The Safety Pin | Page 7

sort of wicket door in the big one. It's just kept on the latch. Anybody inside the hotel can let himself out by that door. But--he couldn't get in again without ringing for me."
Mellapont turned to Shelmore with a convinced nod.
"Mr. Deane let himself out by that door!" he said. "Good! Now--when? Kight!"
"Sir!"
"On Monday night, between eleven o'clock, and up to Tuesday morning at eight o'clock, were you ever away from your little room in this courtyard. Gone away in any other part of the house?"
"I was, sir--twice. I keep a supply of liquors in my room, sir, for night consumption. I took a whisky and soda up to number fifteen, second floor, at a quarter to twelve--gentleman had come in by a very late train. He kept me talking a few minutes."
"And the other occasion?"
"I took a cup of coffee and some biscuits to number five at six o'clock in the morning, sir. That was a motoring gentleman, who wanted to be off early."
"And on both these occasions you'd be away upstairs for a few minutes, eh?"
"Only a few, sir."
"Still, it would be possible for anybody to come downstairs, unobserved, during those few minutes, and let himself out by that wicket door into Sepulchre Alley?"
"Possible, sir," agreed Kight, with a grin, "but--not very probable. It would mean, anyway, that whoever did it knew the house, and the wicket door and Sepulchre Alley. And I understood that this gentleman was a total stranger."
Mellapont rose from his chair.
"All the same," he said, turning to Belling. "I'm convinced that Mr. Deane, after retiring on Monday night, immediately got up again, dressed, came down, and let himself out while Kight was in number fifteen! The questions now are--where did lie go, and where is he? That's my job! I'm going to start on it straight off. Mr. Shelmore, you come with me to my office. Miss Pretty, let me advise you to settle down and get some dinner, and to be no more alarmed or anxious than's natural--I'll do my best. Now, Mr. Shelmore."
Shelmore only lingered a moment to tell Miss Pretty that he would send his aunt. Miss Chauncey, to call on her that evening, and then followed Mellapont out of the hotel. The Superintendent tapped his shoulder.
"Mr. Shelmore!" he whispered. "Don't you be surprised if this turns out to be a bad case! Robbery, and maybe murder?--aye, murder! And I'm handicapped. As you know, owing to that big coal strike in South Wales, all our regular police have been dragged off there to help, and I've nothing but special constables at my disposal--civilians. However, I must do what I can, and the first thing is to comb out the city for this unfortunate gentleman. Mr. Shelmore!--I smell murder!"
With this dark prediction on his lips, he led Shelmore into the police station beneath the ancient City Hall, and through a vaulted ante room, where, all alone, a tall, athletic, smart-looking young man was just fastening on his sleeve the striped badge of a special constable.
CHAPTER III
- THE SAND PIT
Mellapont strode quickly across the room and gave its solitary occupant a hearty smack on the badged arm.
"The very man I most wanted to see at this moment," he exclaimed. "Come into my office!--come, both of you. You know Mr. Hackdale, Mr. Shelmore?--Mr. Hackdale's the most reliable of my specials--just the man for this job."
Shelmore knew John Hackdale well enough. He knew him as being under-manager at Champernowne's Drapery Store, the big establishment owned by the clever woman who at that time was Mayor of Southernstowe: he knew him also as the elder brother of his own clerk, Simmons Hackdale. But he knew more of him--as did most natives of the city. He knew that John Hackdale and his brother Simmons had been left orphans when one was seventeen and the other ten, unprovided for and practically friendless, and that the elder, by his own unaided efforts, had kept the two of them, clothing, feeding, and educating the younger until Simmons was old enough to do something for himself. He knew, too, that John Hackdale, now a young man of twenty-six, had the reputation of being a pushing and an ambitious fellow, and that he was looked upon at Champernowne's as the mainspring of the business, and as being its real controller, in spite of the fact that there was above him a nominal manager.
"Of course I know Mr. Hackdale," he answered, as they passed into the superintendent's office. "It would be odd if anybody didn't know everybody in a place as small as Southernstowe, superintendent."
"Ah, well, you see, I'm not a native!" said Mellapont, with a shy laugh. "My two years here haven't made me familiar with the smallness of the place, even yet. But now let's tell Mr. Hackdale chat's occurred--he's the