And yet—
He stepped into the clothes closet again, hammer in hand for a fresh tapping of the cedar-board walls. Nothing here.... And then he tapped again, his ear against the end wall of the closet—the wall farthest from the side porch....
Yes! There was a faintly hollow echo of the hammer strokes!
Excitement blazing high again, he took the tape measure with which he had provided himself on his way out, and calculated the length of the closet from end to end. Six feet....
Emerging from the closet he closed his eyes in an effort to recall in exact detail the architect's blueprint of the lower floor, which Coroner Price had submitted to his jury at the inquest that morning. Yes, that was right! The inner end wall of Nita's clothes closet was also the back of the guest closet in the little foyer that lay between Nita's bedroom and the main hall.
Within ten minutes, much laying-on of the tape measure had produced a startling result. Instead of having a wall in common, the guest closet and Nita's clothes closet were separated by exactly eleven inches! Why the waste space? The blueprint, bearing the imprint of the architects, Hammond & Hammond, showed no such walled-up cubbyhole!
Exultantly, Dundee again entered Nita's closet and went over every inch of the narrow, horizontal cedar boards, which formed the end wall. But he met with no reward. Not through this workmanlike, solidly constructed wall had an opening been made....
But in the foyer closet he read a different story. Its back wall had an amateurish look. This closet was not cedar-lined, as was Nita's, but was painted throughout in soft ivory. But it was the back wall of the closet in which Dundee was interested. Unlike the other walls, which were of plaster, the back was constructed of six-inch-wide boards—the cheapness of the lumber not concealed by its coat of ivory paint. No self-respecting builder had put in that wall of broad, horizontal boards....
And then, directly beneath the shelf which was set regulation height, just above the pole on which swung a dozen coat hangers, Dundee found what he was looking for.
A short length of the cheap board, a queer scrap to have been used even in so shoddy a job as that wall was.... Eight inches long. And set square in the center of the wall, just below the shelf and pole. If he had not been looking for something odd, however, Dundee acknowledged to himself, he would not have noticed it. Did anyone ever notice the back walls of closets?