The Surakarta/Chapter 6
VI
THE ROOM AT THE TONTY
The Hotel Tonty is one of those of the newer sort, where luxury takes the place of refinement. Hereford, immediately upon arriving with his two companions, presented his card to the uniformed police officer stationed in the corridor. A moment later the three were ushered into the parlor of the Javanese suite.
The half dozen brown-skinned men, dressed in European clothes, lounging nervously about, started up with angry exclamations at the sight of Hereford. Another appeared who, without comment, led the three visitors through several rooms into the presence of Baraka.
"This is Mr. McAdams," Hereford announced, "whom I have retained to look after my interests in the matter of the emerald. Herr Schimmel has also been consulted."
The envoy of the Soesoehoenan—a tall and fine-looking man, wearing in the privacy of his room his native embroidered loose jacket, though English trousers took the place of his sarong—showed plainly the effect of twelve hours of perplexity, anxiety and terror. He took a step toward Hereford, his eyes flashing with rage.
"You want" he demanded, controlling himself.
"To see the room," McAdams put in, "and to get your own statement of what happened here last night."
"Ah! To see the room!" Baraka mocked. "And to ask for a statement! Of what use is a statement, since this one can tell you better than I what happened here?" He pointed to Hereford.
He walked nervously about, pressing his hands together.
"Obtain the key!" he suddenly directed one of the Javanese who had followed the three as though keeping guard over them; and when it was brought Baraka himself crossed the room to a locked door and flung it open.
"Enter!" he commanded.
The room was dark as Hereford and his two companions entered. They could distinguish vaguely in it objects disarranged in the utmost confusion. Baraka directed a Javanese to raise the shades.
The room appeared then as a more than commonly luxurious hotel room, eighteen feet by twenty, and furnished, except for the brass bed, in mahogany. It presented the unusual feature of having two blank walls. Being the end room of the suite, it had no connection at all with the hallway of the hotel. On the west side the wall was hung with several pictures; and on the north wall, which also was unbroken, there were pictures and a tapestry. The doorways, three in number, were all in the south wall. To the left of the entrance door, through which they looked, was another which plainly belonged to the clothes-closet; and to the right beyond the bed, which stood with its head against this south wall, was the door to the bathroom.
The fourth or east side of the room faced over the street and there were two wide windows in it. McAdams, approaching these windows, saw there was a clear drop below them of one hundred and twenty feet, and that there was neither cornice nor fire escape anywhere in sight below or about them to give access from another window on the same floor, or from the floor above or below.
The disorder of the room was plainly that in which it had been left by the Javanese at the conclusion of their search. The bedding was pulled from the bed; the writing desk, which had stood by the north wall, had been pulled out into the room; and the stand near the west wall, which held a suitcase, had likewise been moved from its place, as was witnessed by a second suitcase overturned on the floor in front of it; the floor was littered with strips of torn paper, and everything in the room seemed to have been swept violently from its position, except indeed the box that had held the Surakarta. The box still occupied what was obviously its original position on the floor, halfway between the north wall and the bed.
"You have not occupied this room, then, since last night?" McAdams asked Baraka.
"By request of the police everything has been left as it was," the envoy answered. "Yes, everything; I have changed nothing."
McAdams nodded his satisfaction and commenced with assurance his closer scrutiny.
He opened and inspected the doors of the clothes-closet and bathroom; he examined the bed and studied what must have been the original position of the chairs and various articles of furniture. He sounded the wall and floor, and mounting upon a chair, the ceiling. Having satisfied himself of the impossibility of exit except through the single door, he turned back to Baraka.
"Now tell me what you think happened here," he directed. "How do you suppose the fellow ever got in?"
"How did he get in?" the Javanese rejoined. "I do not know—he knows!" He again accused the imperturbable Hereford. "All doors are locked, also bolted within. The light is out. I am asleep. A sound awakes me—the tearing of paper—that about the box! Ah! He is so bold! I think there must be more than one. If I alarm them they will take away the box. Two can carry it but not one. There is no light at all—perfectly dark; but my revolver is under my pillow. I find it without noise and fire twice, quick! I see nothing—only the flash of the revolver. And there is no change—only the bold tearing of the paper. Again I fire—three times! Still nothing but the flash of my pistol—a red streak in the dark—nothing more; the great pound in the ears.
"But no longer the sound of paper; instead, the clicking of the levers of the box! He is opening the box—he knows how to open it. You are a brave man, Mr. Hereford—five times I have shot, not knowing then who he was; yet in the dark, swiftly, without seeing at all, he makes to click the levers which, clicking so, throw the box open. And I have but one shot in my revolver.
