‘Certainly, sir, but I don’t think Mr. Munt is in his room.’
‘Well, anyhow—’
‘Very good, sir.’
At once the corridor was flooded with light, and to all of them, in greater or less degree according to their familiarity with their surroundings, it seemed amazing that they should have had so much difficulty, half an hour before, in finding their way about. Even Valentine’s harassed emotions experienced a moment’s relaxation. They chaffed Hugh Curtis a little about the false impression his darkling voice had given them. Valentine, as always the more loquacious, swore it seemed to proceed from a large gaunt man with a hare-lip. They were beginning to move towards their rooms, Valentine had almost reached his, when Hugh Curtis called after them:
‘I say, may I be taken to my room?’
‘Of course,’ said Bettisher, turning back. ‘Franklin! Franklin! Franklin, show Mr. Curtis where his room is. I don’t know myself.’ He disappeared and the butler came slowly up the stairs.
‘It’s quite near, sir, at the end of the corridor,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, with having no light we haven’t got your things put out. But it’ll only take a moment.’
The door did not open when he turned the handle.
‘Odd! It’s stuck,’ he remarked: but it did not yield to the pressure of his knee and shoulder. ‘I’ve never known it to be locked before,’ he muttered, thinking aloud, obviously put out by this flaw in the harmony of the domestic arrangements. ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll go and fetch my key.’
In a minute or two he was back with it. So gingerly did he turn the key in lock he evidently expected another rebuff; but it gave a satisfactory click and the door swung open with the best will in the world.
‘Now I’ll go and fetch your suitcase,’ he said as Hugh Curtis entered.
‘No, it’s absurd to stay,’ soliloquized Valentine, fumbling feverishly with his front stud, ‘after all these warnings, it would be insane. It’s what they do in a “shocker”, linger on and on, disregarding revolvers and other palpable hints, while one by one the villain picks them off, all except the hero, who is generally the stupidest of all, but the luckiest. No doubt by staying I should qualify to be the hero: I should survive; but what about Hugh, and Bettisher, that close-mouthed rat-trap?’ He studied his face in the glass: it looked flushed. ‘I’ve had an alarming increase in blood-pressure: I am seriously unwelclass="underline" I must go away at once to a nursing home, and Hugh must accompany me.’ He gazed round wretchedly at the charmingly appointed room, with its chintz and polished furniture, so comfortable, safe, and unsensational. And for the hundredth time his thoughts veered round and blew from the opposite quarter. It would equally be madness to run away at a moment’s notice, scared by what was no doubt only an elaborate practical joke. Munt, though not exactly a jovial man, would have his joke, as witness the game of Hide-and-Seek. No doubt the Travelling Grave itself was just a take-in, a test of his and Bettisher’s credulity. Munt was not popular, he had few friends, but that did not make him a potential murderer. Valentine had always liked him, and no one, to his knowledge, had ever spoken a word against him. “What sort of figure would he, Valentine, cut, after this nocturnal flitting? He would lose at least two friends, Munt and Bettisher, and cover Hugh Curtis and himself with ridicule.
Poor Valentine! So perplexed was he that he changed his mind five times on the way down to the library. He kept repeating to himself the sentence, ‘I’m so sorry, Dick, I find my blood-pressure rather high, and I think I ought to go into a nursing home to-night—Hugh will see me safely there’—until it became meaningless, even its absurdity disappeared.
Hugh was in the library alone. It was now or never; but Valentine’s opening words were swept aside by his friend, who came running across the room to him.
‘Oh, Valentine, the funniest thing has happened.’
‘Funny? Where? What?’ Valentine asked.
‘No, no, not funny in the sinister sense, it’s not in the least serious. Only it s so odd. This is a house of surprises. I’m glad I came.’
‘Tell me quickly.’
‘Don’t look so alarmed. It’s only very amusing. But I must show it you, or you’ll miss the funny side of it. Come on up to my room; we’ve got five minutes.’
But before they crossed the threshold Valentine pulled up with a start.
‘Is this your room?’
‘Oh, yes. Don’t look as if you had seen a ghost. It’s a perfectly ordinary room, I tell you, except for one thing. No, stop a moment; wait here while I arrange the scene.’
He darted in, and after a moment summoned Valentine to follow.
‘Now, do you notice anything strange?’
‘I see the usual evidences of untidiness.’
A coat was lying on the floor and various articles of clothing were scattered about.
‘You do? Well then—no deceit, gentlemen.’ With a gesture he snatched the coat up from the floor. ‘Now what do you see?’
‘I see a further proof of slovenly habits—a pair of shoes where the coat was.’
‘Look well at those shoes. There’s nothing about them that strikes you as peculiar?’
Valentine studied them. They were ordinary brown shoes, lying side by side, the soles uppermost, a short pace from the wardrobe. They looked as though someone had taken them off and forgotten to put them away, or taken them out, and forgotten to put them on.
‘Well,’ pronounced Valentine at last, ‘I don’t usually leave my shoes upside-down like that, but you might.’
‘Ah,’ said Hugh triumphantly, ‘your surmise is incorrect. They’re not my shoes.”
‘Not yours? Then they were left here by mistake. Franklin should have taken them away.’
‘Yes, but that’s where the coat comes in. I’m reconstructing the scene, you see, hoping to impress you. While he was downstairs fetching my bag, to save time I began to undress; I took my coat off and hurled it down there. After he had gone I picked it up. So he never saw the shoes.’
‘Well, why make such a fuss? They won’t be wanted till morning. Or would you rather ring for Franklin and tell him to take them away?’.
‘Ah!’ cried Hugh, delighted by this. ‘At last you’ve come to the heart of the matter. He couldn’t take them away.’
‘Why couldn’t he?’
‘Because they’re fixed to the floor!’
‘Oh, rubbish!’ said Valentine. ‘You must be dreaming.’
He bent down, took hold of the shoes by the welts, and gave a little tug. They did not move.
‘There you are!’ cried Hugh. ‘Apologize. Own that it is unusual to find in one’s room a strange pair of shoes adhering to the floor.’
Valentine’s reply was to give another heave. Still the shoes did not budge.
‘No good,’ commented his friend. ‘They’re nailed down, or gummed down, or something. The dinner-bell hasn’t rung; we’ll get Franklin to clear up the mystery.’
The butler when he came looked uneasy, and surprised them by speaking first.
‘Was it Mr. Munt you were wanting, sir?’ he said to Valentine. ‘I don’t know where he is. I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find him.’
‘Are these his shoes by any chance?’ asked Valentine.
They couldn’t deny themselves the mild entertainment of watching Franklin stoop down to pick up the shoes, and recoil in perplexity when he found them fast in the floor.
‘These should be Mr. Munt’s, sir,’ he said doubtfully—‘these should. But what’s happened to them that they won’t leave the floor?’