McKelvie and I exchanged glances. "You could swear to that?" asked McKelvie eagerly.
"I could. I sleep on the first floor at the back of the house. About five o'clock in the morning I heard someone knocking on my window and I got up to see who wanted me at such an hour. We don't keep open house at this Club. In the dim light I saw that the man was Mr. Lee Darwin, so I motioned him to the back and opened the door for him myself. It was quite a shock to me to see him, I can tell you. He was pale and wild-eyed and his clothes were rumpled and dusty. He stumbled in and I helped him to his room. He told me to keep quiet about him and naturally I promised. I thought he had been out on a spree of some kind. He acted as if he might have been drinking," explained Carpe ponderously.
"What did he do after you promised silence?" McKelvie took a turn around the room as he put the question.
"He went to bed, and at luncheon time I awakened him. He dressed hurriedly and rushed out without eating and did not return until three. There was a telegram waiting for him. He read it and then tore it up and his hands were trembling as he did so. Then he remarked that he was leaving for the South on business and asked me to leave his rooms undisturbed. He left in ten minutes and that is the last I have seen of him," replied Carpe.
"When he came back the morning of the eighth, were you really positive that he had been drinking, or did he give you another impression as well?" continued McKelvie.
"Well, to be candid, at the time he seemed to me to be scared, as if he had seen something that had terrified him plumb out of his wits. It was afterwards in thinking it over that I decided that he had been out on a lark," responded Carpe, after a moment's consideration.
"I should like to examine his rooms," said McKelvie abruptly.
"Certainly." Carpe rose and led the way up the stairs, along a hall and into a suite consisting of a dressing-room, bedroom, and bath.
The rooms were nicely furnished but were not unusual in any way and gave no indication of having been recently used. Everything was in immaculate order.
"Any of his belongings still around?" queried McKelvie.