Odor of Violets, Baynard Kendrick [best short novels .txt] 📗

He followed Gil and Cheli down the passageway. Keys tinkled on a ring. “The state policeman padlocked the door again,” said Gil. “I have a key.”

“Do you mind if I open it?” The Captain extended a hand.

“Not at all.” Gil handed him the ring after locating the proper key.

The Captain took his left hand from Schnucke’s brace, steadied the padlock, and inserted the key. He removed the heavy padlock and briefly hefted it in his hand. Freeing the hasp from the staple, he pushed on the workshop door. It opened with a creak. Maclain pushed harder.

“Engineers never do anything,” said Gil. “For a year I’ve intended to oil that door.”

“And line it up, or plane it,” the Captain advised. “It scrapes along the floor.”

Caught in a draft, the storeroom door in the laundry banged noisily.

“There!” said Cheli.

“There was somebody in this basement when Mrs. Tredwill came down last night,” the Captain declared. “Somebody who locked that storeroom door.”

“It’s almost impossible, Captain,” said Gil.

“It’s impossible for a scraping heavy door to slam. This one in particular.” The Captain opened and shut the workshop door again. “It’s also impossible for storeroom doors to lock themselves, Mr. Tredwill. That much I know.

“Mrs. Tredwill heard that storeroom door slam, as she thought. Not this one, here. It blew shut, as it did just now—from a draft caused by someone opening this workshop door. Yet that storeroom door was locked when Mrs. Tredwill got downstairs. If no one was down here, who removed this?” The Captain held up the padlock with a questioning air.

“I thought that I might have forgotten to lock it,” Gil said without much conviction. “I don’t know of any other key.”

“Nor of anyone who might be interested in the work you’re doing here?”

“I know of nations who might be interested, Captain, but I can’t name any one person whom I know.” He turned to Cheli with a touch of defiance and asked, “Can you?”

For a second her eyes showed sympathy. “No, Gil. I certainly can’t.” She flushed and turned away.

Maclain located the drafting table and set the padlock down. Moving one hand in a circle, he found the cord of a hanging electric light and traced it down to the shade.

“This is on,” he remarked absently. “I suppose it’s controlled by that switch you clicked as you came through the door.”

“That’s right,” said Gil. “There’s a second light near the other end of the drafting table.”

Cheli said, “The wardrobe that fell on Norma is behind the forge at the far end of this room.”

“I’m interested in lights right now,” said Maclain. “Are these the only ones controlled by that switch?”

“Yes,” Gil answered. “The lights over the machines turn on individually.”

The Captain’s sedulous fingers were surveying the table top, touching drafting boards, T squares, and triangles; delicately locating bottles of India ink, drawing pens and erasers, and, with equal delicacy, passing on again.

“Tell me, Miss Scott.” The probing fingers were momentarily still, resting on the surface of a half-completed plan. “What lights were on in here when you found Mrs. Tredwill?”

“Just those two over the table.”

“Do they illuminate the entire room?”

“Enough to get around,” said Cheli. “Pierce turned on some others before we moved the wardrobe off of Norma.”

“But these two give sufficient light, don’t they,” Maclain continued, “to see anyone who might be hiding in this room?”

“There’s no place to hide,” said Gil. “At least not with that wardrobe down on the floor.”

“Ah!” The Captain reached down for Schnucke’s brace. “That’s what I wanted to know. Forward, Schnucke!” He followed her cautious course through the rows of machinery.

The wardrobe had been turned up on one side, but its spilled-out contents lay strewn about on the floor.

“Norma lay right here.” Cheli hesitated, then finally took the Captain’s hand. “Her head was here—her feet here. She was pinned down helplessly.”

The Captain gave a few quick pats to the floor, then straightened up without comment and ran his fingers along the length of the fallen wardrobe. Schnucke watched him with a disapproving eye.

“Norma must have been trapped in the corner,” Gil pondered aloud. “The forge was right behind her and when that wardrobe fell she couldn’t get out of its way.”

“If she wasn’t hunting for somebody in here—why did she go near it?” asked Maclain.

“I don’t see why she went near it anyhow.” Gil stared down at the mess of type and metal on the ground. “Most women would be scared stiff if they thought someone was hiding back of that thing.”

“Unless,” Maclain suggested quietly, “it was someone she wasn’t afraid of—someone she knew.”

“That’s it exactly, Captain,” said Cheli. “Norma told me she thought Bella, the housemaid, was down here raiding the storeroom. I hadn’t thought of it before.”

“Good,” Maclain exclaimed. “I’ll talk with the girl.” He turned quickly to Gil. “Mr. Tredwill, what valuable plans are you keeping down here now?”

“None.” Gil hesitated, then went on, “That is, none outside. The ones I have completed are in the safe—”

“They were there night before last,” said Gil. “But it won’t take a moment to look and see.”

He hurried off toward the drafting room. Cheli and the Captain followed more slowly. Maclain heard the turn of a combination and the clink of an opening safe door.

“They’re all here.” Gil spoke with relief. “If anything happened to these—”

“Quite,” said Captain Maclain. He held out his hands. “Before you return them, do you object to having them examined by me?”

“But there’s nothing you can—” Gil left his statement unfinished.

“No, Mr. Tredwill—nothing I can see.” The Captain snapped the rubber bands from the rolled-up sheets of Bristol board and spread them out on the drafting table in a pile.

He found a heavy paperweight and placed it on one side of the sheets to flatten the springy curl. The other side he held down with his left hand.

“Have you a piece of waste and some gasoline?” He extended his right hand, palm up. “I’m afraid my fingers aren’t very clean.”

“They’re not,” said Cheli.

“Right beside you, Cheli.” Gil