Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/84

74 "I'm going in, boys," Garth said. "Inspector told me everything had been left."

One of the detectives handed him a key.

"Room's locked. This lets in from the corridor. Key to her bedroom door's in the lock."

Garth entered the hall. Randall's hat lay as the inspector had described it. Its gilt initials stared up at Garth with an odd air of appeal. He saw Treving's coat and hat—another tragic excitation for the doctor if he had chanced to notice them—on a chair by the table. A key, which Garth found fitted the front door, lay at the table's edge. Garth replaced it there and continued up the stairs.

Mrs. Randall's cries were quieter. Garth, inured as he was to unbridled suffering, was grateful. He unlocked the door of the dressing-room and paused just across the sill while he made a quick survey of the scene of the murder. There was plenty of light and air here, for the curtains were thrown back and the window was open. Since the doctor had unquestionably left by the front door he could not understand why the window had been opened on such a chilly night. He mused. Before bothering with Randall's course from the verandah it would be useful to examine the source of everything.

The table cover was awry. One or two books lay on the floor beneath. Half a dozen long-stemmed roses, faded as they were, still splashed color across the carpet of a neutral tint. As his eyes took them in Garth smiled, shame-facedly reminiscent.

He started. The formless, agonized cry of a