Read Online The Door by Mary Roberts Rinehart - Free Book Online

“I am sure you did not. That is why I know he got it. But why should he deny it? Remember, I am bringing no accusation against Mr. Blake, but I want him to come clean on this story. He knows something. You might suggest to him that it would be better for him to tell what he knows than to have us find it out for ourselves.”
    I was slightly dazed as I left, and sitting back in the car I was puzzled. How little, after all, we know of people! Sarah, moving quietly about my house, massaging me each morning with quiet efficiency; her life an open book, not too interesting. And yet Sarah had had a secret, a secret which she had withheld from me and had given or tried to give to Jim Blake.
    I decided to see Jim at once and give him the District Attorney’s message. But Jim had had a return of his old trouble and was in bed. And as it happened, something occurred that night which took my mind away from Jim for the time, and from everything else except Judy.
    She had been in a fever of anger and resentment ever since Sarah’s death. After all, Sarah had helped to bring her into the world, and she was outraged. I daresay under other conditions I might have found her determination to solve a crime amusing rather than otherwise, but there was a set to her small jaw, a feverish look in her eyes, that commanded my respect. And in the end, like Katherine, she did make her small contribution.
    To Dick of course she was wonderful, no matter what she did.
    So she and Dick were working on the case; she in a fury of indignation, Dick largely because of her. I know that they had gone over every inch of the lot where the dogs had been tied, but that they had found nothing. I think, however, that they were afraid I could not give their efforts sympathetic attention, for except for their lack of success they did not confide in me.
    On that night, Wednesday, they had been making a sketch of the lot and the park, but Judy looked very tired, and at ten o’clock I sent Dick away. Judy started up for bed, but in the hall she must have thought of something and changed her mind. She went back through the pantry, where Joseph was reading the evening paper, and asked if he had a flashlight. Joseph had none there, and she went into the kitchen, got some matches and the garage key from its nail and proceeded to the garage.
    Shortly after she came back to the kitchen door and called in to him:
    “Where’s the ladder, Joseph? The ladder Mr. Walter used in the lavatory that night?”
    “It’s in the tool room, Miss Judy. Shall I bring it in?”
    “Never mind,” she said, and went out again.
    At half past ten I heard him making his round of the windows and doors, before going to bed. At the front door he stopped, and then came to me in the library.
    “I suppose Miss Judy came in by the front door, madam?”
    “Miss Judy! Has she been out?”
    “She went out through the kitchen, a little after ten. She said she wanted the ladder; she didn’t say why.”
    I was uneasy rather than alarmed, until I saw that the garage was dark.
    “She’s not there, Joseph!”
    “Maybe she took the car and went out, madam.”
    “She’d have told me, I’m sure.”
    I was starting out at once, but he held me back.
    “I’d better get my revolver,” he said. “If there’s anything wrong—”
    That sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
    “Judy!” I called. “Judy!”
    There was no answer, and together Joseph and I started out, he slightly in the lead and his revolver in his hand. It was a black night and starless; just such a night as when poor Sarah met her death, and the very silence was terrifying. Halfway along the path Joseph wheeled suddenly.
    “Who’s there?” he said sharply.
    “What did you hear, Joseph?”
    “I thought somebody moved in the bushes.”
    We listened, but everything was quiet, and we went on.
    In the garage itself, when we switched on the lights, everything was in order, and the key Judy had used was still in the small door which