"I crawl upon the bed. I remember that in the afternoon, lying upon the bed, I could see through the foot—which is of brass—the box. Now, feeling with my fingers in the dark, I find the place through which I saw the box. I put the pistol through it. The last time I fire! And now I know I hit him! But no noise; no cry—only the rising of the cover of the box!
"I toss all care of myself away! I fling myself upon him; I grope; but I feel nothing—nothing but that the box is already open and empty! The emerald—the great Surakarta—it is gone! I rush back to the door so he may not get out. It is still locked and bolted. He has not escaped. Entirely reckless, I turn on the light; but—he is not there! He has disappeared! The door behind me is bolted and locked. Those other doors before the clothes-closet and before the bathroom, too, are fastened. The windows—neither of them has been raised. He is not under the bed. The drawers in the bureau—they can contain no one; but I look. All the time my suite they are outside the door, crying to be let in and breaking at the door; but no, I cry to them to watch there while I alone—I not caring what happens to me—look. But there is nowhere else to look. There is nothing at all in the room. Yet the box has been opened! The emerald is gone!
"I am beside myself! My suite have broken in. They search everywhere; but there is nowhere I have not myself looked. There is no sign of him—nothing; he is not here. But he has left his blood—this one—the only one who besides myself in this country can know how to open the box; for I in my folly, two hours before, clicked the levers in their order for him to see; and it is from his hand the blood has flowed. See now upon his hand the mark of my last shot!"
"I find five shots," McAdams confirmed calmly, "and their appearance indicates that, as you have said, they were fired from the bed; but, unless your last night's visitor carried off the other, there should be six."
"Just in this way I point my pistol when I fire at him the last time!" Baraka willingly advanced to the bed, felt for and found an aperture in the scrollwork of its foot and put his finger through it. "Notice how I point—if it would not wound the hand of him opening the box!"
Hereford himself nodded to McAdams to admit it without objection; and, following the direction pointed by Baraka's finger, he pointed out the sixth bullet, which, slightly deflected from its course and imbedded in the plaster of the wall, they had missed before. This bullet was close to the floor in the north wall; the remaining five were about the height of a man's chest.
"And these drops of blood"—the detective's eyes followed along the floor the trail of blood from the box in the middle of the room leading direct to the middle of the blank wall—"are the marks of that last shot?"
"The first drops from his hand—yes!"
The detective bent to the floor. The drops of blood, greatest in number close to the box, made, however, a plainly discernible track to the foot of the north wall, where it was hung with tapestry. McAdams, putting out his hand to lift this tapestry, drew back.
"It looks," he said, "as if some one had lifted this before me—and with a bloody hand."
A spot of blood was plain upon the tapestry where he pointed. He then lifted the tapestry and struck the wall several heavy blows. The wall gave out a solid sound.
"What is on the other side of this wall?" he asked.
"On the other side is the stair of the hotel," Baraka replied.
"Then it is a solid brick wall and extends without opening of any sort from the foundations of the hotel to the roof. That is the city ordinance. No one went through there. He must have come and gone through the door."
"Are we fools?" the envoy burst out. "The door was locked and bolted within all the time. He"—he again pointed to Hereford—"was in the room after suite already were at the only door to go out; but when the light was turned on he was not here. No one was in the clothes-closet; no one in the bathroom; no one in or under the bed. We took up even the carpet to look. The drops of blood, too, do not lead to any door—only to the wall."
"But how could he go through the wall—or do you doubt the wall?" McAdams demanded.
"No, I do not doubt the wall," the Javanese replied. "I have tried it. I know it is there. But"—he fixed upon Hereford a suddenly superstitious look in which terror and anger seemed equally mingled—"there has been brought to my country from other lands the X-ray, by which men see the bones while they are still within the body; and the wireless, by which men can talk to men across a thousand miles of sea. How do I know what else have here?"
McAdams grunted and turned abruptly to his more careful examination of the box.
He inspected closely the ordinary brown wrapping paper scattered in torn strips round the box and a piece of stout string that lay among them.
"The paper was wrapped round the box, I understand?" he questioned.
"Since San Francisco," Baraka assented. "In Java we had guards to keep away the people and on the steamer the box is in my stateroom; but in San Francisco crowds gather—so strange a sight to them, Javanese carrying such a box. We can hardly pass through the people. That night I wrap the box in paper; and so it has been since; three—four days, therefore."
