Читать книгу What the Dark Room Revealed - Roy J. Snell - Страница 3

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“Look Jimmie!” The slender finger of Tom Howe, the young detective, pointed at the part of the door nearest the knob. “That’s how he got in—if,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “he got in at all!”

Jimmie saw only one thing, that the narrow strip of board known as the door-jamb, stood out from the door-frame a fraction of an inch, and that only at the point closest to the knob.

“Pried it out a little, slipped something thin through,” Tom explained. “He pushed the spring-lock back, and in he walked. Not a sound. If he did,—” he repeated after a second’s pause.

“Why do you say ‘if’?” Jimmie asked in a surprised whisper.

“Because in this case you may suspect anything. Look here, Jimmie!” Tom gripped the boy’s arm hard. “This is almost sure to prove an inside job. Strangest thing I ever heard of. Five men and a woman, every one of them rich, or supposed to be—in these days you never know. They are locked in a building for the night, two A.M. until morning. Not another soul in the place. And fifty thousand dollars in set diamonds,—bracelets, rings and pendants, disappear into thin air.

“Of course,” he added after a pause, “When we’ve looked things over we may find where a window has been jimmied or a lock sprung, but I doubt it. Only that one.” He pointed again at the innocent-looking door.

“Tell you what, Jimmie,”—he was still talking in a whisper, “Suppose you let me go in alone. You just seem to happen along when I open the door. People are often reluctant to talk before a boy. That’s queer, but it’s true.”

“Ri—right,” Jimmie whispered. He was all keyed up. His nerves were on edge. He felt like a bird-dog that is pointing a quail. He was thinking what a difference a few minutes can make in a fellow’s life!

“There’s a dark corner.” Tom nodded toward the right. Jimmie faded into the shadows.

Tom rapped sharply on the door. No answer. He rapped again. The door was thrown open by a large man in a silk bathrobe:

“What is it?” he demanded. There was a suggestion of gruffness in his voice.

“I’m Tom Howe, from the city detective force.”

“City detective?” The man stared. “But this is The Glen, not the City.”

“I know,” Tom agreed. “Mr. Utter sent me up here to look into things. After all, he’s manager of the club.”

“And I am a guest here.” The man’s voice rose. “Believe me, the Indian Hill Golf Club shall pay for this. It’s an outrage. I shall proceed at once to sue this club!”

“For what?” Tom asked quietly.

“For the loss of our diamonds, to be sure! Think of it! One night in a place like this and all those diamonds gone. Worst of all, less than half of them insured!”

“Ah!” said Tom, “If that is true, you have had a real loss.”

“If IT IS true!” the man exploded, “Do you think I, George Dawson, would falsify for a mere handful of diamonds?”

“Having had very few dealings with those who are reputed to be rich, I wouldn’t know,” Tom replied. There was more than a shade of sarcasm in his voice. “If you don’t mind, I’ll have a look at this lock.”

“Look as much as you like,” the man said, moving back a step or two. At the same time a second figure moved up beside him. It was a woman. The light from a window fell full upon her. She wore a dressing gown of bright film-like silk. She was Marie Dawson, young wife of George Dawson. Jimmie had lived in the same town with them for two years. He saw them now for the first time. Marie was said to be beautiful. She had been on the stage. Jimmie saw at a glance that she was very attractive.

“He is rich, she beautiful,” he thought. “They live in our city on a large estate. And yet, when they play a game of golf or attend a party at this rich man’s course, it is always as guests, not as members. I wonder why?” He was to know.

Now his eyes were on the young detective, Tom Howe. As he turned the knifelike beam of light from a tiny flashlight on the lock of that door, his body stiffened.

“He’s found something,” thought Jimmie, longing to join him but still hiding in the shadows.

Taking a small envelope from his pocket and holding it open beneath the end of the night-lock, Tom began scraping away at this bit of shining metal. Jimmie could see nothing unusual about the lock, but that Tom had made a real discovery he did not doubt.

“I’ll ask him about it,” Jimmie said, “But not now.”

And indeed he would ask him. If you have read our other book, “Jimmie Drury, Candid Camera Detective,” you will know that boy though he was, Jimmie, with his small candid camera had offered valuable aid to Tom in his work, and that in so far as the rights of others permitted, Tom always told him everything. Even at that moment Tom was making signs behind his back that told Jimmie plainer than words that when opportunity presented, he was to snap a picture of that door-lock. And snap it Jimmie surely would.

