But she wasn't crying,and when she spoke to me, she put more feeling into her grip than intoher voice. She just dragged me to the drug-store, sir. If she hadn'tgiven me money first, I should have wriggled away in spite of her. But Ilikes money, sir; I don't get too much of it."
Mr. Gryce by this time was moving on. "Not young," he repeated tohimself. "Some old flame, then, of Mr. Adams; they're apt to bedangerous, very dangerous, more dangerous than the young ones."
In front of the drug-store he paused. "Show me where she stood while youwent in."
The boy pointed out the identical spot. He seemed as eager as thedetective.
"And was she standing there when you came out?"
"Oh, no, sir; she went away while I was inside."
"Did you see her go? Can you tell me whether she went up street ordown?"
"I had one eye on her, sir; I was afraid she was coming into the shopafter me, and my arm was too sore for me to want her to clinch hold onit again. So when she started to go, I took a step nearer, and saw hermove toward the curbstone and hold up her hand. But it wasn't a car shewas after, for none came by for several minutes."
The fold between Mr. Gryce's eyes perceptibly smoothed out.
"Then it was some cabman or hack-driver she hailed. Were there any emptycoaches about that you saw?"
The boy had not noticed. He had reached the limit of his observations,and no amount of further questioning could elicit anything more fromhim. This Mr. Gryce soon saw, and giving him into the charge of one ofhis assistants who was on duty at this place, he proceeded back to theill-omened house where the tragedy itself had occurred.
"Any one waiting for me?" he inquired of Styles, who came to the door.
"Yes, sir; a young man; name, Hines. Says he's an electrician."
"That's the man I want. Where is he?"
"In the parlor, sir."
"Good! I'll see him. But don't let any one else in. Anybody upstairs?"
"No, sir, all gone. Shall I go up or stay here?"
"You'd better go up. I'll look after the door."
Styles nodded, and went toward the stairs, up which he presentlydisappeared. Mr. Gryce proceeded to the parlor.
A dapper young man with an intelligent eye rose to meet him. "You sentfor me," said he.
The detective nodded, asked a few questions, and seeming satisfied withthe replies he received, led the way into Mr. Adams's study, from whichthe body had been removed to an upper room. As they entered, a mildlight greeted them from a candle which, by Mr. Gryce's orders, had beenplaced on a small side table near the door. But once in, Mr. Gryceapproached the larger table in the centre of the room, and placing hishand on one of the buttons before him, asked his companion to be kindenough to blow out the candle. This he did, leaving the room for amoment in total darkness. Then with a sudden burst of illumination, amarvellous glow of a deep violet color shot over the whole room, and thetwo men turned and faced each other both with inquiry in their looks, sounexpected was this theatrical effect to the one, and so inexplicableits cause and purpose to the other.
"That is but one slide," remarked Mr. Gryce. "Now I will press anotherbutton, and the color changes to--pink, as you see. This one producesgreen, this one white, and this a bilious yellow, which is not becomingto either of us, I am sure. Now will you examine the connection, and seeif there is anything peculiar about it?"
Mr. Hines at once set to work. But beyond the fact that the wholecontrivance was the work of an amateur hand, he found nothing strangeabout it, except the fact that it worked so well.
Mr. Gryce showed disappointment.
"He made it, then, himself?" he asked.
"Undoubtedly, or some one else equally unacquainted with the latestmethod of wiring."
"Will you look at these books over here and see if sufficient knowledgecan be got from them to enable an amateur to rig up such an arrangementas this?"
Mr. Hines glanced at the shelf which Mr. Gryce had pointed out, andwithout taking out the books, answered briefly:
"A man with a deft hand and a scientific turn of mind might, by the aidof these, do all you see here and more. The aptitude is all."
"Then I'm afraid Mr. Adams had the aptitude," was the dry response.There was disappointment in the tone. Why, his next words served toshow. "A man with a turn for mechanical contrivances often wastes muchtime and money on useless toys only fit for children to play with. Lookat that bird cage now. Perched at a height totally beyond the reach ofany one without a ladder, it must owe its very evident usefulness (foryou see it holds a rather lively occupant) to some contrivance by whichit can be raised and lowered at will. Where is that contrivance? Can youfind it?"
