“No, sir, and I’m quite sure.”
Carter turned his gaze this way and that about the room. He opened the big hanging wardrobe, looked under the bed, up the chimney and behind all the curtains. Finally, struck by a sudden idea, and disregarding Mrs. Van Snyder’s shrill protests, he opened the large wardrobe trunk and rummaged swiftly in the interior.
Suddenly Tommy, who had been examining the communicating door, gave an exclamation.
“Come here, sir, look at this. They did go this way.”
The bolt had been very cleverly filed through, so close to the socket that the join was hardly perceptible.
“The door won’t open because it’s locked on the other side,” explained Tommy.
In another minute they were out in the corridor again and the waiter was opening the door of the adjoining suite with his pass key. This suite was untenanted. When they came to the communicating door, they saw that the same plan had been adopted. The bolt had been filed through, and the door was locked, the key having been removed. But nowhere in the suite was there any sign of Tuppence or the fair-bearded Russian, and there was no other communicating door, only the one on the corridor.
“But I’d have seen them come out,” protested the waiter. “I couldn’t have helped seeing them. I can take my oath they never did.”
“Damn it all,” cried Tommy. “They can’t have vanished into thin air!”
Carter was calm again now, his keen brain working.
“Telephone down and find who had this suite last, and when.”