At last Tom stood up, took a deep breath, murmured “All right,” stepped inside, and silently closed the door, leaving Jimmie to his own thoughts, at which Jimmie whispered to himself, “It’s queer how much difference a few minutes can make in a fellow’s life.”

And indeed the last few hours of his life had been strange. Half an hour before Jimmie had found himself seated on the old caddy-bench of this, the Indian Hill Golf Club. Anyone looking at him then might have said he seemed rather forlorn. And they would not have been wrong. Not that Jimmie did not like being a caddy. He did. In fact he gloried in it. Few were better than he. And why not be a caddy? Why, indeed? Had not nearly all great golfers been caddies before they were great golfers? Indeed they had! Right there before him, hanging on the wall, suspended from solid silver hooks, hung a much honored plank that had once been the top of a caddy-bench. The surface of that plank was scarred—or glorified—by many a boy’s initials. Largest, most artistically done of all, were the letters N. J. H. And what a name they stood for! Ned J. Hunter.

Ned Hunter was the pride of every caddy on the Indian Hill course. He had once been a caddy—was now supposed to be very rich, and had won the Western Open. Besides being the finest golfer on the grounds, he gave the largest tips, and treated every caddy he knew as a pal. What more could be said? How every boy’s heart beat when Ned Hunter looked about for a caddy. He had his favorites. Jimmie was right at the top of this list. But often his roving eyes fell upon some small boy with patches on his knees and deep longing in his eager flushed countenance. Then he would say:

“You there, with the patches! Come along!”

Yes, caddying was an ancient and honorable occupation but just then Jimmie was not thinking of this. He did not care whether he was called to caddy this day or not. Perhaps he hoped he would not be. He had come out here on this fine October morn to drown his troubles. Only two hours before old Dr. Block had sealed his fate as far as football for the season went. And at this very moment the boys were having light skirmish practice for the afternoon game.

“Fellow’s heart,” he grumbled. “Just a little whisper. That’s what Doc said. Life was too long to risk it. Fellow’d think——”

Jimmie had not thought a single word farther in that direction. Instead he was on his feet and out of the caddy-house door with a bound.

“Tom Howe!” he had exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “What you doing out here?”

The slender freckle-faced young detective had wheeled about to take Jimmie in from head to toe with one sweeping glance then murmured low:

“Jimmie Drury, as I live! And at just the right moment!”

“Why? What,——”

“Come over here.” Tom’s voice had been low. There had been a tenseness about him that sent a chill coursing up and down Jimmie’s spine.

And that was how it came about that at the very moment when he might still have been glooming about his football troubles Jimmie was crouching in a shadowy corner of the guest house in one of America’s richest and oldest golf courses.

Together in silence before entering the Club house he and Tom had wandered out to the fresh greens of the golf course.

“There’s been a robbery,” Tom said, turning to face Jimmie. “Got your camera?”

Jimmie threw open his sweater revealing a small candid camera. It was slung under his arm in the manner in which a mountaineer carried his gun.

“Good!” said Tom. “We may need it. I’m in on this, as you are going to be, by accident.”

“But I don’t see——”

“You will,” Tom broke in. “And plenty. Before many hours it will be in all the papers. Staring headlines will read: ‘BIG SOCIETY ROBBERY—MARIE DAWSON’S JEWELS STOLEN AT INDIAN HILL GOLF CLUB.’”

“Dawson!” Jimmie had exclaimed. “They live just over there!” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“I know,” Tom had said. “That’s their summer home. It’s closed now. Ned Hunter blew a party to them and some others here last night. A pretty gay party I guess. This morning Mrs. Dawson’s jewels, mostly diamonds, were gone.”

“Ned Hunter,” Jimmie repeated slowly.

“That’s it,” Tom agreed. “Perhaps Marie wanted to dazzle Ned for some reason or other so she brought her jewels along.

“Well,” Tom sighed, “She’s not got ’em now and won’t have unless we find ’em. Come on. Let’s have a look.”

Retracing their steps they had walked past the caddy-house, followed a circular drive and found themselves standing in front of the golf club’s main entrance.

As Jimmie placed one foot on the first stone step leading to the door, he paused to draw a deep breath. At that instant he seemed to hear a faint voice whisper, “Think it over well before you take the next step. Once you are inside that door you will be powerless to turn back, you will be led on and on ever into deeper mysteries and darker dangers, until——”

“Dumb!” he exclaimed low. “An imagination is a great nuisance.”

