“I don’t believe it,” Henrietta stated calmly. “Oh, Kimball told the truth, of course, or what he thought was truth. He dreamed so vividly that he really thought his dream was true. I am more convinced than ever,—since you saw or heard nothing unusual. Did you have any peculiar dreams?”
“No,” Coley said, truthfully. “I did not. I’m positive I did not.”
After breakfast, Coe went straight to Elsie. They went for a stroll in the Park, a not unusual proceeding with them, and he told her the whole story, for his plan of secrecy did not include the girl he was working for.
“It must be supernatural,” Elsie said, after she had heard the whole tale. “I’m ready to believe you when you say there’s no chance for any one to get in,—so it’s got to be spirits, or Poltergeist, or what ever you choose to call it. I’m no Spiritualist,—I think the whole thing is silly,—but what are we to think, after this?”
“We’re to think that somebody is too clever for me.”
“But lots of people have tried to find a secret entrance, and they can’t do it. Mr. Hanley said he was a sort of an architect, and Fenn Whiting is an architect, and they’ve both tried their best but they can’t find any loophole of escape. I tried, too,—oh, you needn’t laugh. Sometimes an ignoramus can succeed where the wiseacres fail.”
“I know it; but, look here, Miss Powell. Supposing, just for argument’s sake, that there is somebody back of it all,—some master-mind criminal who has made a way to get in and out of that room at his will, defying discovery, then you must admit, we’re up against it.”
“How? What do you mean?”
“I mean that I can’t find the way he enters or leaves. I spent many hours last night seeking the means, and I admit I can’t succeed. There’s no use my trying again, for I went over every square inch of walls, floor and ceiling. I considered every plausible method or manner of entrance, and I’m at the end of my rope in that direction. If solving the mystery of Webb’s disappearance depends on finding a secret entrance to that room, I confess I’ll have to give it up.”
“Do you think it does depend on that?”