“Sure there’s a mystery,” asserted Ned. “Wouldn’t you call it a mystery if a man was found dead in a locked room—a room without a window in it, and only one door, and that locked on the inside and the man dead inside? Isn’t that a mystery, Bob Dexter—just as much of a mystery as who took our Golden Eagle?”
“Or what the ‘yellow boys’ were in the wreck of the Sea Hawk?” added Harry.
“Sure that would be a mystery if everything is as you say it is,” asserted Bob. “But in the first place if old Hiram Beegle has been killed and if his body is in that room, with only one door leading into it, how do the authorities know anything about it? Why, you can’t even see into that room when the door is shut!”
“How do you know?” asked Ned quickly.
“Because I’ve been in that room. I was in there yesterday afternoon with Hiram Beegle. There is only one entrance to it and that by the door, for the fireplace doesn’t count.”
“You were in that room?” cried Harry in surprise.
“Certainly I was.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Ned, feeling that his announcement of the murder was as nothing compared with this news.
“Oh, well, there wasn’t any need of speaking about it,” said Bob.
“Well, I guess you’ve seen the last of Hiram Beegle,” went on Harry. “That is unless you want to go to the scene of the crime, as the Weekly Banner will put it.”