The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie [37]
Bundle abandoned the getting of information for the moment and proceeded to other matters.
‘A hundred pounds is a very large sum of money, Alfred.’
‘Larger than I ever handled, my lady,’ said Alfred with simple candour.
‘Did you ever suspect that there was something wrong?’
‘Wrong, my lady?’
‘Yes. I’m not talking about the gambling. I mean something far more serious. You don’t want to be sent to penal servitude, do you, Alfred?’
‘Oh, Lord! my lady, you don’t mean it?’
‘I was at Scotland Yard the day before yesterday,’ said Bundle impressively. ‘I heard some very curious things. I want you to help me, Alfred, and if you do, well–if things go wrong, I’ll put in a good word for you.’
‘Anything I can do, I shall be only too pleased, my lady. I mean I would anyway.’
‘Well, first,’ said Bundle, ‘I want to go all over this place–from top to bottom.’
Accompanied by a mystified and scared Alfred, she made a very thorough tour of inspection. Nothing struck her eye till she came to the gaming room. There she noticed an inconspicuous door in the corner, and the door was locked.
Alfred explained readily.
‘That’s used as a getaway, your ladyship. There’s a room and a door on to a staircase what comes out in the next street. That’s the way the gentry goes when there’s a raid.’
‘But don’t the police know about it?’
‘It’s a cunning door, you see, my lady. Looks like a cupboard, that’s all.’
Bundle felt a rising excitement.
‘I must get in there,’ she said.
Alfred shook his head.
‘You can’t, my lady; Mr Mosgorovsky, he has the key.’
‘Well,’ said Bundle, ‘there are other keys.’
She perceived that the lock was a perfectly ordinary one which probably could be easily unlocked by the key of one of the other doors. Alfred, rather troubled, was sent to collect likely specimens. The fourth that Bundle tried fitted. She turned it, opened the door and passed through.
She found herself in a small, dingy apartment. A long table occupied the centre of the room with chairs ranged round it. There was no other furniture in the room. Two built-in cupboards stood on either side of the fireplace. Alfred indicated the nearer one with a nod.
‘That’s it,’ he explained.
Bundle tried the cupboard door, but it was locked, and she saw at once that this lock was a very different affair. It was of the patent kind that would only yield to its own key.
‘’Ighly ingenious, it is,’ explained Alfred. ‘It looks all right when opened. Shelves, you know, with a few ledgers and that on ’em. Nobody’d ever suspect, but you touch the right spot and the whole things swings open.’
Bundle had turned round and was surveying the room thoughtfully. The first thing she noticed was that the door by which they had entered was carefully fitted round with baize. It must be completely sound-proof. Then her eyes wandered to the chairs. There were seven of them, three each side and one rather more imposing in design at the head of the table.
Bundle’s eyes brightened. She had found what she was looking for. This, she felt sure, was the meeting place of the secret organization. The place was almost perfectly planned. It looked so innocent–you could reach it just by stepping through from the gaming room, or you could arrive there by the secret entrance–and any secrecy, any precautions were easily explained by the gaming going on in the next room.
Idly, as these thoughts passed through her mind, she drew a finger across the marble of the mantelpiece. Alfred saw and misinterpreted the action.
‘You won’t find no dirt, not to speak of,’ he said. ‘Mr Mosgorovsky, he ordered the place to be swept out this morning, and I did it while he waited.’
‘Oh!’ said Bundle, thinking very hard. ‘This morning, eh?
‘Has to be done sometimes,’ said Alfred. ‘Though the room’s never what you might call used.’
Next minute he received a shock.
‘Alfred,’ said Bundle, ‘you’ve got to find me a place in this room where I can hide.’
Alfred looked at her in dismay.
‘But it’s impossible, my lady. You’ll get me into trouble and I’ll lose my job.’
‘You’ll lose it anyway when you