IV
Young Mr. Oakes was not enjoying himself. For the first time in his
life, the self-confidence which characterized all his actions seemed to
be failing him. The change had taken place almost overnight. The fact
that the case had the appearance of presenting the unusual had merely
stimulated him at first. But then doubts had crept in and the problem
had begun to appear insoluble.
True, he had only just taken it up, but something told him that, for
all the progress he was likely to make, he might just as well have been
working on it steadily for a month. He was completely baffled. And
every moment which he spent in the Excelsior Boarding-House made it
clearer to him that that infernal old woman with the pale eyes thought
him an incompetent fool. It was that, more than anything, which made
him acutely conscious of his lack of success. His nerves were being
sorely troubled by the quiet scorn of Mrs. Pickett's gaze. He began to
think that perhaps he had been a shade too self-confident and abrupt in
the short interview which he had had with her on his arrival.
As might have been expected, his first act, after his brief interview
with Mrs. Pickett, was to examine the room where the tragedy had taken
place. The body was gone, but otherwise nothing had been moved.
Oakes belonged to the magnifying-glass school of detection. The first
thing he did on entering the room was to make a careful examination of
the floor, the walls, the furniture, and the windowsill. He would have
hotly denied the assertion that he did this because it looked well, but
he would have been hard put to it to advance any other reason.
If he discovered anything, his discoveries were entirely negative, and
served only to deepen the mystery of the case. As Mr. Snyder had said,
there was no chimney, and nobody could have entered through the locked
door.
There remained the window. It was small, and apprehensiveness, perhaps,
of the possibility of burglars, had caused the proprietress to make it
doubly secure with an iron bar. No human being could have squeezed his
way through it.
It was late that night that he wrote and dispatched to headquarters the
report which had amused Mr. Snyder.