The expert thought he could. And, sure enough, after some ineffectualsearc
hing, he came upon another button well hid amid the tapestry on thewall, which, when pressed, caused something to be disengaged whichgradually lowered the cage within reach of Mr. Gryce's hand.
"We will not send this poor bird aloft again," said he, detaching thecage and holding it for a moment in his hand. "An English starling isnone too common in this country. Hark! he is going to speak."
But the sharp-eyed bird, warned perhaps by the emphatic gesture of thedetective that silence would be more in order at this moment than hisusual appeal to "remember Evelyn," whisked about in his cage for aninstant, and then subsided into a doze, which may have been real, andmay have been assumed under the fascinating eye of the old gentleman whoheld him. Mr. Gryce placed the cage on the floor, and idly, or becausethe play pleased him, old and staid as he was, pressed another button onthe table--a button he had hitherto neglected touching--and glancedaround to see what color the light would now assume.
But the yellow glare remained. The investigation which the apparatus hadgone through had probably disarranged the wires. With a shrug he wasmoving off, when he suddenly made a hurried gesture, directing theattention of the expert to a fact for which neither of them wasprepared. The opening which led into the antechamber, and which was thesole means of communication with the rest of the house, was slowlyclosing. From a yard's breadth it became a foot; from a foot it becamean inch; from an inch----
"Well, that is certainly the contrivance of a lazy man," laughed theexpert. "Seated in his chair here, he can close his door at will. Noshouting after a deaf servant, no awkward stumbling over rugs to shut ithimself. I don't know but I approve of this contrivance, only----" herehe caught a rather serious expression on Mr. Gryce's face--"the slideseems to be of a somewhat curious construction. It is not made of wood,as any sensible door ought to be, but of----"
"Steel," finished Mr. Gryce in an odd tone. "This is the strangest thingyet. It begins to look as if Mr. Adams was daft on electricalcontrivances."
"And as if we were prisoners here," supplemented the other. "I do notsee any means for drawing this slide back."
"Oh, there's another button for that, of course," Mr. Gryce carelesslyremarked.
But they failed to find one.
"If you don't object," observed Mr. Gryce, after five minutes of uselesssearch, "I will turn a more cheerful light upon the scene. Yellow doesnot seem to fit the occasion."
"Give us rose, for unless you have some one on the other side of thissteel plate, we seem likely to remain here till morning."
"There is a man upstairs whom we may perhaps make hear, but what doesthis contrivance portend? It has a serious look to me, when you considerthat every window in these two rooms has been built up almost under theroof."
"Yes; a very strange look. But before engaging in its consideration Ishould like a breath of fresh air. I cannot do anything while inconfinement. My brain won't work."
Meanwhile Mr. Gryce was engaged in examining the huge plate of steelwhich served as a barrier to their egress. He found that it had beenmade--certainly at great expense--to fit the curve of the walls throughwhich it passed. This was a discovery of some consequence, causing Mr.Gryce to grow still more thoughtful and to eye the smooth steel plateunder his hand with an air of marked distrust.
"Mr. Adams carried his taste for the mechanical to great extremes," heremarked to the slightly uneasy man beside him. "This slide is verycarefully fitted, and, if I am not mistaken, it will stand somebattering before we are released."
"I wish that his interest in electricity had led him to attach such asimple thing as a bell."
"True, we have come across no bell."
"It would have smacked too much of the ordinary to please him."
"Besides, his only servant was deaf."
"Try the effect of a blow, a quick blow with this silver-mountedalpenstock. Some one should hear and come to our assistance."
"I will try my whistle first; it will be better understood."
But though Mr. Gryce both whistled and struck many a resounding knockupon the barrier before them, it was an hour before he could draw theattention of Styles, and five hours before an opening could be effectedin the wall large enough to admit of their escape, so firmly was thisbarrier of steel fixed across the sole outlet from this remarkable room.