When he saw Billy an expression of relief came into his face.
“I’m glad to see you, William,” he said. “Stand in the door a minute and pretend I’m not talking to you.”
Billy, wondering what could have happened, turned his back on Tom, and waited.
“William,” said Tom, in an almost sepulchral tone, “the great key is gone.”
Billy nearly jumped out the door. But, remembering that he was on duty to look after things, he said:
“You watch while I try to find it.”
Even Billy’s young eyes could not find the key. He searched till he was sure, then he said:
“I’ll look again, Mr. Murphy, after you go out to the gate.”
The key was one of Mr. Prescott’s special treasures, for it was the very one that his grandfather had when he first built the mill. Several times the door had been almost made over, but the key had never been changed.
It was an iron key—three times as long as Billy’s longest finger, with a bow in which three of his fingers and almost a fourth could lie side by side, and its bit was more than half as long as his thumb. It was so large that Mr. Prescott sometimes called lame Tom “the keeper of the great key.”