He scrutinized the window fastenings and corroborated his knowledge that the patent catch enabled one to get sufficient ventilation, yet left no possible chance of a man entering or escaping that way.
Coley Coe locked himself into that room at ten-thirty, at one o’clock he was still hunting for the secret entrance that he had been so sure of finding. But his search had been utterly fruitless, and in an unusual spirit of despair, he decided to abandon it. He arrived at this decision only after a most exhaustive and repeated investigation of every part of the room. He proved to his own satisfaction that there was not a break in the walls, not a chance of a secret passage between the partitions.
He made sure the window frames or door frames could not be taken out bodily, as a whole. The old woodwork was as firm and true as when it was built, many decades before.
“And yet,” Coley observed to himself, “there’s got to be a secret entrance,—there’s got to be! There’s no other way out!”
He smiled at his inadvertent play on words, and renewed his search. He paid special attention to the chimney, for except the windows and door that was the only outlet from the room.
It was a large fireplace, of the old fashioned style. There was an empty and scrupulously clean basket grate, wide but not deep, with horizontal bars in front after the fashion of most old grates. The black japanned parts were shining, and the gilded rim round the fireplace opening was brilliantly bright. Surely the Webbs had been scrupulous in their tidying up of Kimball’s room.
Coe looked about. The white paint was immaculate, the window panes fairly sparkled with cleanliness. He gave a sigh,—any clue that might have been left in that room must have been destroyed by the ruthless hands of the Webbs’ servants.
Coe poked his head well up the chimney, to the imminent peril of his waving forelocks, but the flue was not sooty at all. Neither was it in any way a possible means of escape. Coe’s imagination was well nigh boundless, but he couldn’t, by the wildest flight of fancy, see Kimball Webb making an exit that way. It was simply impossible.
He sat in a chair and strove to reconstruct the scene. Webb, perhaps, had sat in that very chair, the night before the day that was to have been his wedding day. Coe knew that Webb had every intention of attending his own wedding. He had learned from Elsie the indubitable truths of the man’s character and of his love for the girl he had chosen. Not for a minute did Coley Coe think Webb had absconded purposely.
And abduction presupposed one other person at least. How did that person get in,—and accompanied by Webb, get out?