The Mystery of the Hidden Room

I had intended spending the evening at the Club; but after my solitary meal, I found that I was too tired to care to leave my own inviting fireside. Drawing up a chair before the open grate in my library, for the October night was chill and the landlord had not sufficiently relented to order the steam-heat, I settled myself comfortably with my book and pipe. The story I had chosen was a murder mystery, extremely clever and well-written, and so engrossed did I become that I was entirely oblivious to the passage of time.

The entrance of my man, Jenkins, brought me back to my surroundings with a start to find that the clock on the mantel was chiming eleven. A little impatient at the interruption for I had not concluded the story, I grew sarcastic.

"What is it, Jenkins? Have you come to remind me that it is long past my bed-time?" I inquired.

Jenkins' face grew longer if such a thing were possible in a countenance already attenuated by nature into the semblance of perpetual gloom, and shook his head with a grieved air as though he considered my remark an aspersion upon his knowledge of his duties as a valet.

"A man who claims to be Mrs. Darwin's chauffeur, sir," he replied in a tone that indicated that he at least would not be responsible for the veracity of the statement, "has just brought this note. He says that he will await the answer below in his machine, sir."

He extended an unaddressed white envelope with a funereal air. The note was from Ruth. The message was brief and to the point.

"Will you return at once with my chauffeur? I need you."

"My hat and coat, Jenkins," I cried, flinging aside my jacket. "You need not wait up for me. I have my key," I added.

I could have descended the stairs a half dozen times before the elevator finally arrived, or so it seemed to my impatience. The moment we reached the lobby I was out of the elevator and down the steps into the waiting motor before the boy had recovered his wits sufficiently to follow me to the door.

The chauffeur evidently had his instructions, for I was hardly within before the machine was speeding toward the Drive. My bachelor apartments were situated on 72nd Street, just off the Park, and I knew we could not cover the distance to the Darwin home on the outskirts of Riverside Drive in less than twenty minutes, even at the rate at which we were traveling.

I had stuffed Ruth's note into my pocket as I left. Mechanically I drew it forth and tore it to shreds, flinging the scraps from the window. Letters are compromising things.

What had possessed Ruth to commit herself to writing after the compact we had made to have no further communication with each other! It was she who had suggested that we become as strangers, and I could only read in this sudden appeal and the haste with which I was being whirled toward her some dread calamity. Nor was my anxiety lessened by the fact that I was hopelessly in love with her. Yes, hopelessly, I speak advisedly, because she was another man's wife, and while that man lived she would be true to him although he deserved it less than anyone I knew.

To think that a few short months ago Ruth and I had been engaged! If I had had my way we should have been married at once without any fuss, and so should have avoided the trouble that befell us, but Ruth wanted a trousseau and a big wedding, so like many a better man before me I humored her to the extent of promising to wait another month.