But first I had to take a solution off a Bunsen burner, where I had been
heating it, and take the temperature of it, and then wash my hands,
because I had been working with poisonous materials. I should say all
this took me about five minutes.
"When I got down here, the door of this room was closed and locked. That
was most unusual, and I became really worried. I pounded on the door, and
called out, but I got no answer. Then Fred Dunmore came out of the
bathroom attached to his room, with nothing on but a bathrobe. His hair
was wet, and he was in his bare feet and making wet tracks on the floor."
From there on, Varcek's story tallied closely with what Rand had heard
from Gladys and from Walters. Everybody's story tallied, where it could
be checked up on.
"You think the murderer locked the door behind him, when he came out of
here?" Varcek asked.
"I think somebody locked the door, sometime. It might have been the
murderer, or it might have been Fleming at the murderer's suggestion. But
why couldn't the murderer have left the gunroom by that stairway?"
Varcek looked around furtively and lowered his voice. Now he looked like
Rudolf Hess discussing what to do about Ernst Roehm.
"Colonel Rand; don't you think that Fred Dunmore could have shot Lane
Fleming, and then have gone to his room and waited until I came
downstairs?" he asked.
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