Merlini crossed to the other window, examined its latch and said, “Locked. And if Leonard insists that no one could have shinnied down that trellis past him—”
“They certainly couldn’t.” Leonard scowled. “Besides, with that burglar alarm working, how could anyone—”
“It doesn’t look very practical, does it?” Merlini said somewhat glumly. “One door, locked on the inside. Burglar alarm on the windows and a witness just outside the single unlocked one. It’s not bad.”
“And,” I growled, massaging my sore arm, “it’s not good either.”
Dudley Wolff, in the doorway, turned nervously as light flooded the dark hallway behind him at last. Downstairs Galt turned off the alarm bell.
I followed Merlini to the door and saw Dunning climb down from the chair on which he had been standing. In the ceiling socket above, a photoflood bulb shone brightly.
“Loose in the socket?” Merlini asked.
Dunning nodded.
Standing in the doorway, I surveyed the hall. The door to Wolff’s room was directly opposite. There was another in the same wall a few feet to the left. Mrs. Wolff stood backed against it rigidly, Kathryn at her side. There was a third door beyond and across from this, near the head of the stairs where Phillips stood, one hand on the balcony rail. Galt joined him in a moment from below.
Anne stared at her husband as he crossed to her and took her arm.
“What was it? What did you see?” Wolff’s voice didn’t roar now. It was thin and shaky. It almost sounded as though he didn’t really want the answer to the question he asked.
Anne’s voice was a flat dull monotone, little more than a whisper. “I had just gone to bed when I heard the shot outside. I reached for the reading lamp above the bed, and then, before I could find it, I heard something in the hall outside my door. And the doorknob turned.” Her voice faltered. She stared at the door. “I heard the door open—”
“Yes?” Wolff prompted. His fingers were tight on her arm.
“Then the footsteps ran in through the dark, and — and I saw—”
Wolff cut in. “What we saw this morning on the stairs?”
She nodded. “Yes. It moved toward the window. I can’t remember picking up the gun from the bedside table, but I suddenly had it in my hand. I fired. I–I think I cried out. I fired again and again. The figure moved as though the shots made no difference. It reached the window. I fired again, and then — then I was running for the hall. Dudley, I’m afraid. I don’t want to stay in this house any longer. What I saw is—”
Wolff shook her arm, tightening his grasp. “That’s enough, Anne,” he said quickly.
And then, as he spoke, the rigid tension of her body relaxed. She swayed unsteadily; her eyes closed. Wolff put his arm around her.
“Guest room!” he said. “Quick!”
Galt, who was nearest, turned to the door at the head of the stairs and put his hand on the knob. Merlini called, “Wait!” and jumped toward him.
“Don’t,” he warned, “go barging into rooms that way without looking. Not as long as that trap gun is still missing.”
He turned the knob himself, pushed the door in, and examined the interior with the pocket flash. Then he said, “All right. Where’s the switch?”
Galt readied around the door jamb and snapped it. Merlini stepped in. Wolff put an arm under Anne’s knees, lifted her, and followed. Inside I heard a closet door open and close. Then Merlini’s voice. “Come in. There’s nothing here.”
Kay followed her father in. Merlini came out and back toward me. He stopped at the door against which Mrs. Wolff had been standing and tried the knob. It was locked.
“What’s in here?”
“Mr. Wolff’s study,” Dunning answered.
“Does it connect with his bedroom?”
“No.”
Merlini moved toward Wolff’s door. “Ross,” he said. “Keep an eye on that locked bathroom door and let me through when I knock.”
He pushed Wolff’s door open, examined the room beyond with his flash, then felt for and found the light switch. When he returned to Mrs. Wolff’s room through the bath a few moments later he reported, “Nothing. Not even a mouse.”
Francis Galt joined us. His eyes moved warily about the room and then rested on Merlini. “Well,” he asked slowly, “are you satisfied now?”
Merlini nodded. “Yes, satisfied that there’s monkey business afoot.”
Galt thought that over. Then he asked, “Why? Just on general principles? Or can you prove it?”
“Let me ask you one. You tested the photoflood bulb after putting it in the ceiling socket in the hall?”
“Yes. I did.”
Merlini picked up the electric torch he had dropped on the bed. “And this flashlight which I took from your suitcase. Was it in working order last time you tried it?”
Galt nodded, frowning. “It was.”
“It wasn’t much help when I needed it. Look.” Merlini pressed the button, then unscrewed the cap at the end and let the batteries slide out into his hand. One of them, had been inserted the wrong way around. Merlini glanced at Galt and, without saying anything, reversed the battery and replaced it. This time the torch lighted.
“Ghosts don’t like light. I know that. But when they unscrew bulbs and tamper with flashlights—”
Galt was obviously worried. “I’ll admit I don’t like that,” he said. “But there’s something else I like even less. If you’re going to insist that what you saw at the head of those stairs was a three-dimensional flesh-and-blood person, you’re going to have to explain how he could have run into this room and then, in the space of three or four seconds, vanished into thin air. I don’t think you can do it. I know how your stage illusions are done — your vanishing girls, your trunk- and coffin-escapes. Any competent psychic investigator has to know that sort of thing. None of those answers fit.”
“Are you sure?” Merlini said. He took his half dollar from his pocket and flipped it once in the air. Then he held it by the extreme edge between thumb and forefinger. “Suppose we let this coin represent the phantom.” He laid it carefully on the palm of his left hand and slowly closed his fingers over it. “My closed fist is the locked room. There’s nothing astral about the coin. It’s good solid metal, and yet—”
His fingers opened slowly. His hand was empty. I glanced quickly at his other hand. That was empty too.
“The fact,” he continued, “that the coin escapes invisibly is no proof that its solid matter dematerialized in some occult manner. Not when there is a much simpler explanation. Not when—”
Wolff’s voice came from the doorway behind us. “It was done like that, was it?” He sounded skeptical. The color of the liquid in the tall glass he held in his hand indicated that little if any soda water had been added to the whisky it contained.
Merlini said, “Yes, that might be one way.”
“One way?” Galt exclaimed. “You don’t mean that there’s more than one?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s what we’ve got to find out. I don’t suppose there are any trap doors or sliding panels in this room?”
Wolff was positive on that point. “No. There are not. I built this house. I know.”
Galt shook his head. “You can forget that. It’s no magician’s cabinet. It’s an ordinary room with no trickery in its construction whatever. I went over every inch when I searched it this morning.”
“I just thought I’d ask,” Merlini said. “I didn’t think there would be. But there are more ways than one to skin a cat, or to disappear. There was no trap door in my hand either. Galt, I saw fingerprinting equipment in that suitcase of yours downstairs. I brought some too, but yours is handier. Would you get it?”
“Yes. I was intending to.”
“Good. Send Dunning up with it, and then take a look at that camera of yours.”