on his way out, and calculated the length of the
closet from end to end. Six feet....

Emerging from the closet he closed his eyes in an effort to recall in
exact detail the architect's blueprint of the lower floor, which Coroner
Price had submitted to his jury at the inquest that morning. Yes, that
was right! The inner end wall of Nita's clothes closet was also the back
of the guest closet in the little foyer that lay between Nita's bedroom
and the main hall.

Within ten minutes, much laying-on of the tape measure had produced a
startling result. Instead of having a wall in common, the guest closet
and Nita's clothes closet were separated by exactly eleven inches! Why
the waste space? The blueprint, bearing the imprint of the architects,
Hammond & Hammond, showed no such walled-up cubbyhole!

Exultantly, Dundee again entered Nita's closet and went over every inch
of the narrow, horizontal cedar boards, which formed the end wall. But
he met with no reward. Not through this workmanlike, solidly constructed
wall had an opening been made....

But in the foyer closet he read a different story. Its back wall had an
amateurish look. This closet was not cedar-lined, as was Nita's, but was
painted throughout in soft ivory. But it was the back wall of the closet
in which Dundee was interested. Unlike the other walls, which were of
plaster, the back was constructed of six-inch-wide boards--the cheapness
of the lumber not concealed by its coat of ivory paint. No
self-respecting builder had put in that wall of broad, horizontal
boards....

And then, directly beneath the shelf which was set regulation height,
just above the pole on which swung a dozen coat hangers, Dundee found
what he was looking for.

A short length of the cheap board, a queer scrap to have been used even
in so shoddy a job as that wall was.... Eight inches long. And set
square in the center of the wall, just below the shelf and pole. If he
had not been looking for something odd, however, Dundee acknowledged to
himself, he would not have noticed it. Did anyone ever notice the back
walls of closets?

Sure of the result, he pressed with his finger tips upon the lower end
of that short piece of board. And slowly it swung inward, the top
slanting outward.

_He had found the secret hiding place._ And Dundee silently agreed with
Judge Marshall that it was "the simplest and most ingenious arrangement
you ever saw," for it was nothing more nor less than a shelf