“Now, now, Miss Webb,” Oscar, the chauffeur, put in cheerily, “I’ll bet he’s all right. Anyway, we’ll soon see.”
The mechanician quickly picked the lock, but a firm bolt still held the door closed.
“Have to smash in,” he exclaimed; “no other way.”
The door was heavy and solid, as doors of old New York houses are, but after a few futile attempts, the two men burst the bolt from its fastenings and threw the door open.
Kimball Webb was not in the room.
The three, crowding through the doorway, took in this fact without, at first, grasping its full significance.
Then, “The bathroom,” said Henrietta, and Oscar, who was more alert than the butler, flung open the bathroom door.
When the Webbs took the old house, they remodelled it slightly to suit their needs. On this third floor, there had been a joint lavatory and dressing room between two large bedrooms. This had been changed to make it a private bath connected only with Kimball’s room, and having no outlet elsewhere. The room behind it was used as a family sitting-room or library, and there were no other rooms on the floor. What might have been hall bedrooms were alcoves in the two rooms.
Therefore, when Oscar entered the bathroom, and found no one in it, the situation resolved itself into the simple fact that Kimball Webb had disappeared from a room that had but one exit door, and that had been found locked and bolted.
Oscar turned white and shook, Hollis turned red and shivered, but Miss Webb preserved her colour and her poise. It was not remarkable that her colour remained stationary, she had applied it with that intention, but her unshattered nerves bespoke a marvellous self-control.