Was She Wrong?

[The Rookie Detective]

It means that either Kelly had a key and whoever said the key was lost, was a liar.

Or Mary Cox's account of seeing Kelly and Blotchy enter the room, needs to be scrutinised closer.

[c.d.]

It means that either Kelly had a key and whoever said the key was lost, was a liar.

Not necessarily. A lost key can be found.

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mary Cox witnessed Kelly and Blotchy go through the door.

No mention of Kelly going around to the broken window on the adjacent wall to reach through and open the door via the latch.

If the door locked automatically like a Spring lock, then Kelly needed a key to get in.

But the key was already lost....apparently.


So how did Kelly get into her room as witnessed by Mary Cox?

On some locks you have to flick some kind of stud or catch to make it lock when you close the door. Maybe Mary didn’t do this on that occasion?

[Herlock Sholmes]

The room locked automatically when Kelly left the room.

We are told the window was broken previously and that the room could be entered by reaching through the broken window and lifting the latch.

We are told the key was already lost.


Both of these are relevant.

The question is, what occurred first?


The lost key or the broken window?


If the key was lost first AND Mccarthy didn't have his own master key, then how did anyone get into the room?
Perhaps deliberately breaking the window was necessary to facilitate a lost key?

If the window was broken first and then the key, at what point did Kelly and Barnett realise they could enter the room by reaching through the already broken window?


The correct chronology is important to establish

I agree that chronology can be important RD but sometimes it’s impossible to establish one accurately without further information that’s unlikely to come to light so long after events. I’d suggest that either of your two options might have been the case.

If the key was lost first then Mary just might have had to put up with not being able to lock her room. Perhaps McCarthy had been promising to get her a new key but hadn’t gotten around to it or maybe he took the attitude “start paying off your arrears and I’ll get you another key”? Also we know that the window had been broken accidentally during an argument and that the key had been missing for some time (but we don’t know how long)

If the window was broken first it would have allowed Mary to have locked her door using the spring lock without the need for a key to unlock it.

So for me

Likeliest - the window was broken first then the key was lost.
Less likely - the key was lost, the window was broken accidentally, they realised that the door could be unlocked by reaching through the window.
Very unlikely imo - that they broke the window on purpose to facilitate the unlocking of the door.

[Lewis C]

The conversation of the last few pages flowed from the suggestion that McCarthy likely entered the room before the police got there. But isn't it the case that for that to be true, it must be that either McCarthy had a key or he knew how to open the latch through the open window? To reject both of those possibilities is to reject the possibility of McCarthy entering the room before the police got there, right?