Garrison tried the door that led to the staircase, and found it open. The closet came next for inspection. Without expecting anything of particular significance, Garrison drew open the door.
Like everything else in the Robinsons' realm, it was utterly disordered. Glancing somewhat indifferently over its contents. Garrison was about to close the door when his eye caught upon a gleam of dull red, where a ray of light fell in upon a bit of color on the floor.
He stopped, put his hand on the cloth, and drew forth a flimsy pair of tights of carmine hue—part of the Mephistophelian costume that Theodore had worn on the night of the party next door. With this in his hand, and a clearer understanding of the house, with its staircase at the rear. Garrison comprehended the ease with which Theodore had played his rôle and gone from one house to the other without arousing suspicion.
Encouraged to examine the closet further, he pawed around through the garments hung upon the hooks, and presently struck his hand against a solid obstacle projecting from the wall in the darkest corner, and heard a hollow, resonant sound from the blow.
Removing half a dozen coats that hung concealingly massed in the place, he almost uttered an exclamation of delight. There on the wall was a small equipment telephone, one of the testing-boxes employed by the linemen in their labors with which to "plug in" and communicate between places where no regular 'phone is installed.
It was Theodore's private receiver, over which he could hear every word that might be said to anyone using the 'phone!
It tapped the wires to the regular instrument installed in the house, and was thoroughly concealed.
Instantly aware that by this means young Robinson could have overheard every word between himself and Dorothy concerning their meeting in the park, Garrison felt his heart give a lift into realms of unreasonable joy.
It could not entirely dissipate the doubts that hung about Dorothy, but it gave him a priceless hope!