Chapter XIV: The Locked Room

The doctor opened the door of his study, and again she hesitated. There was no reason in the world why she should fear him any more at that moment than she had in the past; but somehow the very atmosphere of this house was fearful.

“You will not return to the shop, Elizabeth,” were his first words, “and I do not doubt that you will be very pleased to know this.”

He motioned her to a chair, and with a lifetime’s habit of obedience, she sat down.

“You will remember that a year ago, as a result of the desire expressed by you for the privacy which, in this age of prurience and hypocrisy, every woman regards as her due, I went to the great expense of creating what was virtually a house within a house, a dwelling-place in but not of my own home.”

In such magniloquent language did the doctor describe the very simple process of fixing a door to the top landing of the house, which gave her the floor to herself. The cost had been infinitesimal, and Laffin had disputed every item of the carpenters’ bill. The “dwelling-place” she had thus acquired, had been a bedroom, a bathroom, which had been intended for the servants, two other rooms, one of which was empty, and one containing sufficient furniture to emphasise its bareness.

“Your suite is as you left it. I have been at some pains to collect for you the linen necessary to your comfort; there is a gas fire and a gas ring, at which you may cook----”

“I don’t understand you, Doctor. You know that I am not returning to the house,” she interrupted. “I am very comfortable in my own little apartments. I thought we had settled that matter definitely?”

As usual, Laffin made no direct response.

“Before you reject an offer conceived in the very spirit of charity, before you strike at the hand which has fed you and clothed you, which has rescued you from the ignominy of a pauper school and the humiliation of domestic service, child of infamous parentage, be so good as to inspect my work of devotion and kindness, and tell me if I have fallen short in my duty to one in whose veins runs the foul blood of a besotted murderer.”

“Oblige me by leading the way,” he said, with over-elaborate courtesy, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, she went before him up the stairs, determined that nothing he could say would induce her to remain a minute longer in that house than was absolutely necessary.

Her “suite,” as he was pleased to call it, was on the third floor. The door at the top of the landing was locked, and, in addition, she saw a staple and bolt which seemed to have been newly fixed.

“Do you padlock this door?” she asked.

“If you do not return, it shall be padlocked and never opened again.”

“I hope you will also throw away the key,” she said coolly, “for these are the most dismal rooms in the house.”

There was little change in her apartment; the bed had been made up, a fire was laid in the grate, and two or three books were on the table, but----

“When did you have these bars put up?” She pointed to four steel rods that barred the window.

“Quite recently,” he said.

Bedroom and bathroom were at the back of the house, overlooking a parallelogram of disorderly gardens. She walked out of the room, intending to go into what had been planned as her sitting-room, but the door was locked.

“It is not my intention that you should use the rooms at the front of the house,” said Dr. Laffin.

“It is not my intention to use any,” she answered.

To this he gave no reply, and she was so inured to his bad manners that she did not realise that he had passed through the landing-door until she heard it slam, and the snap of the lock as it turned.

“Let me out!” Her fists were hammering on the panel.

“You will stay until I am ready for you, my little friend.”

His voice was muffled, and only now she realised the thickness of the door. He was fitting a padlock on the new bolt; she heard the grating of iron against iron, and then two bolts were shot.

The first wave of her anger passed, leaving her deadly cool. The little warning which her unconscious self had whispered, was something more than an unreasonable fear; there was another and a more sinister explanation for Joshua Laffin’s conduct.

The door was impossible. She went into the bedroom, opened the window and tried to look out. The steel rods were an effective barrier to escape, even were it possible to scale the sheer wall that dropped fifty feet to a stone-flagged courtyard.

And then a wild hope surged in her heart, and she sprang up from the bed on which she was sitting, and ran to the landing door. She had heard a familiar voice below. It was Clive Lowbridge!

“Clive, Clive!” she called, and hammered with all her might on the door. “Clive, help me!”

She listened; there came the thud of a door, and a dead silence reigned.

To give way to hysterical fear now would be madness, she thought, and strove to calm herself. It was not long before she had her reminder that she had not eaten since her frugal luncheon, and she went into the little kitchenette, where she had so often cooked surreptitious meals in the old days, when her sole source of heat supply was one gas burner. At the sight of the provisions on the table she grew thoughtful. Dr. Laffin had made such preparations that she could not doubt he expected her imprisonment to be a long one.

She finished her dinner, washed the plates and strolled back to her room to sit down and think…

As the church bells clanged the tenth hour, Mr. William Holbrook threw away the last of his cigarette supply and groaned. She had said in his hearing that she would only stay a few minutes. Five hours had passed, and the girl had not come out.

What should he do? Following the departure of the doctor, he had knocked at the door, but his knock had gone unheeded. If Dr. Laffin kept servants, they were beyond the sound of the summons.

Again he looked up at the window, and then:

“Pretty easy house that--to a professional, I mean,” said a voice in his ear, and he jerked round, startled.

Toby Marsh was at his elbow--even without his thick rubber-soled shoes, Toby had the habit of noiseless walking.