Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

“I think there is too much smoking in this room, gentlemen,” said the lieutenant suddenly, picking up a small dish from the desk top. “Just place your cigars and cigarettes in this, if you please.”

Without demur the surprised gentlemen dropped their cigars and cigarettes in the receptacle, handed them by the lieutenant. And before them all Williams picked up in his slender wiry fingers the cigarette Eddie Harmer had just rolled and lighted. Unrolling it he shook the tobacco from it and held it close to his eyes for a tense moment.

Lifting his head he shot Harmer a glance which would have made any other man cringe under the circumstances, but which slid off young Harmer like water from a duck’s back, leaving him indifferently amused and rather brazen.

“Harmer, there is upon the inside of this cigarette paper the combination to the lock of this door,” he said sharply. “Explain that, if you please.”

“Easy,” shrugged Harmer. “The moment the professor died, while you were examining him Caresse whispered it to me. She said she felt sure she would not have another chance. I wrote it down on one of my cigarette papers because I saw the fix we were in and I figured on a search and all sorts of stunts before we got out of here. My memory is about an inch long and I felt sure during all the stuff we were in for, I’d get that darn combination mixed up.”

An ominous silence settled upon the room. In the lieutenant’s ears the professor’s voice seemed to be speaking. Had Caresse, after all, branded the man she loved, the guilty man?

“And why did Mrs. Wheatland give you the combination of the door?” asked Williams quietly.

“She thinks there is a cache of diamonds in this room and she wanted me to try to find it,” said Harmer frankly. “She was afraid she would not get a chance to tell me again nor a chance to look herself after this. I know she has stolen in here whenever she could to examine the place.”

“You apparently miss the fact that in giving you this combination, it might look as though Mrs. Wheatland thought you the guilty man and was trying to assist you to get out of the room,” said Williams dryly.

“Nonsense!” snapped Clinton, his face very red. “Caresse whispered that door combination to me the moment we entered this room, before Arch started his demonstration!”

“I was a bit ahead of you both,” put in Farren grimly. “As we came along the hall Caresse told it to me and said she felt sure there were diamonds hidden here. She wanted me to look for them, not only to give them to her but to stop her husband from getting himself caught up by the law and openly disgracing them both.”

“Just as the professor put that crucible in the fire Caresse told me the combination of the lock,” said Frisby then, with a little chuckle. “She said she’d explain later. Since I have a mind like a card index, got to have in my game, I didn’t have to do anything as elaborate as Harmer and write it on a cigarette paper.”

Across the smoke-filled little apartment Lieutenant Williams met the brilliant eyes of Caresse. Leaning against the wall with folded arms and the jeweled cigarette holder dangling in one hand, she looked back at him with mockery that was like a glove flung in his face. If she knew the man, she had done a clever thing to protect him and yet give him information. It had been just possible that Williams would not have found that out. And one of them might have had the luck or the brains to discover that hiding place of the gems, if there was one!

“By Jove!” said Saleworth rather blankly. “No one told me about the lock.”

“And why, Mrs. Wheatland, did you tell Clinton, Farren and Frisby the combination, before the crime took place?” asked Williams crisply.

“Archie was so sure he was going to be killed, that I thought he probably would be,” replied that amazing girl coolly.

“But these men, one of them, might have taken the diamonds,” reminded the lieutenant

“No,” said Caresse, her head flung high. “They are honest. I could trust them all.”

“Yet one of them stabbed your husband,” said Williams dryly.

Caresse merely shrugged and made no reply.

“Very well.” said the lieutenant then, looking about. “I shall alter the combination of that lock. No one but myself will be able to enter this room after the professor’s body is removed. If there is a cache of unset diamonds here used by Professor Wheatland in his manufacturing stunt, we shall find it. I am laying my cards frankly on the table now. We cannot stay in here all night. It is getting on our nerves now. Every one of you will be under police surveillance from this time on-ward. You will remain here until my men arrive and then you will be at liberty to return to your homes. I understand that you have nothing more to tell me? None of you can recall any little thing that will assist me?”

Utter silence answered him, and after a moment or so the lieutenant turned quietly to the telephone upon the desk, lifted the receiver and called into the transmitter: “Police headquarters!”