"But suppose he keeps it locked up?"
"Then locks, bolts, and bars must fly asunder." Mr. Nathan sang these words in a fine bass voice, and rising with a brisk air said, "You must get me into that room, Margaret."
"I must first get you into the house."
"I am coming with you now. The old gentleman is away, you say; no time like the present. We'll strike the iron while it's hot, my dear. I constitute myself your friend Gerald's tailor, and I am going to take his measure. As you have never peeped through the keyhole, I suppose you have never tried the handle of the door?"
"Never."
"I will take long odds it is unlocked. Come along, my dear."
At another time Margaret might have had scruples, but her interest in the stake she was playing for was so great that she was determined to leave no stone unturned to win the day. So she accompanied Mr. Nathan to Mr. Weston's house, where they found only Lucy--Gerald, for a wonder, being absent from her. Acting under Mr. Nathan's instruction, Margaret got rid of Lucy, so that the two conspirators might be said to have had the house to themselves.
"Now, my dear," said Mr. Nathan, "take me to the room. Of course you know where it is."
"Not for a certainty," replied Margaret, "but I suspect."
She led Mr. Nathan to a door at the end of a passage, the last room but one in which was Mr. Weston's study. She tried the handle of the door, and it turned within her hand; the door was unlocked.