American Sherlocks Nick Rennison (best big ereader txt) 📖

‘No,’ said Sadler, with a smile; ‘not when you have thought about the matter. Dr Haslam may have heard the entry of the officers, and – criminals become frightened.’

‘Did Dr Haslam look frightened when you saw him?’

‘No,’ replied the young man, reflectively. ‘But I found the slipper where I stated, and he left by means of the roof. Come, I will show you.’

He led us to the attic, and as he ascended the stairs he furtively touched his eyes with his handkerchief. It was done with an obvious effort at concealment, but I was conscious of the fact that he wished us to believe that he was affected.

‘Here is the door through which he passed,’ he said, indicating a trap, before which we paused. ‘I found it unlatched on the following morning, and took pains to close it.’

Conners turned away almost instantly.

‘This is unimportant,’ he said. ‘Let us go into the yard and inspect the trellis. Dr Sadler can also point out to us the position of the trap-door from the outside.’

The young man led the way downstairs with evident alacrity, and, passing through the rear of the house, we came to the paved space of yard between the back entrance and the stable. Here the doctor eagerly indicated the trellis and pointed to the mark of the opening in the roof.

‘An obvious way of escape,’ was the comment of Conners. ‘I think the papers stated that Dr Haslam had been ailing for a week prior to this matter. Was that correct?’

‘Quite correct,’ replied Dr Sadler. ‘He ventured downstairs, however, two days before the killing, coming with me to inspect some paving which had been completed in the stable.’

‘Was Mrs Sands with you?’

‘Yes,’ replied the young man, a malevolent light in his eyes; ‘if the information is of importance to you – Mrs Sands was with us.’

We entered the stable, pausing at the threshold to note a sheet of cemented floor stretching to the farther wall. A great block of white stone lay near the entrance, and about it were some half-filled barrels of lime or composition. A pile of concrete was upon the dirt floor of an adjacent room, and thrown upon it was a huge box. I judged it to be probably ten feet long, with a depth of two or three feet, and perhaps as many wide. All the surroundings appeared to me to be without significance, but Conners tapped the pavement sharply with his heel.

‘The police, in their search, would scarcely neglect to remember that a man who has disappeared as completely as has your adopted father might safely lie under so excellent a covering,’ he said, blandly.

Dr Sadler smiled.

‘They did not forget it,’ he replied. ‘They sounded every foot of space here, in spite of the fact that he was seen by every person in the house a day after the job was completed and the workmen gone. Dr Haslam’s visit to the stable was to inspect the work. Why the police did this was a mystery to me; and it remains so, since they have not explained. Having killed himself, Dr Haslam could hardly bury his own body under a bed of cement that was set and hard while he was yet in the flesh. We should have been glad enough to have found him to bury him in a Christian manner, to say nothing of obtaining peace of mind regarding his fate.’

‘Of course,’ said Conners. ‘What is this stone?’

The doctor coughed slightly as Conners kicked a huge block of granite with his foot, and instantly my friend brought him under his keen eyes; they dwelled for a burning moment upon a face that flushed and then paled, while the green orbs that answered his danced shiftily.

‘A stone brought to repair a broken gate-post outside. It was a trifle large and white, by comparison with the fellow it was to serve. Dr Haslam concluded to use it as a carriage-block in front and provide another. There is nothing under it, you may be sure,’ and the young man paused to laugh softly. ‘As ponderous as it is, the police turned it over, because they gave attention to every incident which last had Dr Haslam’s attention. But the gate-post was not repaired until after the killing of Mrs Sands and the disappearance of my adopted father.’

‘Yes,’ said Conners, quietly. ‘I observed the gate-post as we passed it, and I also saw some light pieces of a broken framework amid a tangle of wires thrown in a large box in the inner room of the stable we have just left. What is it, Doctor?’

‘I cannot say,’ was the reply. ‘The servants can perhaps tell you. I observed the fragments myself, and thought they resembled a device upon which to dry clothes.’

‘Very likely, Doctor,’ responded Conners, cheerfully. ‘If you can now tell us what has become of the piece of wire which was wrapped about the stock of the gun when the police first saw it, and whether or not you have ever travelled in Persia, I think we may call our visit over.’

I started at the change which took place in Sadler’s countenance. He swung around as though stung to the quick, facing Conners with an expression of such rage that I thought for a moment he meant to leap at him. But the calm eyes that met his chilled by their depth, and, shaking himself as though to recover his shattered faculties by some physical exertion, he replied in a voice which trembled in spite of his efforts to steady it:

‘I have never travelled in Persia, sir,’ he said. ‘The question is a strange one, and has so little application to any of the matters we have considered that I must regard it as an intent to affront me. If so’ – and he grew white again with rage that threatened to break through his control – ‘you may,