“It is according to description,” I said.
To my astonishment he threw it down on the table before which we were standing.
“You are right,” he cried. “I had better read the letter first. It may enlighten us.”
Walking off to a window, he slipped behind a curtain and for a few minutes the earth for me stood still. When he reappeared, it was with the air and presence of the old Edgar, a little worse for the dissipation of the last few weeks, but master of himself and master of others,—relieved, happy, almost triumphant.
“It was found by Orpha,” he calmly announced. (It was not like him to be calm in a crisis like this.) “Found in a flower-pot which had been in Uncle’s room at the time of his death. She had carried it to hers and night before last, while trying to place it on a shelf, it had fallen from her hands to the floor, breaking apart and scattering the earth in every direction. Amid this débris lay the key with the chain falling loose from it. There is no doubt that it is the one we have been looking for; hidden there by a sick man in a moment of hallucination. It may lead to the will—it may lead to nothing. When shall we go?”
“Go?”
“To C——. We must follow up this clew. Somewhere in that room we shall find the aperture this key will fit.”
“Do you mean for us to go together?” I had a sensation of pleasure in spite of the reaction in my spirits caused by Edgar’s manner.
With an unexpected earnestness, he seized me by the arm and, holding me firmly, surveyed me inquiringly. Then with a peculiar twitch of his lips and a sudden loosening of his hand he replied with a short:
“I do.”