The step on the stair

by Anna Katharine Green

I had rather not have walked down that third story hall up to and past the cozy corner. I did not want to see Wealthy’s rigid figure rise from her accustomed seat, or hear the well-remembered voices of the maids float up the spiral staircase. But I might have spared myself these anticipations. I met nobody. That end of the hall was silent. It was even cold; like my heart lying so heavily in my despairing breast.

XLVIII

A gloomy evening. I am speaking of its physical aspects. A lowering sky, a pelting rain with a wind that drove the lurching branches of the closely encircling trees against windows reeking with wet.

Every lamp in the electroliers from the ground floor to the top was alight. Edgar would have it so. As he swung into Uncle’s room, that too leaped vividly into view, under his hand. It was as of old; every disturbed thing had been restored to order; the bed, the picture; ah, the picture! the winged chair with its infinite memories, all stood in their proper places. Had Uncle been entering instead of ourselves, he would have found everything as he was accustomed to see it. Could it be that he was there, unseen, impalpable but strong as ever in love and purpose?

We were gathered at the foot of the bed.

“Let me have the key, Orpha.”

She put up her hand to her neck and then I perceived there the encircling glint of a very finely linked chain. As she drew this up a key came with it. As she allowed this to fall to the full length of the chain, it became evident that the latter was long enough to be passed over her head without unclasping. But it was with an indifferent eye I watched her do this and hand key and chain to Edgar, for a thought warm with recovered joy had come to me that had she not believed the key thus cherished to be the very one worn by her father she would never have placed it thus over her heart.

I think Edgar must have recognized my thought from the look he cast me as he drew the key from the chain and laid the latter on the table standing in its corner by the fire-place. Instantly I recognized his purpose; and watched his elbows for what I knew would surely take place before he turned around again. Always an adept at legerdemain it was a simple thing for him to substitute the key he had brought from New York for the one he had just received from Orpha; and in a moment he had done this and was facing us as before, altogether his most interesting self, ready for action and primed to succeed.

“Do you know,” he began, taking us all in with one sweeping glance from his proud eye, “I have felt for years, though I have never spoken of it, that Uncle had some place of concealment in this room inaccessible to anybody but himself. Papers which had not been sent to the bank and had not been put away in his desk would disappear between night and morning only to come into view again when wanted, and this without any explanation. I used to imagine that he hid these things in the drawer at the back of his bed, but I soon found out that this was not so, and, losing all interest in the matter, scarcely gave it another thought. But now its importance has become manifest; and what we must look for is a crack in or out of this room, along which we can slip the point of this key. It will find its home somewhere.” And he began to look about him.

I remained where I was but missed not one of his movements whether of eye or hand. The girls, on the contrary, followed him step by step, Lucy with an air of polite interest and Orpha eagerly if not hopefully. But the cracks were few in that carefully paneled room, and the moments sped by without apparent accomplishment. As Edgar’s spirits began to give way before repeated disappointment, I asked him to grant me a momentary trial with the key.