Anybody But Anne

 “Get to work and open that door,” Morland ordered. “Pick the lock or cut it out, whichever is necessary, but get us in.”

Ranney picked the lock skillfully and rapidly, but still the door refused to open. “It’s bolted,” he said.

“Cut out the bolt,” Morland said, on whom the suspense was beginning to tell.

Ranney obeyed, and, though marring and spoiling the beautiful door, he succeeded at last in throwing it back on its hinges, and we went in. David sat in his desk chair, motionless, with a stain of blood on his shirt-front and waistcoat.

“Murdered!” Morland exclaimed, springing forward. “By some of that blamed committee! I’ll be revenged for this!” As he spoke, he was feeling for his father’s heart and pulse, though there was no possible doubt that the man was dead. As we all stood in horror-stricken silence, my mind worked rapidly.

“Hold on, Morland,” I said. “It can’t be murder, with this room locked up as it was. Your father did this himself.”

Morland turned from his father and stared at me. “Suicide!” he exclaimed. “Absurd! Why should Dad want to kill himself?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” I replied; “but as we couldn’t get into this locked room, how could a murderer have done so?”

“I tell you it was one of that committee,” Morland declared. “My father had no reason and no desire to kill himself!”

“As to that,” Archer put in, “why should those men of the committee want to kill him? He was about to give them his money. And, as Raymond says, no one could have murdered him and got away, leaving this room entirely locked on the inside. But something ought to be done. You ought to send for a...a doctor or something.”

“What good could a doctor do now!” Morland said, looking a little dazed. “But I suppose it is the right thing to do. Carstairs, telephone for Doctor Mason and tell him to come at once. Don’t tell him what for...there’s no use of this getting all over until we know something more about it ourselves. Use this telephone here on the desk.”

With difficulty, Carstairs controlled himself sufficiently to obey orders. Morland strode about the room. “It’s so,” he declared. “Every window is fastened with these enormous bolts, that are more than burglar-proof. And this outside door, as you see, is bolted like a barricade. There is no other possible entrance except the door at which we came in, and you all know how secure that was. Consequently, it must be that my father killed himself. But why should he?”