Morley only returned his gaze blankly for a moment. "That? I thought you knew about it, sir. It isn't a secret passage, you know. If you look closely, you can see the hinges. And the hole where you put your finger to open it. It leads—"
"I know where it leads," said the bishop. "Downstairs, to a concealed door opening on the gardens. I have explored it. Neither end is latched. Do you realize that any outsider could enter this house unseen at any time he chose?"
Morley’s dark, almost expressionless eyes seemed to recognize what the other was thinking. He nodded, slightly. But he said:
"For that matter, an outsider could walk in the front entrance if he chose. We never lock doors."
The bishop set down his candle on the mantel-shelf, and fell to brushing dust from his coat. Again his face was heavy and clouded, as though from anger or loss of sleep. "However," he said, It has been recently used. The dust is disturbed. And over there is the closet from which your shoes were taken…"
Heavily, with a forward stoop of his shoulders, he moved over towards the bed. Hugh saw that he was looking at a splattered red stain on the wall and on the floor. For a moment a vision of throat-cuttings, and periwigged gentlemen out of the seventeenth century, invaded the shrivelled old room; then, with a drop of anticlimax, Hugh remembered about the ink. This was where the poltergeist had been active. The whole thing was at once baffling, ludicrous, and terrible.
"Since our authorities," he went on with bitter heaviness, "Dr. Fell with his great knowledge of criminals, and that brilliant detective Inspector Murch, have not seen fit to take me into their confidence this afternoon — well, I have conducted my investigation along my own lines… Tell me: This room is not generally used, is it?"
"Never," said Morley. "It's damp, and there's no steam heat. Er — why do you ask, sir?"
"Then how did Mr. Primley happen to occupy it on the night of — on the night someone was assumed to be exercising a primitive sense of humor?"
Morley stared at him. "Well, you ought to know, sir! You were with us when it was arranged. It was because he asked…"