"I hope so, mum," answered Dentham respectfully, rubbing his hands together; "but it's like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. I've hunted everywhere in the room, and can't find any signs of a secret door."
"No doubt you went blindly to work, without considering the situation," said Teddy cheerfully; "the first thing to be ascertained is how this room lies."
"What do you mean, sir?" asked Dentham in a puzzled tone.
"I'll explain later on," answered Teddy, "but before doing so, we are agreed upon one thing, that Adrian Lancaster came to this room and never left it."
"To all appearances—yes," assented Olive promptly.
"I'd better state the case exactly," observed Rudall cautiously, "so that we may run no chance of making any mistake; the facts, as we have gathered them, are simply these—Adrian Lancaster disappeared from his rooms in Piccadilly about three weeks ago; we hear nothing of him till this man comes to us and produces a walking-stick, which we both recognise as Adrian's property—it was found in this room, so the presumption is that on the night of his disappearance Adrian was here. Dentham heard the murmur of voices, and asserts positively that Lancaster could not have left the room by that door leading to the passage, or he would have heard him."
"Yes!—easily," said Dentham emphatically.
"On the other hand," resumed Teddy learnedly, "the night in question was wet, and Dentham traced Lancaster's footsteps more or less clearly from the garden door to that window which leads on to the lawn—but, although he looked carefully, he could find no footmarks leading away from the house, so that, having left neither by the door nor the window, it stands to reason he could not have gone at all. Under these circumstances the most logical conclusion is that he did not leave this room. We cannot see him, and, as none of us are foolish enough to believe in the theory of disintegration, he must be concealed somewhere in a secret chamber, the entrance to which is from this room. Now what we have to do is to find this entrance."
"Yes, but how?" asked Dentham dispiritedly.
"First by finding out the position of this room," said Teddy, rising to his feet and glancing round; "two sides of it are bounded by the outside walls, and as they do not appear to me to be thick enough to contain any hiding place, we may be certain that the secret door can be in neither of them—the third wall stands between this room and the passage, so that the same objection applies—now what about the fourth wall in the centre of which is built the chimney?"