She took no notice at first. He repeated his question. She looked as though she could have struck him.
“Key!” she echoed scornfully. “What does it matter? Why do you ask me about keys at a moment like this? There’s only one thing that matters—he must be saved. You must do something. Take back something you have said. Of course, I know he did it, or I should be with him at this moment. He’s not bad. He mustn’t be killed. I—oh, my God!”
She began to sob again. He laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“Listen,” he said, “I will do all that I can, I promise you, but you must tell me what this key is. I have a reason for asking.”
“It came from some safe-makers about eleven months ago,” she answered wearily. “They said it was the duplicate which my uncle had ordered the last time he was in London.”
He removed the chain from her neck, crossed the room and entered the little annex, the door of which, since the burglary, had stood open, and where, in a corner, a rusty old safe had been fitted into the wall. At the first turn the key slipped in and the lock yielded. He swung the door open. In the darkness there was the gleam of a bulky white envelope. He took it out. It was addressed to Claire Endacott. He examined it for a moment. Then he closed the safe and returned to the library.
“Miss Endacott,” he announced, “that key of yours has solved something which has puzzled me for a very long time. It has opened the old safe here. The other key to it was inside. This letter, as you see, is for you. I have always felt convinced that your uncle, before his death, had succeeded in making some sort of a translation of the document which he possessed, indicating the whereabouts of the jewels. This is probably the solution.”
She flung the letter away and, but for his intervention, would have trampled it with her foot upon the floor.
“Do something!” she begged. “You must stop what is going to happen. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right!”
He rescued the letter and himself broke the seal. She snatched it from his fingers.