Wyck, the murderer himself carefully fastened all the doors and windows, and left the room by a secret exit. This is the explanation of the sealed room, and I will now show you where the secret passage is. I did not know myself until during the last hour. I came in here positive that there was some such way of egress, and after a careful search I found it. As you see, the study is joined to the main house only by one corner, which laps the corner of the house for a space of about ten feet. This ten feet on the ground floor gives space for the connecting doorway which is usually used. The study is the height of two full stories of the house, but the study has only one story, and therefore an unusually high ceiling. The deep cornice has an immense cartouche ornamenting each corner. It seemed to me that behind this cartouche in the corner that touches the house was the only possibility of a secret exit from this room.”
All eyes turned at once to the great shield-shaped affair of which he spoke. It was quite large enough to conceal a secret door, but at a height of twenty-five feet or more from the floor, it was entirely inaccessible.
“It seems inaccessible,” said Stone, following our thoughts, “and there is no ladder or possibility of one anywhere about. But I was so sure that my theory was the true one that I examined the floor in that corner and found several tiny flakes of plaster that had fallen. Then I was certain that the secret exit had been used recently. I went in the house, and upstairs to the room in which the secret passage —if there was one—must necessarily open. I found in the back part of a deep cupboard a panel, and by dint of search I found a spring which caused the panel to open. I then discovered that I was directly back of the great cartouche. In a word, the passage is an exit from this room. I will now show you the means of using it.”
We watched with breathless attention while Fleming Stone mounted the spiral staircase and walked the length of the little gallery. At the end he stood with his hand on the end rail, quite four feet from the cartouche.
“Note the beautiful simplicity of it,” he said. Merely loosening a bolt on the under side of the end railing caused the whole end of the balcony to fall outward. As it did so, the great end bracket beneath swung the other way, acting as a counterweight, and what had been the end railing of the gallery was now a horizontal bridge straight across to the cartouche. Moreover, mechanism in the wall had at the same time raised the outer shell of the cartouche, which was hinged at the top, and disclosed a small doorway.
“That is all,” said Mr. Stone, speaking to us from the gallery. “As I said, it is beautifully simple. Once unbolted, a person’s weight serves to throw down the railing as a bridge, and open the cartouche. Now you will see that, as I step off and through this doorway, the removal of my weight causes the railing to swing back to place, and the cartouche to close.”
Stepping off the railing upon a ledge and through the door, Stone disappeared, and the mechanism worked exactly as he had said. A moment later he reappeared.
“You see,” he resumed, “that is the way David Van Wyck’s murderer left this room, after securely locking it with the intent to involve the affair in deepest mystery. You all know, I suppose, who occupies the room into which the secret passage opens on the second floor of the house.”
“I know,” said Anne. “It is Condron Archer.”
“And Mr. Archer has gone away,” said Fleming Stone significantly. “I have sent Mr. Markham after him, but, as I understand it, I was employed here to solve a mystery, and not to arrest a criminal. In fact, I have not proved that Mr. Archer is the criminal. But I think no one doubts it.”
It was at this point that Beth Fordyce returned to us. “Oh, Anne,” she said, “Mr. Archer said that he had to go away very suddenly. He had had a telegram, or something, and he asked me to tell you good-by for him, and to give you this letter.”
“It is his confession,” said Anne, in a low voice, as she took the letter from Beth. “I felt sure of it all the time. Raymond, will you read it aloud?”
I was touched at the confidence she showed in me, and, taking the letter, I opened it. It bore no address, and began abruptly thus:
“This is not a confession, but an explanation of why I killed David Van Wyck. I know now that Fleming Stone’s penetration will discover the secret passage, which Mr. Van Wyck himself explained to me a few days before his death. And so I am going away—not fleeing from justice, but because I do not look upon myself as a criminal. I killed Mr. Van Wyck, not in self-defense, but in defense of one far dearer to me than myself. Last Friday night, after having gone to my room at eleven o’clock, I came downstairs again about midnight, with no intent other than a stroll on the terrace. I had been there but a few moments when Mr. Van Wyck joined me. I do not wish to repeat his conversation, but I realized what a vicious, cruel, and even diabolical husband he was to the woman I adored. I speak frankly of this adoration, for it is no secret. David Van Wyck talked of his wife in a way that made my blood boil, and I was about to tell him so when, his attention attracted by a sound in the study, he beckoned to me, and we looked in at the window. Mrs. Van Wyck was taking the pearls from the safe. As we watched, she carried them from the room, closing the door behind her. David Van Wyck drew me into the study with him, and exclaimed in fiendish glee, ‘Now I have her where I want her! I shall denounce her as a thief, and see if she will then be so high and mighty toward me!’ I begged him not to do this, whereupon he accused me of being in love with his wife, and made other wicked assertions that I could not stand. He repeated his intention to give away all his money, to get back the pearls, and to denounce Anne as a thief; and he became, I really think, momentarily insane in his rage. Possibly I too lost my mind, but I snatched up the bill-file, tore off the papers, and stabbed him in a moment of white-hot anger. I carefully locked up the study, hoping the deed might thus be an insoluble mystery. I left the room by the secret exit, which leads directly to the cupboard in the bathroom adjoining my bedroom. It was through this panel I had disappeared the night Sturgis looked for me. I went back to the study to see if I had left behind me any incriminating evidence. I found none, but after Mr. Stone deduced Mrs. Van Wyck’s presence in the study, by scraps of tissue paper, I have no doubt he will in some way trace mine.
“As to my act,—I will not call it a crime,—I do not regret it. I have saved Mrs. Van Wyck from the cruelties of a monster, and I am glad of it. But I refuse to pay the penalty for this, and so I shall disappear forever from the country. I could not do this if I thought I could ever win my heart’s desire. But I know, Anne, that in the after years you will find joy and peace with a man who is worthy of your regard, though it pierces my heart to admit it. But even if through crime, Anne, I have saved you from the further despotism and insults of a brute; and the knowledge of that is my reward.
“Condron Archer”
I finished reading, and there was a death-like silence. I think not one in the room wished to prosecute Archer; I think each heart was praying that Markham might not find him.
“I told Mr. Markham to detain Mr. Archer if he found him,” said Fleming Stone slowly. “I fear that I regret doing so.”
“He won’t find him,” said Anne, and as if in proof of her words, Mr. Markham came in.
“Mr. Archer has disappeared,” he said. “I thought he might go by train, and I waited at the station, but he didn’t. Do you want him very much?”
“No,” said Anne. “We don’t want him at all. Don’t look for him any more, Mr. Markham.” And then, as the tears flooded her eyes, she turned to me, and, putting her trembling hand through my arm, she let me lead her out into the sunlight.
There was no more mystery. The secret of the cartouche explained all.
The two Carstairs were dismissed from the Van Wyck service without punishment. For Anne never knew of the villainous note that had been written to bring trouble to her.
We never saw Archer again; and between Anne and myself his name has never been spoken.
Buttonwood Terrace was sold, and the family separated. Morland went to the city to live, and Barbara went for a trip abroad, with Mrs. Stelton. But they may wander where they will,—it matters not to me; for after a time, Anne is going to crown my