“Certainly, he’s telling the truth,” agreed Vance serenely. “That’s just why I want to go up.—Come, my Markham. There’s no danger of the Major returning en surprise at this hour. . . . And”—he smiled cajolingly—“you promised me every assistance, don’t y’ know.”
Markham was vehement in his remonstrances, but Vance was equally vehement in his insistence; and a few minutes later we were trespassing, by means of a pass-key, in Major Benson’s apartment.
The only entrance was a door leading from the public hall into a narrow passageway which extended straight ahead into the living-room at the rear. On the right of this passageway, near the entrance, was a door opening into the bed-room.
Vance walked directly back into the living-room. On the right-hand wall was a fireplace and a mantel on which sat an old-fashioned mahogany clock. Near the mantel, in the far corner, stood a small table containing a silver ice-water service consisting of a pitcher and six goblets.
Third floor of Chatham Arms Apartment in West Forty-sixth Street.
“There is our very convenient clock,” said Vance. “And there is the pitcher in which the boy put the ice—imitation Sheffield plate.”
Going to the window he glanced down into the paved rear court twenty-five or thirty feet below.
“The Major certainly couldn’t have escaped through the window,” he remarked.
He turned and stood a moment looking into the passageway.