“Why? Was he afraid of intruders?”
“Don’t think so. But there had been some robberies down in the village and he said it was as well to be on the safe side.”
“Then, Mr. Dean, in your opinion, how did the man who killed Mr. Tracy get out of his rooms?”
“That’s where you get me. I’m positively kerflummixed. I can’t see anybody twisting that peculiar key with a bit of wire. Though that’s easier to swallow than to imagine any one jumping out of the window.”
“Why? The windows are not so very high.”
“No. But the lake there is mighty deep and dangerous.”
“Why specially dangerous?”
“Because there are swirling undercurrents, you see, it’s almost like a caldron. That Sunless Sea, as Mr. Tracy named it, is in a cove and the winds make the water eddy about, and—well, I’m a pretty fair diver, but I wouldn’t dive out of a second story window into that cove!”
“Then, we have to look for either a clever mechanician or an expert diver,” said Keeley Moore. “How about the chauffeur?”
“He’s an expert mechanician all right, but he wouldn’t harm a hair of Mr. Tracy’s head. He loved him, as, indeed, we all did. Nobody could help loving that man. He was always genial, courteous and kindly to everybody.”