Everything looked dingy and untidy; there was a musty smell about the room. After a quick search there, we passed through several other rooms on the ground floor, including the kitchen, where there were many greasy plates and plenty of unwashed china and cooking utensils. A door, under a back stairway in the kitchen, evidently led to the basement; it was fastened with a patent lock.
As none of the rooms on the ground floor, except the library and kitchen, bore evidence of recent occupation, Chief Meigs suggested that we make a quick search of the upper floors. "LaRauche, no doubt," he said, "is in hiding somewhere about the house, and I think we're going to have some trouble before we get him."
"That is, if he hasn't already escaped us," McGinity ventured.
"There's some doubt about that," the Chief answered. "All the doors and windows on this floor are locked, and fastened on the inside, and he couldn't possibly have snapped that patent lock on the door in the kitchen, from the inside, if he had wanted to hide in the basement."
"But Mrs. LaRauche!" I said. "Where is she? We've got to find her!"
In reply, the Chief signaled to McGinity and me, to follow him up the dark, back stairway to the second floor. Feeling along the wall in the hall, on this floor, I found a switch, and snapped on the lights. But they were very dim, of low candle-power, and in searching the bedrooms and closets, we had to again resort to the use of the flashlight. Two of the bedrooms seemed to have been recently tenanted, with beds unmade, and men's clothing and soiled linen lying about in great disorder. One of these, apparently Orkins' room, contained a small radio, over which he had undoubtedly heard the announcement of the $5,000 reward. The whole interior of the house showed the absence of a domesticated hand. At the end of the corridor, we looked into a large double room, which LaRauche had equipped as a laboratory.
Finally, we reached the narrow corridor in the top story, where we were faced by four doors. Three of them were unlocked. Pushing them open, we looked into two unfurnished rooms, and another used for storage. The fourth door, at the end of the passageway, was locked. Repeated knocking brought no answer.
This was the last unexplored room in the house. The room particularly interested me because it was there that McGinity and I had witnessed the dramatic shadowgraph episode in the window. So far we had failed to trace LaRauche's movements in the house, or gain the slightest clue to his hiding-place. Was he hiding in this attic room? And where was Mrs. LaRauche?
Chief Meigs was a man of infinite resources. He had either anticipated this, or had become expert in unlocking doors. He produced a heavy bunch of keys, from which he selected three. His first two attempts failed to open the door. The third time, proverbially the charm, the key turned in the lock, and the door swung open.
I would have been the first to step through, but the Chief stopped me. "Stay where you are," he whispered; "it's a little dangerous."