“And a great boon,” said Tom Howe, whose sharp ears had caught his every word. “A detective without an imagination would be worse than a barber without hands. Come on, let’s go in.”

Even then Jimmie was reluctant to enter. Often as he had been on the grounds, he had never before entered that door. Indian Hill was no ordinary golf course. It was the oldest, best known course in all that part of the country. For forty years it had been a rich man’s club. In years gone by all the millionaires of the great city twenty-five miles away had belonged to this club. The great spreading elms before that building could have told dark tales of high finance played out here by men who had made fortunes and of those who had been ruined by contracts made during matches on those ancient greens.

The room he was about to enter was presided over by three persons, Mr. Utter, Manager of the club, Margaret, the young-old lady at the desk, and Hanada, the Filipino door-boy. Jimmie was not sure which one he feared most. Mr. Utter was large, serious and stern in his dealings with boys. Margaret reflected his attitude. It was not her golf course. It belonged to the members. “It isn’t for me to say,” was her reply to the most trivial request. “You will have to see Mr. Utter.” As for Hanada, he almost always whispered when he talked. Jimmie was afraid of whisperers. But here they were, inside.

“Ah!” Mr. Utter’s eyes opened wide at sight of Tom Howe. “I felt sure you would come.”

“Yes,” said Tom. “This thing interests me. Besides, most of your members live in the city. That practically makes it my case. Lucky I happened to be in your village on another matter.”

“Yes, I discovered that fact. That is why I called you at our local police station,” Utter replied.

“I suppose you know Jimmie Drury,” said Tom, laying an arm on the boy’s shoulder.

“Yes, Oh yes.” Mr. Utter did not trouble to look Jimmie’s way. “He is one of our caddies, a rather good one I am told.”

“He’ll work with me on this case,” said Tom, thereby producing a shock.

“What? A boy?” Mr. Utter nearly lost his superb poise. “You understand we are going to keep this a secret. A golf course like Indian Hill, a really ancient and superb institution, one of the haunts of millionaires, we——”

“I know,” Tom broke in. “And you’ve got a fine chance to keep it hushed up. It will be in all the evening papers. But not because Jimmie or I give out an interview. We’ve worked together on cases before. Jimmie knows his stuff and in his own field he can’t be beat. Now,” his tone was crisp, “Do we go up those stairs together or do I take a train to the city?”

Even now, crouching in that corner, waiting for Tom’s signal, the opening of that door, with considerable impatience Jimmie’s heart warmed as he recalled that speech of Tom’s. How he loved him for it! How he would work to prove himself worthy of it! Yes, life was strange. A half hour before he had been seated on the caddy-bench glooming about football. Now he did not care about that, at least not too much. He and Tom were off on another interesting case for after gasping like a fish out of water, the rather too pompous Mr. Utter had stared first at Tom, then at Jimmie, then had said in some confusion, “You—you go up those stairs, to be sure. It—it’s all right about Jimmie.”

“But first,” he had added after a second’s thought, “There is one matter about which I wish to speak to you privately. If you choose to disclose the facts to your ah, assistant,”—he glanced at Jimmie, “later, I shall not object.”

Taking his cue Jimmie had walked slowly up the broad stairs leading up to one more mysterious adventure, leaving Mr. Utter and Tom to talk in low, guarded tones until a quarter of an hour had ticked itself away, and then Tom had followed him up the stairs. So, here they were, Tom inside the mystery room and Jimmie outside in the shadows. What was happening inside? Was Tom making fresh discoveries? What would his conclusions be? Had Marie Dawson and her husband faked the robbery in order to collect insurance? Had one of the other supposedly rich guests entered the room and stolen the jewels? Or was Tom wrong? Was it after all an outside job? Jimmie fingered his candid camera nervously as he awaited the signal.

Of a sudden, here it was. Opening the door, Tom leaned out, smiled, and beckoned.

“They’ve gone to their private rooms to dress,” he explained. Then reading a question in Jimmie’s face he added, “I have told them you were coming to take some pictures.”

“Oh,” Jimmie sighed, unslinging his camera. “Then it’s all right. I’ll begin right here.” Squinting through a range-finder, he aimed his camera at the door-lock.