“Have you heard from him?”
“Yes, I got a message from him yesterday, asking me to call at his office, but—but I did not go.”
I wanted to inquire why, but felt it unwise to divert his attention from the main issue for the mere purpose of satisfying my curiosity.
“Then,” I declared, “these articles must belong to you. They were handed to me under the supposition that I was the man to whom they were addressed. But, having some doubts about this myself, I have brought them to you in the same state in which I received them—that is, intact. Edgar, there is a key in this package. I know this to be so because Mr. Miller said so particularly. We are both interested in a key. If this is the one our uncle wore about his neck I should be allowed to inspect it as well as yourself.”
I had expected rebuff—an assertion of rights which might culminate in an open quarrel. But to my amazement the first gleam of light I had discerned on his countenance since the inquest came with that word.
“Give me it,” he cried. “I am willing that you should see me open it.”
I laid down the package before him, but before he had more than touched it, I placed the letter beside it, with the intimation that perhaps it would be better for him to read that first.
In an instant the package was pushed aside and the letter seized upon. The action and the glance he gave it made my heart stand still. The fervor and the devouring eagerness thus displayed was that of a lover.
Had his affection for Orpha already reached the point of passion?
Meanwhile, he had thrust the letter out of sight and taken up the small package in which possibly lay our mutual fate. As he loosened the string and pulled off the wrappers, I bent forward, and in another moment we were gazing at a very thin key of the Yale type he held out between us on his open palm.