McAllister's dinner was a great success. The boys all said afterward that they had never seen Chubby in such good form. Only one incident marred the serenity of the occasion, and that was a mere trifle. Charlie Bush had been staying over Christmas with an ex-Chairman of the Prison Reform Association, and being in a communicative mood insisted on talking about it.
"Only fancy," he remarked, as he took a gulp of champagne, "he says the prisons of the city are in an abominable condition—that they're a disgrace to a civilized community."
Tomlinson paused in lifting his glass. He remembered his host's opinion, expressed two nights before and desired to show his appreciation of an excellent meal.
"That's all rot!" he interrupted a little thickly. "'S all politics. The Tombs is a lot better than most second-class hotels on the Continent. Our prisons are all right, I tell you!" His eyes swept the circle militantly.
"Look here, Tomlinson," remarked McAllister sternly, "don't be so sure. What do you know about it?"
The Mystery of Room Five
(Fred M White)
GERALD NETTLESHIP, private inquiry agent and general investigator, pending a promised appointment in connection with the Secret Service, and whilom a public schoolboy, regarded his pretty wife Ella with frank admiration. For she apparently had solved part of the problem that was worrying him sorely. If they could get hold of this five hundred pounds then the matter of the furnished flat they so greatly coveted would be solved, and they would have a house of their own instead of passing the approaching Christmas in lodgings. It had to be a cash transaction because the outgoing tenant—a friend of Nettleship’s—was an Australian returning to his ranch after the war, and wanted the money. And Ella Nettleship was explaining how the desired sum might be obtained, and because she too had earned her living, till Gerald married her, in a private detective office, he listened with all due respect. He had been away in Manchester on business for the last week, and this new development had come as a startling surprise to him.
“Directly I read the notice in the Times,” she said, “I went round and saw Sir Percival Kennelly at once. Very fortunately he was at home, and when I told him who you were and what we were both doing he was awfully nice—quite a dear, in fact? He at once agreed to give us a chance of getting to the bottom of the mystery, and offered a voluntary fifty pounds towards expenses. So, as you were away, I went down to The Grange at Overstrands and put in two days, investigating matters. And I believe, I really believe, Gerry dear, that I am on the track of the miscreants. As to the occult side of the mystery, we can rule that out at once.”
“Of course,” Nettleship laughed. “By Jove, 500 pounds reward! And nothing much in the way of expense. Good Heavens! I’d like to see you presiding over the turkey in our own flat at Christmas. Would you mind running over the details once more, Ellie?”
Ella proceeded to explain that the Grange at Overstrands was the property of Sir Percival Kennelly, a somewhat impoverished Baronet, who owned some considerable property on the East Coast, where he had sunk all he could raise in a golf course that had splendid possibilities, and that he was using the Grange as a dormy house in connection with the golf course, and he had obtained a license to sell all kinds of drinks. Until the course was perfect, and he could devote the beautiful old Grange for the use of golfers alone, he ran it as an ordinary public-house, with a bar where anybody could procure liquid refreshment. The house was in charge of a steward called Chiffner, an old retainer, who was quite beyond suspicion, and yet for some time past the most extraordinary things had been happening in the bedrooms of the old house after the golfing guests had retired for the night, so that the place was getting a bad name, and it looked as if much harm was being done to the links that a little time back appeared likely to become so popular. As this was a serious matter to Sir Percival, he had offered the reward of 500 pounds in the Times to any one who could solve the mystery. And before calling in the police he had offered Ella Nettleship a chance of earning the money wherewith to consummate the dream of spending the forthcoming Christmas in the flat upon which her heart was set.
So she had gone down to Overstrands ostensibly as a golfer, and had spent two nights in the Grange, where she had made her business known to the steward Chiffner, whom her detective instinct told her that she could implicitly trust. And there she ascertained that all the trouble arose in Room Five, and nowhere else. And in Room Five, sooner or later, Ella was going to pass the night. It was in this ancient apartment with its old portraits and pictures that the series of outrages had taken place. There were stories of ghosts and shadowy figures in the dead of night, and tales of visitors frightened out of their wits, to say nothing of various valuables missing, all of which was playing the very deuce with the golf club. And on no occasion had the locked door of Room Five been tampered with.
“What’s the next move?” Nettleship asked, when he had mastered the story. “Shall we go down there in Christmas week on the suggestion of playing golf, and put up at the Grange? And why not engage Room Number Five, and see what is likely to happen?”
“Do you know,” Ella murmured, “that is exactly what I thought of doing, but not quite in the way that you mean. We shan’t eat our turkey in the flat this Yuletide, after all, but we shall have the money to take the flat over before Sladen starts for Australia, which will come to the same thing. No, we’ll go down to the Grange on Christmas Eve, arriving very late—too late, in fact, to book a room at the hotel there, because they will have all gone. And I go on alone in a car, reaching the Grange about 11 o’clock. I tell Chiffner, who is more or less in my confidence, that I have had a breakdown, and he puts me in the haunted room for the night. In fact, that is all arranged with Chiffner.”
“And what about me?” Nettleship asked.
“Oh, yes, I am expecting to meet my husband there, but he had been detained, and will probably get down by another car some time before morning. Now, mind, I have been in practically every bedroom of the Grange, and have taken measurements, and in Room Five I found that it is, without apparent reason, some nine feet narrower than the others in the same wing. What do you make of that?”
“Sounds like a clue,” Nettleship muttered. “Is the place lighted by electricity, and does the haunted bedroom, where you are going to wait for me, boast an electric bell?”
Ella explained that there was no modern lighting, and that the bell was a pneumatic one with a long flex over the bed. So that if anything happened when she was supposed to be sleeping in the haunted room a ring at the bell would bring Nettleship hot-foot to her assistance. He would have to arrange to be hidden in the bar after the general company there had departed, all of which could be done with the connivance of the faithful Chiffner. With an arrangement like this Ella declared that she would be quite safe in Room Number Five if the ‘ghost’ in search of valuables made a raid on the mystery room in the night, as he was pretty sure to do when the apartment was occupied. So it was eventually arranged that Nettleship should go down to Overstrands under the pretence of golf and spy out the land.
And this he did, and as it was midweek found little difficulty in obtaining a room in the Grange itself. There he made friends with Chiffner, who, of course, was already in Ella’s confidence. He played a little golf, but contented himself with asking a good many questions about people in the neighbourhood, especially such locals as made use of the public bar, which the owner of the Grange still retained until he had all his arrangements made.
Nettleship was looking over his ‘Evening News’ on the following afternoon, when he read something that brought him up all standing. “Have a look at this,” he cried. “More trouble at the Grange last night. But read it for yourself.”
Ella snatched