“Or outside, either. But inside, I suppose has been trampled by a score of people!”
“You can’t get footprints on a thick rug,” the discomfited Morton grumbled.
“Sometimes you can. And a polished floor will often show marks. What have you done, anyway?”
“There was enough to do, Mr. Cray,” Morton flared back at him. “I have been busy every minute since I began, except for a few hours sleep.”
“Over twenty-four hours since the alarm was given. You’ve put in at least twelve, then. What have you done?”
“A lot. I’ve found out, to my own satisfaction, that—if it is a murder—Gordon Lockwood knows all about it.”
“Either of the deed, or of guilty knowledge.”
“Money. That young man is over head and ears in debt.”
“To shops—jewelers, florists, restaurants. All the debts a gay young blade would incur.”
“You amaze me, Morton. Lockwood isn’t that sort.”
“Isn’t he? You’re deceived, like every one else, by that icy calm of his. He stares haughtily, and appears above and beyond ordinary mortals, but he’s deep. That’s what he is, deep.”
“With his penholder. A smooth, sharp silver penholder. And he took the money and the ruby.”
“Don’t ask me that! That’s his secret. But, I’ve a notion he was in cahoots with that new Jap, the one that vamoosed. I theorize,” Morton waxed important as he noted the Prosecutor’s attention, “that the Jap had some grudge against Waring, and it was he who branded his forehead, and who contrived a way to leave the room locked behind him. Why, I read a story the other day, where a key was turned from the other side of a door by means of a slender steel bar through the key handle, and a string from the bar, leading down and under the door. Once outside, the murderer pulled the string, the bar turned the key in the lock, the bar fell to the floor and he dragged it under the door by means of the string.”
“Ingenious! but it implies a door raised from the floor.”
“I know. And this one isn’t. But it all goes to prove that there can be some way—some diabolically clever way to do the trick. And the Japanese are diabolically clever. And so is Lockwood. And if the two worked together they could accomplish wonders. Then Lockwood with his wooden face, could disarm suspicion. The Jap, let us say, couldn’t, so Lockwood packed him off.”