The Second Locked Room

[SFX: Gears accelerate. Running footsteps; alarm bell]

NARRATOR: Leon had reset Gideon's machine with Celeste inside the music room. The rotating floor began drawing her chair toward the open service shaft. Ada reached the door, but the internal bolt had already fallen.

CELESTE MOURNING: Ada, the floor is moving.

ADA MERCER: Do not fight the chair. Pull the organ's soft pedal and hold it down.

NARRATOR: The pedal diverted the counterweight into the practice bell. Its bronze note hammered through the speaking tubes while the platform slowed. Peter cut the main rope in the basement. Imogen followed the resonance through the walls and shouted when the mechanism reached its lowest tension.

IMOGEN ROOK: Now. The bolt spring is unloaded now.

[SFX: Lock tools scrape. Door bursts open]

NARRATOR: Ada lifted the final lever and dragged Celeste clear. Leon had fled toward the frozen lake with Gideon's ledger. The snow outside showed a single line of prints until it reached a boathouse, then none.

PETER BELL: He cannot vanish twice.

ADA MERCER: He did not vanish the first time. Look at the runner marks.

NARRATOR: An ice yacht had been hidden beneath canvas. Leon was halfway across the lake, using the storm wind to reach the open road beyond the pass. Imogen turned the speaking-tube horn toward the ice and struck the practice bell. The sharp vibration rolled over the lake.

[SFX: Ice cracks. Wind gusts]

NARRATOR: Leon changed course too quickly. The yacht's runner entered a pressure crack and stopped. He crawled back carrying the ledger above his head while dark water widened behind him.

LEON VALE: Gideon was destroying the trust himself. I preserved what I could.

CELESTE MOURNING: You preserved it in your name.

ADA MERCER: You poisoned him at seven fifteen, placed him in the lift, wound the house for nine, and stole the recording. The sealed room was built after the murder to move our attention from the only hour you had no witness.

NARRATOR: For the first time, Leon stopped sounding like counsel. He sounded like a man alone on thin ice.