The room in which the detectives found themselves had evidently been the scientist’s sitting room. It was simply but comfortably furnished and was quite masculine in character. The walls were lined with well-filled book shelves, and in the center of the room was a large table, littered with a miscellany of papers, pamphlets, pipes, burnt matches and tobacco ashes. On the carpeted floor near the table lay an open book, the leaves of which were rumpled and torn. Except for this, the room was in perfect order.
“No signs of gas anywhere,” said Strange, audibly sniffing the air. “The asphyxiation theory of Dr. Sprague’s is a dud, in my opinion.”
Peret, who had begun to make an inspection of the room, did not reply. Strange continued his investigation, while Deweese stood near the window looking on.
The result of Peret’s examination, which, while brief, was more or less thorough, annoyed and confounded him. The detective sergeant also appeared to be puzzled. The Frenchman was the first to give expression to his thoughts.
“The three doors and the four windows in this room, sergeant, are locked on the inside,” he remarked, as Strange paused for a moment to look at him with questioning eyes. “The key to that door on the far side of the room, and which I am sure is the door of a closet, is missing, but the other keys are in the locks. The windows, moreover, are, as you have no doubt observed, fastened with a form of mechanism that could not possibly have been sprung from the outside. Yet Berjet said he was attacked by ten assassins!”
“The point that you are trying to make, I take it,” Strange grunted, “is that the broken window is the only means of egress from the room.”
“Your penetration is remarkable,” snapped Peret, who always became irritated when baffled.
“It’s the devil’s own work,” commented Deweese, who had been watching the movements of the two detectives with keen interest. “Certainly there was nothing human about the Thing that attacked me, and I imagine that Berjet’s death can be laid at the door of the same agency.”
Peret flung himself into a chair and lit a cigarette.
“Any way you look at the thing, it seems preposterous,” he said reflectively. “The ‘invisible monster’ theory is too absurd for serious consideration, and the other theories that have been advanced do not stand up in the presence of the facts. However, let us consider. We will assume that Berjet was, as he said, attacked by ten men. Eh! bien! How did they get out of the room? All of the exits are locked on the inside, as you see.