"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 243 - Room of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

his. Belong to the same club and all that. You can help us, Cranston."
"Help you? How?"
"By giving the commissioner sensible advice," put in Sigby. "On business
matters, Cranston. There are things we don't want talked about, because they
were not our fault. We hope that you can convince the commissioner that we are
right."


VERY shortly, Commissioner Weston arrived, accompanied by his ace
inspector, Joe Cardona. They were interested, first, in learning the manner of
Aldriff's death; they said discussion of the motive could follow later.
The death room had become a mass of wreckage, with Aldriff's body in its
midst, so Inspector Cardona proceeded to reconstruct the scene as it had been
when the body was found.
The job was not difficult. Half a dozen witnesses supplied their
testimony,
and the statements coincided. Nevlin became the final spokesman, while the
others listened, and agreed. It was plain that the door could not have been a
murderer's exit; nor the windows. Spot by spot, Nevlin pointed out the places
where the witnesses had looked.
Examining the fireplace, Cardona decided that it was an impossible
outlet.
He studied the chess nook at the end of the room and saw that it could be no
hiding place. There was only one chair in the nook, but Cardona found the mate
to it among the things which had been thrown.
He set the two chairs up in the position described by Nevlin and the
others. Two flimsy chairs, with open backs, could not have served for
concealment.
The bookcases were impossible to hide behind, and it was evident that the
only other place could have been behind the screen in the near corner. Setting
up the screen in front of the filing cabinet, Cardona had Nevlin and the
others
re-enact their effort to trap an imaginary killer.
When it was done, Cardona took the folded screen and measured its
thickness
in folded condition. It came to just three inches, and witnesses remembered
that
the screen had been picked up when folded.
After tapping the walls thoroughly, Cardona took up the rugs and found
that
the floor was strictly solid. He merely echoed the unanimous opinion of those
who had searched the den, when he disposed of the sealed room mystery with the
single word:
"Suicide."
Before the investigation could swing to Aldriff's reason for taking his
own
life, Inspector Cardona received an important phone call. The chase for a
mysterious masked man had failed, even though the man in question was said to
be
Smead Kelburn.