George Chabber unlocked the barn door and ushered us into a dismal, cobwebby area filled with a lifetime’s treasures. I recognized an old buggy, half hidden behind rotting bales of hay, a china cabinet with a broken glass door, a sofa with the stuffing pulled apart by rats. “Here are the radiators,” George said, yanking away an old horse blanket to reveal them. “Don’t know why he kept them all these years.”
“This’ll make a great picture,” Meg decided. “Sam, if you could just get over here with your magnifying glass—”
“Do I have to?”
“You do! It’s your contribution to the war effort,” Annabel reminded me.
And so it was. The picture appeared on page one of the following Thursday’s paper, showing me in costume standing by the china cabinet and peering through my magnifying glass at the uncovered radiators. Meg Woolitzer’s scrap-metal campaign was launched. All that morning I had people calling me Unlock, starting with my nurse April. It didn’t last too long, though, because that was the day we found Aaron Cartwright murdered.
The call came in to my office just before ten. “Agitated male,” April said, covering the phone’s mouthpiece. “Says he needs the detective. Think he’s calling for Unlock Homes?”
I made a face and reached for the phone. “Dr. Hawthorne here. What can I do for you?”
“Doc, it’s George Chabber, out at the Cartwright place. I think something’s happened to my uncle. I think he’s badly injured or dead.”
“What happened?”
“He went to bed at his usual time, a little after ten, but he wasn’t up before six like he usually is. I waited till nine o’clock and then went into his room. His bed had been slept in, but he wasn’t there. I went down to the library and tried the door, but it was bolted from the inside. He did that occasionally when he didn’t want to be disturbed. I knocked on the door but he didn’t answer, so I went away. I started making breakfast, knowing the aroma of coffee usually attracted him. But this time it didn’t. Finally I looked in the keyhole and saw him on the floor, all bloody. I called the sheriff and thought I should call you, too.”
“I’ll be out as soon as I can,” I promised. I hung up and turned to April. “Something’s happened to old man Cartwright. George wants me out there.”
“You have an eleven o’clock with Mrs. Hennisey,” she reminded me.
“Try to shift her to tomorrow. If she needs someone today, maybe Lincoln Jones can see her.” Lincoln, Northmont’s first black doctor, had recently gone into private practice and we sometimes helped with each other’s patients.
“I’ll call her.”
I grabbed my black bag, aware that Aaron Cartwright might still be alive behind his library door, and hurried out to my Buick. It was a few years old now, suffering badly on our bumpy country roads, but I knew there was no chance of getting a new car until the war ended. At least my status as a physician earned me extra gasoline under the government’s rationing system.
It had been raining off and on all morning and my wipers were going. Sheriff Lens’s car pulled into the Cartwright driveway just ahead of mine and it took me a moment to notice that a familiar truck was already there. It was Snyder’s Gardenware Sales vehicle that I’d seen on my earlier visit, and I saw that Snyder himself was at the door speaking with George Chabber.
“You got a call, too?” Sheriff Lens asked me, trying to dodge the raindrops as he hurried toward the porch.
I nodded. “George phoned me. I brought my bag in case Cartwright’s still alive.”
“This way,” George said, motioning us to follow him inside. Snyder started to say something, but thought better of it, remaining on the porch.
“What did Snyder want?” I asked.
“To see Mr. Cartwright. I said he was indisposed.”
The library door was solid oak. It would have taken a truck to get through it. I dropped to my knees and peered through the keyhole. Cartwright’s body was visible, as George had said. It was on the floor near his desk, with a great deal of blood. “We have to get in there,” I said. “What about the windows?”
“All the ground-floor windows are barred. Cartwright’s father built it like that to protect his valuable antiques.”
“The volunteers have a battering ram at the firehouse,” Sheriff Lens said.
“There must be another way.” I turned to George. “What about the secret passage from his bedroom?”
“He kept it locked at all times, and only he had the combination.”
“Let’s go upstairs and have a look.”
George led the way to a closed door at the top of the stairs. “That’s my room across the hall. I sleep with the door open in case he needs something at night.”
He led us into the old man’s bedroom. The rumpled sheets gave evidence that he’d slept at least part of the night. There was a telephone next to the bed, and a small radio. However, I was more interested in the bookcase built into the wall opposite the foot of the bed. If I had my bearings right, it would hide the entrance to the secret passage. The bookcase pulled easily away from the wall on oiled hinges, but it revealed only a solid metal door with a combination lock.
“You don’t know the combination?” I asked George.
“No idea. He told me once that he was the only one who ever used the passage, so no one else needed to know it.”
The sheriff peered over my shoulder and gave a snort. “You won’t be getting in there without a combination. The man really wanted his privacy.”
“Let’s go back downstairs and put some muscle into that door,” I suggested.
It took the combined strength of Chabber, Sheriff Lens, and myself to splinter it after several tries. “It was bolted, all right,” the sheriff said, examining the mechanism dangling from the splintered wood. “Looks like you’ve got another locked room on your hands, Doc.”
I hurried to the body, but one look at his crushed skull told me Aaron Cartwright had died instantly. He was crumpled on the rug, fully dressed, and the weapon was not far away. The miniature birdbath lay there, caked with blood and hair. George Chabber’s face had gone white at the sight of it. “How could this have happened? I never heard a thing.”
“You’d better get that salesman in here from the front porch,” I told him.
“How long do you think he’s been dead, Doc?” the sheriff asked.
“A few hours, at least. This blood has dried.”
Then I saw something else on his desk. It was that morning’s copy of the Northmont Advertiser, unfolded to show my front-page picture as Unlock Homes.
I glanced around at the walls of the library, feeling that someone might be watching us. After the sheriff finished calling his office for help, I suggested he search the room for a possible hiding place. “The killer may still be here.”
He did as I said, with one hand resting on his service revolver. “No one’s hiding here,” he reported.
“Try pulling those other bookcases.” He did, but none of them moved. I sighed and said, “Then there’s only one place he could be hiding — in the secret passage.”
“How could that be, Doc?”
“It’s the only possibility. The killer had to be in this room to swing that clay birdbath at Cartwright’s head. This door was solidly bolted from the inside, and no one is hiding in the room.” I carefully swung open the bookcase, revealing the secret passage. “We know there’s a locked steel door at the top, without even a knob on this side. The killer has to be trapped on this stairway.” I snapped on the light, as Cartwright had done on my previous visit.
“Come out of there!” Sheriff Lens ordered, raising his revolver.
There was nothing but silence from above. We moved slowly up the wooden staircase, the single bulb above casting an eerie glow on our path. When we reached the top, it was as it had been before, a solid steel door without a knob, like the inside of a safe. I pushed on it but it didn’t budge. The passage was empty.