The Crystal Claw by William Le Queux

On the second landing I rapped at the door of room Number 18, feeling considerable pleasure at the thought of giving my whilom friend an unwelcome surprise.

There was no reply, but I fancied I heard a movement inside. I listened eagerly.

I knocked again. Yes. I felt sure someone was within, but my knock met with no response.

A third time I knocked and more loudly, but to no avail. I tried the door -- it was locked.

Five times I hammered with my fist, but there being no answer I descended the stairs and found Mr. Seton.

"But he must be up there if his door is locked," he said. "He never takes his key but always leaves it on the peg here," and he indicated a board on the wall in a little box-like room off the hall where visitors left their keys. To each key was attached a bulky ball of wood, in order that the key should not be carried away accidentally in the pocket.

With the landlord I reascended the stairs and Seton knocked at the door, calling his guest by name. But there was still no response.

"Do you know, I believe I heard somebody inside when I first knocked," I remarked.

Seton bent and peered through the keyhole.

"At any rate the door is locked on the inside," he said.

Then he thundered at the door, after which we both listened. There was no sound, but I thought I detected the smell of burning paper.

All the other guests were apparently out at the time, for the noise we made attracted only the servants.

"Baker! " Seton cried to a man who was in his shirtsleeves and wore an apron of green baize, "we must force this door. There's a crow-bar down in the cellar. Go and get it."

As the man addressed ran downstairs, the ex-butler turned to me with a scared expression upon his face, saying -- --

"This is very peculiar, sir. Why has he locked himself in like this? Did you really hear a noise?"

"Yes. I am sure I did, yet with the roar of the traffic out in the road, I really couldn't quite swear to it," was my reply.

"What I heard was like a man bustling about hurriedly, and yet trying to make no noise."

"Surely he can't have fainted -- or -- or committed suicide! " Seton remarked.

For a few minutes we stood outside the door utterly mystified, until the porter brought us a rusty bar of iron about three feet long, curved and flattened at the end -- a very serviceable crow-bar.

This, Seton inserted between the door and the jamb, close to the lock, and then drew it back slowly. The woodwork groaned, creaked and cracked and with a sudden jerk the wood round the mortice lock tore away and the door flew open.