“You are right, Mr. Drew,” said Nichols. “I was careless. I went down stairs and talked with the fellow. It was just a few minutes after I arrived from downtown. He seemed so plausible that I asked the Central Office Detective at the door, who gave the permission. It was all my fault, I guess.”
“Where did this fellow go? What did he do in the house?”
“He went into the library and tested the phone there. The connection seemed to be all right. Then he went down stairs and tested the butler’s ’phone. The butler had been taken as a material witness by Fosdick. I followed the man. He didn’t do anything but test and then talk with Franklin Official—I think it was.”
“Are you sure he talked over the phone? It’s ridiculously easy for a person to hold down the hook and make believe they are talking to most anybody.”
“I don’t know about that, Mr. Drew,” said the captain, turning toward Loris. “Did he talk to anybody when he used this ’phone, Miss Stockbridge?”
“I believe so, Harry. I really thought he did.”
Drew furrowed his brows in perplexity. There was no evidence shown that the trouble-man had ever talked with anybody, via wire, from the mansion. He recalled the first appearance of the lineman in the library. That time both calls, to Central, might have been feigned by holding down the hook and speaking into a disconnected transmitter. The man was clever. He knew all there was to be known concerning telephony.
“I’m a child,” the detective concluded, swinging about the room in perplexity. “One thing,” he added aloud to Loris and Nichols. “One thing! We are absolutely alone in this part of the house. I have locked the maid in her room. No one can get through the door to the hall. There’s a spring lock on it. Delaney closed it when he went out.”
“And there’s a score of detectives scattered about,” said the captain reassuringly, as he leaned toward Loris. “Why should we fear anything at all?”
“I wouldn’t, Harry,” said Loris, “if it wasn’t for what happened to poor father. Mr. Drew took the same precautions and had everything locked and watched. It doesn’t seem as if we were in New York at all. It seems like some mediæval time and place.”