Chapter XXXIV: Light Begins to Break

It has been written many times in history that the most trivial things have changed the destiny of nations. A famous preacher once made the declaration that “there are no such things as little things.” And so this tiny rubber stopper for a miniature bottle, not so large as the end of one’s finger, proved to be the great thing of immediate necessity.

If you should apply to a chemist who knew you, and should induce him to supply you with a bottle of chloroform, he would use just such a stopper as that one was in putting it up for your use.

Not but what the same sort of a stopper is used for many other purposes than sealing bottles of chloroform against the escape of fumes.

But conditions are regulated and understood more or less perfectly, by comparisons and circumstances; for instance, the presence of chloroform in that room, at the time when Mr. Lynne was induced or compelled to leave it, explained many things hitherto unexplainable.

It accounted in part for the finding of the handkerchief on the floor beside the chair upon which the woman had presumably seated herself.

It accounted, unquestionably, for the diamond star that Nick found in the upholstery of Lynne’s chair, since, without doubt, it had been dropped there while the chloroform was being administered; while there was the semblance of a struggle going on between the man and the woman; and it must be remembered that Lynne, in his weakened condition resulting from his long illness, could have been no match in strength for Madge Babbington, even if she was a woman.

But none of these considerations was the important one which the discovery of the article suggested to the active mind of the detective; nor was it the rubber stopper itself that brought about the suggestion.

It was the place where Patsy found it.

In considering that, and in arriving at the reasons that Nick Carter had for his immediate conclusions, we must read the thoughts that flashed through his mind the instant the stopper was shown to him, and when Patsy indicated where he had found it.

Timothy Tucker, the gardener, had stated that the woman who had passed him on the path between the gate and the house wore a long coat like those he had seen worn by women when they were motoring; hence, a long, linen duster.

Linen dusters have pockets at the sides, even those worn by women.

A small bottle of chloroform purchased at a drug store and intended for immediate use would be taken from the paper in which it was originally wrapped, and deposited handily, where the possessor could get at it with the least possible delay and trouble.

Hence, in one of those side pockets already mentioned into which the hand could be casually dropped at any instant.

The paper wrappings having been removed, the bottle would be exposed unless some other wrapper for it were improvised. The likeliest thing for that purpose, the one least likely to attract attention or comment, would be a handkerchief.

The woman, seated upon the chair at the moment for using the contents of the bottle, would remove, or partly remove, the handkerchief in which it was wrapped, and would do it with the one hand that was in that pocket with the bottle, before she rose from the chair.

What more natural than that the handkerchief should be dropped in that manner, just at the point where it had been dropped--and just an instant before the woman rose from her chair to pass around to the side of the chair in which Lynne had been seated?

Now the next point.

The rubber stopper was picked up by Patsy twenty feet away from that chair--from either of them.

The woman would not have thrown it from her at that time; such an act was not necessary. If she had merely dropped it, five or six feet would have been the extent of the distance it might have rolled away across the floor on the soft rug.

The position of the two chairs was such that in approaching the one upon which Lynne was seated at the time, the woman would have been stationed exactly between Lynne and the spot where the rubber stopper was found twenty feet away; and so, if it had been knocked from her hand in a struggle with the man to whom she was going to administer the drug, it was next to impossible that it should have rolled to the spot where Patsy picked it up.

Ergo, how did it get there?

If you ask yourself the question from the detective standpoint--and that is what you inevitably should do in following out the Nick Carter histories--the logical answer is obvious.

The woman, upon entering the room--upon stepping into it--realizing that she must be prepared for instant action, at once prepared the bottle for instant use; she would do so by removing the stopper, and by pressing a fold of the handkerchief, reënforced by the pad of her thumb, against the uncorked bottle. This to keep the fumes from escaping.

She would be compelled to do all that with one hand by reason of the exigencies of the occasion, and therefore would simply drop the stopper back into the pocket, or it would escape from her grasp and roll upon the floor--a few inches, or a foot or two.

Hence--and this is the important point so laboriously arrived at--the stopper would have been dropped very close to the point where the woman entered the room.

Now, the life-size portrait of J. Cephas Lynne beneath which the stopper was found was nowhere near any door in that room.

