"While we are still utterly in the dark, my dear," I said, consolingly, "I have a feeling that it's only a question of time when the whole matter will be cleared up." I wished then I could have taken her into my confidence, and told her what McGinity had discovered, about the scroll, but I knew it would be unwise to make any announcement at that stage of the proceedings, when we had only the wildest suspicions to go on. "And, now," I concluded, "I think we'll get to business at once."
"What are you going to do?" Pat asked, eagerly.
"I'm going to rouse McGinity," I replied, "and if your suspicions are correct, we'll find Mr. Zzyx, and put him back where he belongs."
"Lock him up!" Jane exclaimed. "And, for heaven's sake, keep him locked up!"
"Now, you two compose yourselves, and go to bed," I admonished gently but firmly. "You're both quite safe now."
I left the room, and went to my own apartment, where I got my flashlight. A few minutes later, I knocked at McGinity's door. Fortunately, he had not gone to bed. He was still pacing the floor and smoking furiously. The first thing he did, after I had poured out Pat's story to him, was to slip a small revolver in his hip pocket.
"There's no time to lose," I murmured, as we crept out into the hall. "Follow me—and not a sound."
I led the way to the State Apartment. Our difficulty was to effect an entrance into Mr. Zzyx's bedroom without awakening Niki, who slept in the adjoining room. As I stood racking my brains how to get into the creature's room, McGinity, on impulse, tried the door knob. To my amazement, the door opened. We walked into the room. As I trained my flashlight on the bed, he chuckled low, and said: "There's the bed, and, as you see, Pat's right. There's nobody in it."
The bedclothes were in disorder, showing that the bed had been recently occupied. Immediately, we turned our attention to the lock on the door, and found that it was not in working condition. A long brass bolt, on the inside, fitted into a deep groove in the jamb, and that was all there was to fasten the door. This would account for Mr. Zzyx's freedom of egress and ingress, and I smiled to myself at our utter stupidity in not having the lock examined. I wondered why Niki had not informed us about it, long before this. In many things, he was just plain dumb.
After creeping quietly upstairs, we explored the two upper floors, including Henry's observatory. We searched in many queer places, and looked into all the cavernous and gloomy chambers. And then we stumbled on something.