第39章

The lock snapped back easily and he pulled the door back.He found the inner door bolted top and bottom.The bolts slipped back in their well-oiled sockets without any effort.Evidently Kara used this place pretty frequently, thought T.X.

He pushed the door open and stopped with an exclamation of surprise.The cellar apartment was brilliantly lit - but it was unoccupied.

"This beats the band," said T.X.

He saw something on the table and lifted it up.It was a pair of long-bladed scissors and about the handle was wound a handkerchief.It was not this fact which startled him, but that the scissors' blades were dappled with blood and blood, too, was on the handkerchief.He unwound the flimsy piece of cambric and stared at the monogram "B.M.B."He looked around.Nobody had seen the weapon and he dropped it in his overcoat pocket, and walked from the cellar to the kitchen where Mrs.Beale and Mansus awaited him.

"There is a lower cellar, is there not!" he asked in a strained voice.

"That was bricked up when Mr.Kara took the house," explained the woman.

"There is nothing more to look for here," he said.

He walked slowly up the stairs to the library, his mind in a whirl.That he, an accredited officer of police, sworn to the business of criminal detection, should attempt to screen one who was conceivably a criminal was inexplicable.But if the girl had committed this crime, how had she reached Kara's room and why had she returned to the locked cellar!

He sent for Mrs.Beale to interrogate her.She had heard nothing and she had been in the kitchen all the evening.One fact she did reveal, however, that Fisher had gone from the kitchen and had been absent a quarter of an hour and had returned a little agitated.

"Stay here," said T.X., and went down again to the cellar to make a further search.

"Probably there is some way out of this subterranean jail," he thought and a diligent search of the room soon revealed it.

He found the iron trap, pulled it open, and slipped down the stairs.He, too, was puzzled by the luxurious character of the vault.He passed from room to room and finally came to the inner chamber where a light was burning.

The light, as he discovered, proceeded from a small reading lamp which stood by the side of a small brass bedstead.The bed had recently been slept in, but there was no sign of any occupant.T.

X.conducted a very careful search and had no difficulty in finding the bricked up door.Other exits there were none.

The floor was of wood block laid on concrete, the ventilation was excellent and in one of the recesses which had evidently held at so time or other, a large wine bin, there was a prefect electrical cooking plant.In a small larder were a number of baskets, bearing the name of a well-known caterer, one of them containing an excellent assortment of cold and potted meats, preserves, etc.

T.X.went back to the bedroom and took the little lamp from the table by the side of the bed and began a more careful examination.

Presently he found traces of blood, and followed an irregular trail to the outer room.He 1ost it suddenly at the foot of stairs leading down from the upper cellar.Then he struck it again.He had reached the end of his electric cord and was now depending upon an electric torch he hid taken from his pocket.

There were indications of something heavy having been dragged across the room and he saw that it led to a small bathroom.He had made a cursory examination of this well-appointed apartment, and now he proceeded to make a close investigation and was well rewarded.

The bathroom was the only apartment which possess anything resembling a door - a two-fold screen and - as he pressed this back, he felt some thing which prevented its wider extension.He slipped into the room and flashed his lamp in the space behind the screen.There stiff in death with glazed eyes and lolling tongue lay a great gaunt dog, his yellow fangs exposed in a last grimace.

About the neck was a collar and attached to that, a few links of broken chain.T.X.mounted the steps thoughtfully and passed out to the kitchen.

Did Belinda Mary stab Kara or kill the dog? That she killed one hound or the other was certain.That she killed both was possible.