“I do,” with a faint trace of sarcasm. “But I should like to wring the neck of the practical joker who blockaded this end of the passage while I was at the other.”
The words were no sooner spoken than the doctor’s face underwent a startling transformation. The affable smile vanished, giving way to a look of such violent wrath that even the Phantom felt a little awed.
“The hound shall get his just deserts, sir,” declared the doctor in snarling tones. Then, as if regretting his display of temper, he laughed easily. “Provided, of course, we learn who perpetrated the outrage.”
Again the Phantom was puzzled. He was certain the anthropologist’s ferocious outburst had been genuine. It had been far too real and convincing to be feigned even by a clever actor. Yet he sensed a contradiction. Whoever was responsible for the blockaded door must have traversed the doctor’s house on his way to the cellar. It did not seem likely that strangers could be taking such liberties in a private residence without the knowledge of its occupant.
“I really ought to have new locks put on the doors,” observed Bimble, addressing himself rather than his guest. “That collection of mine is too valuable to be left unprotected.”
It sounded convincing, and the casual tone went a long way toward quieting the Phantom’s misgivings. He knew that an unduly suspicious nature is as bad as a gullible one. Hadn’t he been too prone to put the wrong construction on the eccentricities of a scientist? Everything considered, the doctor’s actions had certainly been friendly. Had his intentions been hostile, he could easily have turned his guest over to the police.
The Phantom shifted the subject. “Well, at any rate, I proved to my satisfaction that Gage’s bedchamber can’t be entered by way of the tunnel.”
The twinkle behind the lenses expressed doubt and amusement. “And so you have convinced yourself that Pinto committed the murder?”
“That nobody else could have committed it,” corrected the Phantom.
“Which means precisely the same thing. Even if we grant that you are being frank with me—which I strongly doubt, by the way—you seem to have a passion for drawing obvious inferences. From the fact that you were unable to operate the mechanism from the outside you deduce that the murderer could not have entered the room via the tunnel. That, my friend, is very superficial reasoning. For instance, Gage himself might have admitted the murderer through the revolving frame.”