Ten minutes later Mr Merton Mansfield, quite unsuspicious, entered the room and retired to bed, an example followed by the assassin Schrieber, who had a room on the same corridor a little distance away.
At nine o’clock next morning Seymour Kennedy, bright and spruce in his uniform, descended to the hall and inquired of the head-porter if Mr Merton Mansfield had left.
“Mr Mansfield is an early bird, sir. He went away to London by the 6:47 train.”
The air-pilot turned upon his heel with a sigh of relief.
Two hours later, however, while seated in the lounge with Ella, prior to returning to London, Kennedy noticed that there was much whispering among the staff. Of the porter he inquired the reason.
“Well, sir,” the man replied, “it seems that a maid on the first floor, on going into one of the rooms this morning, found a visitor dead in bed—Mr Sommer, a Swiss gentleman who arrived last night. The place smells strongly of cloves, and the poor girl has also been taken very ill, for the fumes in the place nearly asphyxiated her.”
Seymour again returned to Ella and told her what had occurred.
“But how did you manage it?” she asked in a low whisper.
“Well, after watching Schrieber put the vase in the room, I entered after him and replaced it by the vase you had bought, afterwards taking the one with the explosive needle to Schrieber’s room and carrying away the superfluous one. The man must have glanced at the pair of vases on his mantelshelf before sleeping, but he, of course, never dreamed that he was gazing upon the infernal contrivance that he had placed in the Minister’s room with his own hand.”
“I see,” exclaimed Ella. “And, surely, he richly deserved his fate!”