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McCreadie gingerly turns the mechanism to the locked position and then attempts to close the door. It stops at the latch. He gives it a harder push, but that latch stays firm. I walk over and test the latch with my fingers. It doesn’t retract until the lock is turned.
I turn to Gray. “What’s the chance Leslie could have gotten over here and locked the door himself?”
“I see no sign of a cane or other walking device, which suggests he wasn’t able to walk with the pain in his lower extremities.”
“He did mention how much his feet hurt. He didn’t strike me as the sort who’d stay bedridden if he didn’t need to.”
“True, to a point. He was quite happy to order others around, but he abhorred weakness. He once fired a groom when the man’s leg didn’t set properly after a horse kicked it. The dragging leg meant that the groom was not in perfect physical condition, and that was unacceptable. I will confirm my suspicions with Dr. Mackay, of course, but the lack of a cane suggests Lord Leslie could not walk and therefore could not have locked that door.”
“Yet it was locked, and there’s no other way out. Gentlemen, we have ourselves one of my favorite types of mystery. The locked-room murder.”
McCreadie’s brows shoot up. “The what?”
“It’s a trope in detective fiction. Someone dies in a room and there’s no way for their killer to have escaped. Hey, this could be thefirstlocked-room murder. The actual basis for the trope. Lord Leslie dies in a locked room and it makes headline news and, boom, the first locked-room mystery.”
“Except that he may have died of poison,” McCreadie says.
“Ah, but that doesn’t explain the locked door.”
Gray clears his throat.
I look at him and sigh. “Yes? What rain doyouwish to dump on my parade?”
“The key.”
“What key? The key is…” I groan. “Right. There is a key, which is missing, and which could have been used by the killer to lock the door.”
“Also…” Gray begins.
“Right. I picked the lock. Maybe it can be locked that way, too.”
I take out a hairpin and bend at the keyhole. As I’m tinkering, Gray says to McCreadie, “Anything else you observed at the scene, Hugh?”
“No. Go ahead and show me what I missed.”
“What the devil are you doing, girl?” a voice says from down the hall.
It’s Dr. Mackay, striding my way.
I straighten and turn to Gray. “I could not get it to lock that way, sir, which doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“Meanwhatis impossible?” Mackay says.
“That someone killed Lord Leslie, and then locked the door behind them without a key.”
“Killed Lord Leslie? The man was poisoned. He died…” Mackay trails off as he sees Leslie lying half on the floor. “What the devil did you do to him, Gray? I understand you have something of a reputation for… examining the dead, but you cannot go pushing and pulling the poor man around to satisfy your morbid curiosity.”
“He was like that when we walked in,” McCreadie says. “Everyone—including his sister—can attest to that, which is why we left him in situ.”
“In what?”
“In situ. It means—”
“I know what the term means. I don’t know why you are using it. Who are you anyway?”
“I am a friend of—”
“You’re a policeman, aren’t you? One of those detective fellows. I met you a few months ago. I was tending to a young woman who had been—” His gaze shoots to me. “Tampered with, and you were in charge of the case.”
