“Running away?” Trent replied. “Success and public flattery have turned your brain. I do not run away. You had every opportunity to ask me what you wanted, but you couldn’t bring yourself to admit defeat. I even demonstrated that an amateur could find the way the crook escaped.” Deep concern was in his manner. “You are not going to tell me that you and the truculent Mallon are still in the dark?”
“It was your duty to show us,” Mallon cried. He did not recognize the adjective Trent had applied to him but he felt it was something unflattering.
Trent shook his head. “Only when your superior requests my aid.”
It was a heritage of those past and regretted days, when Trent worked outside the law, that he retained a concealed dislike of the police. Inspector McWalsh of the New York Department, although he flattered himself that Trent, the millionaire sportsman, liked him was far from the truth. It had amused Trent when he was a master criminal to outwit the police. He enjoyed now bewildering them. Edwards was a sound professional as they went, and he had not neglected the usual conventional things. He had regarded the maidservants with suspicious eyes and had become a nuisance to Nurse Gregory and Mr. Jessup. He had rounded up all the questionable characters in the county and had a large collection of finger-prints, none of which were identified at headquarters.
His fault was too great a dependence on tradition and traditional ways of crime. He had once arrested the members of a mob of gangsters which had invaded his city and broken up their racket by excellent work. But these men had no new methods of crime except in so far as death at the muzzle of a machine gun differs from death at the mouth of an automatic pistol. It worried Edwards not to be able to find by what means the Addison abductor had fled. Not, he admitted, that it would clear up the mystery, but it would relieve him of the gibes of the newspaper boys, and keep him from becoming the subject of irritating cartoons.
His manner toward Anthony Trent changed. It was again the suave Edwards who spoke. “I should have thought,” he said, “that considering your personal feelings toward the family you would be more than glad to help me.” He looked at Cynthia and smiled with benevolence. “If I could help a young lady like her I don’t think I would hold back.” Edwards shook his head. It was gathered that he considered Mr. Trent’s action something less than was to be expected from a gentleman, something beneath the dignity of a man.
“Then why hold back?” Trent retorted. “All you have to do is to admit yourself beaten. Your own terms, Edwards, your own ingenious suggestion.”
“You ought to be put under arrest,” Mr. Mallon boomed.
“That’ll do,” Edwards called sharply. There were few things he would like better to do than to put this Anthony Trent in a private room and administer the good old, discredited, third degree; but Edwards found it unwise to antagonize wealth and influence. Trent had too many highly-placed friends. He made an appointment to see him early next morning. Trent knew he would capitulate.
And Edwards did. But he made it a private matter and Mallon was not with him.
Cynthia, Roger and Edwards walked through the library. Trent opened the long window that led to the porch. It was thirty feet in length and ten wide. Under it, cars or carriages were sheltered as they reached the front 6 D door. The drive was twenty feet beneath. At each corner it was supported by white fluted Corinthian pillars. The wooden floor of the porch was covered with lead, as was the roof above. In each corner stood a pedestal of wood painted white, as were the railings on which at some time or another vases had stood holding potted plants.
Mallon puffed into the scene just as Trent was set to stage his triumph. He bore on his florid face the marks of resentment at having been ignored. Those watching saw Trent lift up one of the wooden pedestals. He did not remove it, but pushed it on its side. Then he raised more slowly the lead sheeting, which bent easily.
“These pillars are hollow,” he said. “Most pillars are to-day, even if they are made of stone or cement. This one leads down to a bin of egg coal. Obviously egg coal reveals little disturbance. I don’t propose to descend again, but Mr. Mallon is burning to show I’m wrong.”
“Why Mallon?” Edwards asked almost angrily. Why had he not thought of this simple solution? “Why Mallon?” Asperity was in his voice.
“Because it narrows somewhat at the base and Mallon’s paunch would hold him there until the world had forgotten him. You’re about Mr. Addison’s build, inspector, and you’ll only just make it.”
They saw the inspector prepare for the descent. Then they saw him disappear with great swiftness.
Later he came from the cellar limping. He had sprained an ankle and bitten his tongue. He was in a flaming temper. His pose as that of a superior intelligence was shaken.
“I might have broken my neck,” he cried passionately. He felt he had been made a laughing stock of.
“Haven’t you any ingenuity?” Trent demanded. “I expected you knew how to brake yourself with knees and elbows. Must I help you all the time?”
Cynthia’s face was troubled. If her father had been dropped down this tunnel unconscious, what injuries might he not have received. She felt this way of escape would worry her mother even more than by having the thing remain a mystery. Inspector Edwards’s asperities brought her mind back to the present. Plainly he was bruised in body as well as spirit. He refused comfort and announced his intention of going again to the porch.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” he said and scowled at Anthony Trent.
“You wrong yourself,” Trent answered.
“It’s this,” the inspector said. “There must have been confederates in the house. I don’t deny that Mr. Addison’s body was slid down there.” Cynthia shuddered, but he paid no attention to her. He looked still at Trent. “You said you had proof. What was it?”
“A shred of Harris tweed from the arm of the suit that Mr. Addison wore. Hubbard identified it.”
“Hubbard,” the inspector said grimly. “I’m mighty glad I sent a hurry call for him. We’ll need Mr. Hubbard.”
“You are wasting time,” Trent declared. “He is innocent.”
“Then some one else isn’t,” Edwards snapped. “Listen. I admit the body was shot down that tube and later disposed of, but the man who threw it down didn’t follow. I’ll tell you why. How could he put that lead sheeting back and then lift that pedestal in place so nobody saw anything wrong?”
Mallon snorted. He tried to give the impression that this problem had occupied his brain, too. “What wise crack will do for that one?” he asked. Trent thought his manner impertinent. Nor was Mallon alone in thinking he had discovered a weakness in this reasoning. Roger Ellis, heart and soul for Trent and with his own grievances against the police for excess of zeal, was troubled. And he was strengthened in his discomfort by the look of dismay on Trent’s face.
“Well done, Edwards,” Anthony Trent said. “You have begun to observe things. Perhaps I was unduly thrilled with my discovery.”
Without protest he mounted the stairs. Mallon gave his arm to his chief, who frowned at Trent’s suggestion that he use Mr. Jessup’s elevator. “That’s another mystery you’ve no doubt cleared up while I was attacking it in my timid amateur fashion. I forgot you picked up the fake Jessup on Tremont Street, didn’t you, Mallon?”
Mallon disdained to answer. The fake collector of charities had air-tight alibis given by the police of Boston themselves.
When once they were in the library and Edwards had seated himself a moment, and was massaging his swelling ankle, Trent’s manner changed. He was again the professor lecturing his pupils.