Again I was down on my hands and knees, examining the hole. Round--as perfectly round as if it had been drilled with a brace and bit--but not recent. It might at one time have given passage to a gas-pipe, a wire, a cord; it might have been a knot-hole. I peered down it. Nothing but blackness. I explored it again with my finger, and learned nothing new. Just an old hole, now scraped and jagged a little by the screwdriver.
Suddenly I rose, left the studio, and strode through the annexe. Rooke might have had his scruples about prying into the nooks and corners of another man's house, but I assure you I now had none. I was bound for the cellar. If others could go down there so could I. Rooke had said that Philip had left the key in the door. "Right you are, Philip," I muttered to myself. "If Rooke won't I will. Glenfield says you're pulling out, but so am not I. I'm for Hubbard and the optophone theory now. I've an hour or two to spare, and your cellar's going to be examined as it hasn't been yet. Here goes."
But I had all the moral guilt of my intention to abuse his roof-tree with none of the advantages. The door that led to the cellar was once more locked and the key had gone.
Slowly I went back to the studio and the frayed tapestry chair. I wanted to think quietly and at length. Now I pride myself on being rather a methodical sort of thinker when I really give my mind to a thing, and I was resolved to get to the bottom of this if I could. That almost insultingly grotesque discovery of the ring had put me on my mettle. One thing seemed clear, if anything in the whole business was clear: for whatever reason, Mrs. Cunningham had not shared Monty's delicacy about peering and pottering. Of this there seemed to be several indications. Again and again she had insisted that there was something uncanny about the place; she had had an access of hysteria and had had to be brought up from the cellar; and rather than live there she had broken off her engagement. But she had not done this last immediately. Days, if not a week or two--I did not know how long--had elapsed. I was now convinced that during that interval she had made some kind of a discovery. The ring was evidence enough of that. And she had had an advantage in her investigations that I had not: she had had access to the cellar. Then, her discovery made, apparently she had cleared out.