It was on the second floor, and its one window opened to the
rear, and faced a desolate assortment of back yards, rear walls, and
rickety stairways. The floor had a worn carpet, and there was a desk, a
few chairs and a shelf of law books. The place looked as though it had
belonged to a lawyer in reduced circumstances, and I could but wonder
how it had come into the possession of Doddridge Knapp, and what had
become of its former occupant.
I tried to thrust aside a spirit of melancholy, and looked narrowly to
the opportunities offered by the room for attack and defense. The walls
were solidly built. The window-casement showed an unusual depth for a
building of that height. The wall had been put in to withstand an
earthquake shock. The door opening into the hall, the door into Room
16, and the window furnished the three avenues of possible attack or
retreat. The window upon examination appeared impracticable. There was
a sheer drop of twenty feet, without a projection of any kind below it.
The ledge was hardly an inch wide. The iron shutters by which it might
be closed did not swing within ten feet of any other window. The one
chance of getting in by this line was to drop a rope ladder from the
roof. The door opening into Room 16 was not heavy, and the lock was a
cheap affair. A good kick would send the whole thing into splinters. As
it swung into Number 16 and not into my room it could not be braced
with a barricade. Plainly it was not a good place to spend the night
should Doddridge Knapp care to engineer another case of mysterious
disappearance.
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