‘To the letter.’
The business being thus arranged, Brodie left the room, and ten minutes later Chunda entered it. Brodie was absent nearly three-quarters of an hour before he returned. There was a look of peculiar satisfaction on his face. Chunda was dismissed; and the two men, having, through the cook, secured something in the way of eatables and drinkables, satisfied their wants in that respect, and then engaged in cribbage, and continued their game until a late hour.
At last Jarvis retired. It was arranged he was to sleep in Balfour’s bedroom, but Brodie said he would stow himself on a couch in the dining-room, which was warm and comfortable.
He dozed for three or four hours, and exactly at five rose, and made his way to the stable-yard, where, according to prearrangement, the groom was ready with a horse and trap, and Brodie drove rapidly into Edinburgh. He was back again soon after eight, with two constables in plain clothes, who were for the time confined to the kitchen, until their services might be required.
Jarvis did not rise until after nine. He was a good and sound sleeper, and neither ghosts nor anything else had disturbed him. He was kept in ignorance of Brodie’s journey into Edinburgh.
A few minutes before ten Chunda made his appearance. He was ready to start, and he enlisted the aid of the other servants to bring his luggage down into the hall. Again Brodie requested the skipper to detain the native in conversation, while he himself went upstairs to Chunda’s room, where he shut himself in and locked the door. Then he began to tap with his knuckles the wainscoted walls, going from panel to panel.
When he reached the deep recess near the fireplace, already described, he started, as his taps produced a hollow sound. He tapped again and again, putting his ear to the woodwork. There was no mistake about it. The wall there was hollow. He tried to move the hollow panel, but only after many trials and much examination did he succeed. The panel slid on one side, revealing a dark abyss, from which came a strange, cold, earthy, clammy smell.
He closed the panel, went downstairs, and told the constables the time for action had come. They filed into the dining-room, and Jarvis was asked to tell Chunda that he would be arrested on a charge of having murdered Raymond Balfour and Maggie Stiven.
If it is possible for a black person to turn pale, then Chunda did so. Any way, the announcement was like an electric shock to him. He staggered; then clapped his hands to his face, and moaned and whined.
Brodie went upstairs once more—this time in company with one of the constables. They were provided with lanterns, and when the panel in Chunda’s room was opened again, the light revealed a narrow flight of stone steps descending between the walls; and at the bottom of the steps lay something huddled up. It was unmistakably a human body, the body of Raymond Balfour.