"And it was tied with this string?"
"Yes; but—no! When I so foolishly show the emerald to Mr. Hereford I have untied the string. Afterward I do not again tie it, but only wrap the paper round."
McAdams pulled away carefully the wrappings of paper that still clung to the lower part of the box. It then could be seen that the box which had contained the great emerald was a huge and heavy thing, made entirely of iron or steel. Something over two feet high and about the same in breadth and a little more in length, its design was a stout, thick steel, square column, with the steel figure of a man squatted upon each face. Each figure was, indeed, little more than a high relief from the side of the column, and the trunk of each figure was cast as part of the column, making an unbreakable, solid piece. The head and hands of each figure, however, moved; and, as Baraka explained, these were the levers which—pulled or pushed—turned one way or the other in a certain order—released a bolt within the column, so that the top plate lifted and the box opened.
Upon the four figures there were, therefore, eight hands and four heads; each head could be moved in four directions and also could be pressed in or pulled out slightly. There were, accordingly, twenty-four different operations possible with the head levers alone. Each hand was also capable of six similar different manipulations, or forty-eight for the hands—a total of seventy-two different manipulations. Of these, eighteen, done correctly and in order, opened the box. If any wrong lever were tried before the eighteen were twisted, pushed or pulled, each correctly, the combination would not work and it was impossible to open the box.
Max Schimmel now, after listening attentively to this explanation by Baraka, bent over the closed box.
"What iss within?" he inquired.
"Nothing is within," Baraka replied. "The emerald only was within; and since that is gone there is nothing."
Max shook his head. The air of this, as of all the rooms occupied by the Javanese, was heavy with Oriental odors; but among them Max seemed to have detected something as he stooped and sniffed close to the box.
"Sandalwood iss within," Max declared.
"The interior of the box is sandalwood—yes," Baraka answered curiously.
"Ah! Sandalwood! Quite distinctly I smell it now," said Max with satisfaction. "Before, I thought so—but I could not be certain; for outside it iss all iron—only inside it iss sandalwood."
"What of that?" McAdams demanded; and when Max, sniffing more leisurely, only smiled in reply the detective attempted to lift the cover of the box, which did not yield.
"It is locked?" he questioned Baraka.
"It is always locked; to push down the cover is to lock it."
"Open it then."
Baraka demurred. "Once I open the box with him by, and misfortune came." But he finally consented on condition that they turn their backs.
Hiding his movements with his body, even behind their backs, he clicked the levers until they had counted seventeen such clicks. Turning then as he pressed the last lever, they saw the cover of the box rise slowly to a vertical position; and now, plainly and distinctly to all, the heavy odor of the sandalwood interior of the box filled the room.
"And you think," McAdams exclaimed, "from seeing you twist and turn those eighteen once, Mr. Hereford could have made the combination out and memorized it! You think he could come here in the dark—through locked doors—and open the box swiftly, as you yourself have said, without hesitation or error!" The detective made a gesture of derision. "The choice in selecting the first manipulation is one movement out of seventy-two; the choice of the second multiplies that. The chance of making correctly eighteen straight in succession can be only one in millions. No one—not even Mr. Hereford—could have mastered that from seeing the box once opened. Mr. Baraka, your story is preposterous! No one could have got in here:—no one could have got out afterward! Least of all could any one have opened the box!"
And he turned for confirmation to Max.
Max Schimmel, however, since he had received confirmation that the box had an odor had apparently taken no note of anything else that was passing. He stood now with a pleased face, his gaze swiftly sweeping for a second time and still more comprehensively the details of the room—the exit doors, the disordered bed, the writing desk, the stand with the suitcases. The question had to be repeated before he took heed of it. Then he began to rub his hands softly together.
"Prut! But no! It could haf been done!" he exclaimed delightedly. "All as he says, it could haf been done! I am glad I came to see this, even from the inderior of Asia! For now it iss marvelous, mysterious; but when it iss exblained then it will appear gommonblace that the box wass obened and the emerald taken from the box, even from under our friendt's revolver point!"
Baraka's eyes flashed balefully at Hereford.
"Even your own friend—you see!—even your own friend," he hissed, "says as I say!"
Wade Hereford returned the envoy's stare steadily, then he glanced toward Max and the detective and slightly smiled.
"If you both have quite completed your investigation," he said in a rather bored tone, "let us go."
He nodded to Baraka, who continued threateningly to stare him full in the face, and, while the other angry Javanese unwillingly made way for him, preceded the party through the rooms of the envoy's suite back to the elevator.