“You will not mind my shutting myself up, away from you?”
“Oh, no. Mabel Cummings is to spend the night with me. She will be here soon.”
“I will excuse myself, then.”
“Very well.”
Geoffrey Haywood went into the study of the late Colonel Conrad, and, after lighting a student’s lamp that stood on the table, closed the door and locked it.
He took some paper from the drawer, dated and addressed a letter, and wrote a few lines.
Then he paused in his work, meditated for a few moments, and looked cautiously around him. Stepping to thewindow, he drew the curtain a little closer, and then he hung his handkerchief on the knob of the door, so that it covered the keyhole.
Having taken these precautions, he proceeded to the case of book-shelves on the east wall of the room, a few feet from the tall old clock. He removed the books one by one, making no noise in the operation, and then examined the shelves minutely.
The fixture consisted of a thick hard-wood board, sunk in the plaster, and secured to the wall in some manner which he could not determine, for neither nail nor screw-head was visible. Near the outward edges were upright projecting pieces, to which the shelves were fastened. The whole was, perhaps, four feet square, and the shelves and their supports were six or eight inches wide. All was strong and solidly built, and firmly fixed in place. He pushed it, and pulled it, and pressed it on all sides, and from many directions, but it was immovable.
He finally paused, and contemplated the shelves with more vexation on his face than any one had ever seen exhibited there. But he was alone, and there was no necessity for concealing his feelings.