"I beg your pardon?"
"Go ‘way, will you?" said H. M. irritably.
Maurice began to speak in a rapid monotone. "I will go away with the utmost pleasure, if I receive absolute assurance from you that the Queen's Mirror will remain inviolate. I have been very patient, sir. I have endured much that is against my physical comfort and even against my peace of mind. But when your insulting subordinate suggested that such a desecration might have to be performed — tearing to pieces an almost sacred edifice in search for a nonexistent secret passage-then… then…"
"Then you got the wind up," agreed H. M. composedly. "All right. You can hop it. I promise; there'll be no search."
Maurice was so intent that he never saw the two figures standing by the door when he hurried out. It was the first time he had hurried; Bennett saw that there was sweat on his forehead and that he seemed to be singing to himself. Bennett's own suspicions seemed to be caught up in Masters' voice.
"Excuse me, sir," the chief inspector growled, "but what the devil did you want to make a promise like that for? Not search for a secret passage?"
"Because there ain't any," said H. M. He added querulously: "Shut up, will you? That finicky old maid is scared green that you'll lay a finger on his beautiful ghost-house. If there'd been a secret passage, he'd have told you about it in a second rather than let you sound one panel lookin’ for it. Yah!"
"I'm not so sure of that, sir," returned Masters. "What if the secret passage led to his own room?"
"Uh-huh. I thought of that too. Well, if it does, we still got him in a corner. But I think that secret-passage idea is o-u-t." H. M. scratched his head. For the first time something like a grin disturbed the Chinese-image austerity of his face as he rolled round to look at Masters. "That locked-room situation has got you bothered as hell, ain't it? Your sole and particular hobgoblin. Seems as though murderers take an especial pleasure in givin' Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters the fits-and-gibbers by refusin' to keep to the rules of cricket. Only this time it's a little bit worse. If you had only the locked-room situation, you could carry on with a cheerful heart. Everybody knows several trick ways of locking a door from the outside. Bolts can be shot with a little mechanism of pins and thread. Key-stems can be turned with a pair of pliers. Hinges can be taken off the door and replaced so that you don't disturb the lock at all. But when your locked-room consists of the simple, plain, insane problem of half-an-inch of unmarked snow for a hundred feet round… well, never mind. There's worse than that, Masters."
"Worse?