"Four."
"Damn it, man," snapped Sir Benjamin, "you're not on the witness-stand! Please be more explicit."
"A key to the outer door of the room. A key to the iron door giving on the balcony. A key to the vault. And, since you have already looked inside that vault," said Payne, biting his words, "I can tell you the rest. A small key to a steel box which was inside the safe."
"A box―" Sir Benjamin repeated. He glanced over his shoulder at Dr. Fell; his eyes had verified a. prediction, and there was a small, knowing, rather malicious smile in them. "A box. Which, we know, is gone…. What was inside the box?
Payne debated something in his mind. He had not unfolded his arms, and the fingers of one hand began to tap on his biceps.
"All that it was my duty to know," he answered after a pause, "is that there are a number of cards inside, each with the eighteenth-century Anthony Starberth's signature on it. The heir was instructed to take out one of those cards and present it to the executor next day, as proof that he had actually opened the box. Whatever else there may have been inside―" He shrugged.
"You mean you don't know?" asked Sir Benjamin.
"I mean that I prefer not to say."
"We will return to that in a moment," the chief constable said, slowly. "Four keys. Now, as to the word which opens the letter-lock… neither are we quite blind, Mr. Payne… as to the word: you are intrusted with that also?
A hesitation. "In a manner of speaking, I am," the lawyer returned, after considering carefully. "The word is engraved on the handle of the key which opens the vault. Thus some burglar might get a duplicate key made for the lock; but without the original key he was powerless."