Locked Room

A brilliant situation for a thief: alone in a spacious mansion and more valuable goods than he had seen in his life within this one room. But Robert could not fly. Soon he would realize that the knot he had tied had come undone and the window by which he had entered was out of reach and both exits from the room locked. The cracked leather chair into which he later collapsed was just tall enough to allow him to reach the ledge, but it was, inexplicably, firmly bolted to the floor on the opposite side of the room. Likewise the mahogany table with the solid gold candlesticks. Imagine his joy at the apparent abundance surrounding him, suddenly mocked by panic at his predicament, later transformed to utter despair when his embarrassed shouts fail to attract any attention. Alone. He was more alone-if such was possible-than he had ever wanted to be in someone else’s home. Or so his note tells us.

When this note arrived by post at the police department, there was considerable consternation and confusion. The note was simple and direct. It read “I am Robert Baker, a lowly thief. I have broken into the home of one Andrew Johnson esquire and now find myself embarrassingly stuck. This may be the first time in all of history that a thief has made his way into great abundance and had to call upon the authorities for assistance, but I pray you will not fail me.”

It is from this evidence and that of the house itself that we must construct our tale. Robert himself tells us nothing more. But what a peculiar situation in which he found himself. What must he have thought when first he noticed that the door to the front portico required a key from within as much as from without, and that the door to the rest of the palatial manor was also firmly locked? Did his mild frustration turn immediately to panic when he saw that his trusty rope, by which he had entered, was no longer where he had left it, or did panic wait until he discovered that none of the furniture was portable?

At what did he first wonder? His unique and generously appointed prison cell, or the strange foibles that would lead a man to bolt everything to the floor? Did he scream in rage or fear when he learned that the windows could be neither opened nor broken, even with the help of the heavy golden candlesticks?

When his struggles proved futile, he must have fallen, exhausted into the sumptuous leather of the chair. His mind must have dwelt upon his impossibly poor choice of targets on this Saturday evening. Not much later he may have reflected on his past, the trials and events which had brought him to this occupation and so to this impasse. He must have dwelt on the memory of his failed romance, on his ever more expensive efforts to win his true love. These expenses were the goad that drove him to progressively less respectable sources of income.

As he slumped deeper into the soft cushions of the leather chair, he will have eventually put past failures and dodgy choices aside and returned to his present situation. How was he to escape? Ever the lurking thought would have been could he bring anything with him when he left? Perhaps the candlesticks. Indeed, one was found in the bushes beyond his original port of entry, presumably having been thrown there in the hopes of later recovery.

His search of the room, later, when his mind had calmed, would reveal little of value, but perhaps some of interest. The drawers in the mahogany table would prove to contain various correspondences to his unknowing host, from which Robert may have learned his name. It may have interested Robert to learn in a letter from Mr. Johnson’s accountant that his host was the owner of a rather significant amount of stock in the firm for which Robert had until recently worked. Might Robert have felt slightly justified in burgling a man he held responsible for his current employment? These feelings of justification would quickly have faded into further resentment of the man who had first trapped Robert in a cycle he had admittedly begun himself, and now trapped him in the commission of his crime.

It is this discovery of correspondence that would give Robert an idea of a way out. Sitting back in his chair he must have pondered it nervously at length. Was his position so desperate that he ought to send a letter to the police and simply wait for them to arrive? Certainly this idea had the appeal of a clean break from his wicked ways, but did he really want to take that step?

Eventually he must have decided that he did, as the letter was written, signed, sealed, stamped and addressed. It is at that point that Robert either regretted his decision, or realized that to send his confession he would have to push it out through the mail slot and await the postman, entrusting his precious parcel to anyone who might walk by. He did not send it by this means. Instead his letter was placed on the table, apparently right where Mr. Johnson was accustomed to place his outgoing mail, and abandoned.

It is at this point that we lose Robert. The room gives us no further indication of what he might have done. He may have paced back and forth across the oriental silk rug endlessly. He may have sat in the familiar chair. He may have examined further the contents of the desk or the tapestries on the walls. It may be at this point that he threw the candlestick out the window. He may have screamed till his throat was raw. We cannot know. What is clear is that he was somehow gone when Mr. Johnson’s maid arrived at eight on Monday morning, and that he left behind both his letter and the candlestick. Perhaps the letter was forgotten, or possibly he was in fact driven to repentance by his strange experience. Perhaps God opened the door.

I began searching for him when I received his letter, and I intend to ask him.