A flight of twenty granite steps led to the main entrance, two heavily built, metal studded doors. A lofty hall was disclosed with a circular stairway around it. Leading from the hall to what seemed the main room on that floor was a flight of six steps. The chestnut doors had been shattered. Obviously it was the room in which Apthorpe had met his death. For the rest it looked in no way different from half a hundred other rooms in big houses which Trent had investigated professionally. Bookshelves not more than four feet in height lined three sides of the apartment. Making a pretense of reading the titles Trent looked to see whether they were indeed volumes or mere blinds. The policeman in charge, knowing Mr. Westward well, was only too willing to show him and his friend what was to be seen. The body, he explained, was in an upper chamber.
One peculiarity Trent noted in the book cases. Apparently there was no way to open them. They were of metal painted over. If keyholes existed they were hidden from view. Fearing that the policeman in charge would notice his scrutiny, he walked over to the open window and looked out. It was from this that the murderer made his escape. Twelve feet below the green closely cropped turf touched the granite foundation of the walls.
When Mr. Westward offered him a cigar he took out his pipe instead and knocked out the ashes against the window ledge. Mr. Westward heard an exclamation of annoyance and asked its cause. Then he saw that while the stem of the pipe remained in its owner’s hand the bowl had fallen to the lawn below.
“I won’t be a minute,” Trent said, and went down the main steps to the grounds. It was no accident that led him to drop his favorite briar. His keen eyes had seen footprints in the grass as he looked down. They might well be the marks of him who had stolen the famous emerald and Trent had decreed a private vendetta against one who might have robbed him for what he came into Massachusetts. Searching for the pipe bowl which he had instantly detected he made a rapid examination of the ground.
There were indeed footprints made undoubtedly by some one dropping from the end of the portiere to the soft turf. And as he gazed, the mysterious man whom he had suspected faded into thin air. They were the imprints of the high heels that only women wear! Carefully he followed them as far as the big gates of the garage. They were not distinct to any but a trained observer. They were single tracks leading from the grass beneath the window to the garage. Not an unnecessary step had been taken. Apparently the local police had pulled in the portiere from the window and had made no examination of the grass below.
Trent noticed that a man, evidently a gardener, was approaching him. Quickly he dropped the bowl of his pipe again among some clover. The man was eager and obliging. Furthermore he had heavily shod feet which were already making their impression on the turf to the undoing of any who might seek, as Anthony Trent had done, to make a careful examination. Already the high heeled imprints were obliterated.
When the pipe was found the man insisted on speaking of the murder. He declared that for an hour on the fatal night a big touring car had been drawn up near his cottage in a lane nearby and that two men got out of it leaving another in charge.
Trent shook him off as soon as he could and returned to the house, his previously held theories wholly upset. He had built them in the facts or falsities carefully supplied by Miss Thompson and he was anxious to see the lady. It was most likely that the woman who had lowered herself from the window was the woman who had committed the murder. And for what could the crimes have been committed so readily as the Takowaja emerald?
He recalled now that there had been a certain reserve in the Westwards’ manner when they had spoken of Miss Thompson. Might they not have suspected her and yet feared to voice these suspicions to a stranger?
As he thought it over he came to the conclusion that it was not of the crime of murder they suspected her but perhaps because of her relations with so notorious a man as the late Andrew Apthorpe. He remembered that the dead man’s family was alienated from him, possibly for this very reason.