Yet the rooms
must have been examined by the police, who, if they existed, must have
seen them. They therefore did not exist: that is to say, the pieces
which had been removed from the floorings had by that time been neatly
replaced, and, in the case of the lower one, covered by the carpet, the
removal of which had caused so much commotion in Randolph's room on the
fatal day. Hester Dyett would have been able to notice and bring at
least one of the apertures forward in evidence, but she fainted before
she had time to find out the cause of her fall, and an hour later it
was, you remember, Randolph himself who bore her from the room. But
should not the aperture in the top floor have been observed by the
class? Undoubtedly, if its position was in the open space in the middle
of the room. But it was not observed, and therefore its position was
not there, but in the only other place left--behind the apparatus used
in demonstration. That then was _one_ useful object which the
apparatus--and with it the elaborate hypocrisy of class, and speeches,
and candidature--served: it was made to act as a curtain, a screen. But
had it no other purpose? That question we may answer when we know its
name and its nature. And it is not beyond our powers to conjecture this
with something like certainty.
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