Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood Read Online Free PDF

it was just me, she thought,
I swear I wouldn't say a word to anybody—and if the Bat flew in he
mightn't find it so easy to fly out again, if I am sixty-five and never
shot a burglar in my life! But there's Dale—and Lizzie. I've got to
be fair to them.
    For a moment she felt very helpless, very much alone. Then her courage
returned.
    "Pshaw, Cornelia, if you have got to get help—get the help you want
and hang the consequences!" she adjured herself. "You've always
hankered to see a first-class detective do his detecting—well, get
one—or decide to do the job yourself. I'll bet you could at that."
    She tiptoed to the main door of the living-room and closed it
cautiously, smiling as she did so. Lizzie might be about and Lizzie
would promptly go into hysterics if she got an inkling of her
mistress's present intentions. Then she went to the city telephone and
asked for long distance.
    When she had finished her telephoning, she looked at once relieved and
a little naughty—like a demure child who has carried out some piece of
innocent mischief unobserved. "My stars!" she muttered to herself.
"You never can tell what you can do till you try." Then she sat down
again and tried to think of other measures of defense.
    Now if I were the Bat, or any criminal, she mused, how would I get into
this house? Well, that's it—I might get in 'most any way—it's so big
and rambling. All the grounds you want to lurk in, too; it'd take a
company of police to shut them off. Then there's the house itself.
Let's see—third floor—trunk room, servants' rooms—couldn't get in
there very well except with a pretty long ladder—that's all right.
Second floor—well, I suppose a man could get into my bedroom from the
porch if he were an acrobat, but he'd need to be a very good acrobat
and there's no use borrowing trouble. Downstairs is the problem,
Cornelia, downstairs is the problem.
    "Take this room now." She rose and examined it carefully. "There's
the door over there on the right that leads into the billiard room.
There's this door over here that leads into the hall. Then there's
that other door by the alcove, and all those French windows—whew!" She
shook her head.
    It was true. The room in which she stood, while comfortable and
charming, seemed unusually accessible to the night prowler. A row of
French windows at the rear gave upon a little terrace; below the
terrace, the drive curved about and beneath the billiard-room windows
in a hairpin loop, drawing up again at the main entrance on the other
side of the house. At the left of the French windows (if one faced the
terrace as Miss Cornelia was doing) was the alcove door of which she
spoke. When open, it disclosed a little alcove, almost entirely
devoted to the foot of a flight of stairs that gave direct access to
the upper regions of the house. The alcove itself opened on one side
upon the terrace and upon the other into a large butler's pantry. The
arrangement was obviously designed so that, if necessary, one could
pass directly from the terrace to the downstairs service quarters or
the second floor of the house without going through the living-room,
and so that trays could be carried up from the pantry by the side
stairs without using the main staircase.
    The middle pair of French windows were open, forming a double door.
Miss Cornelia went over to them—shut them—tried the locks. Humph!
Flimsy enough! she thought. Then she turned toward the billiard room.
    The billiard room, as has been said, was the last room to the right in
the main wing of the house. A single door led to it from the
living-room. Miss Cornelia passed through this door, glanced about the
billiard room, noting that most of its windows were too high from the
ground to greatly encourage a marauder. She locked the only one that
seemed to her particularly tempting—the billiard-room window on the
terrace side of the house. Then she returned to the living-room and
again considered her defenses.
    Three points of