It did occupy, frame and all, a space between two of the windows at the north side of the room; a space which extended from the floor nearly to the ceiling, and which was in width between four and five feet; and it was fastened, as such portraits not infrequently are, flat against the wall.

Nick Carter had already determined that there must be a secret entrance to that room from another part of the house, or from the outside, but he had not even begun the search for such a place as yet.

If Madge Babbington had entered the room by one of the doors, had opened the bottle and dropped the stopper at once upon entering, it would have been in the vicinity of one of the doors, according to the argument already advanced, all of which shot through his mind the instant when Patsy indicated the spot where it had been found.

Architecture, ancient and modern, had ever been a favorite study with the detective, as a pastime. The life and employment of the famous priest who created so many of the secret stairways, rooms, passages, and doors in the old castles of England and Scotland had always interested him.

He knew how to look for them, where to search for them, and much of the principle upon which they were constructed, just as one may have studied and learned to know the moves in a game of chess.

To offer an opportunity for a secret entrance and passage, there must be space--space between two walls.

And so, when Nick Carter started across the room exclaiming to Patsy: “Found it there, did you? Show me just where you found it,” he did not wait for the answer, but hastened at once to one of the windows, stepped upon the sill and, leaning far out of it, studied the general construction of that north wall of the main building.

A mere glance sufficed him.

He knew already that that part of the house was very old; had stood there where it was through several generations until it had been remodeled, enlarged, reconstructed, and embellished into a part and parcel of the great mansion.

That mere glance outside the window satisfied him that there was more than sufficient space between the outer wall and the wall of the room inside for a passageway.

And that was practically all he needed to assure himself that he had discovered the most likely place for a secret passage and entrance to that room, if one existed.

Moreover, what more likely place could be found for such a secret entrance as must exist than the life-size portrait itself and the space--that is, breadth--behind it?

He stepped back into the room again.

As he did so, and before he could begin his search for the secret entrance, Thomas returned from his hasty inventory of Lynne’s wearing apparel.

“Well?” Nick asked him, pausing.

“Only a few articles of clothing are missing,” Thomas replied. “A suit of his clothing, a few----”

“You need not enumerate them, Thomas. That is unnecessary, now. Tell me only if the missing articles are such things as Mr. Lynne would have taken away with him had he had the selection?”

“Decidedly not, sir. Quite the contrary.”

“You think that he would have chosen differently, in that case?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Thomas. That decides another point for us.”

“What is that, sir, if you please?”

“That he was probably unconscious, probably from the chloroform, when he was taken from this room, and therefore that there must have been a third person present here, or within call, to assist the woman in taking him away.”

“Red Mike,” said Patsy, speaking as one making a statement, rather than as one who asks a question.

The detective nodded.

“That accounts for this, I suppose,” said Patsy, holding up his right hand, with the thumb and finger tips pressed tightly together.

Nick Carter stepped nearer to him and looked more closely, and he found that Patsy was holding a single red hair between his thumb and forefinger.

“I found it clinging to the frame of that picture, about six feet from the floor,” the assistant announced. “It was exactly at the point where it might have caught and lodged, if Red Mike had stood right here”--he backed across the room to the portrait--“and had leaned his head against the frame, so;” he assumed the attitude he was attempting to describe.

Nick nodded his head again.

“Red Mike was here with Madge,” he said. “He either followed her into the room at once, or he entered it a moment later in response to some signal she gave, and he stood there, waiting for something else to happen before he took an active part in the proceedings.”

“But he couldn’t come through the picture, could he?” Thomas asked.

“No, but he could come from behind it, if the picture is movable, and if there is an opening of some sort behind it.”

Patsy nodded with emphasis.

“I thought that was the idea when you looked out of the window just now,” he said.

“It has been my idea for some minutes,” replied the detective. “The discovery of the rubber bottle stopper decided me where to look for it.”

“And now----?” asked Patsy.

“We won’t bother to search for secret springs; that would occupy too much time. Thomas, find me a hammer, a screw driver, and a short iron bar, preferably flat, if you have such articles in the house.”

“Yes, sir, in the garage. I will procure them at once.”