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.
V
Two days later Mr. Snyder sat at his desk, staring with wide, unbelieving
eyes at a telegram he had just received. It read as follows:
HAVE SOLVED GUNNER MYSTERY. RETURNING.... OAKES.
Mr. Snyder narrowed his eyes and rang the bell.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30