"It will not interest you now," she continued, "to hear the reasons which have moved me to live here so long as I have done; that is a story which would take too long to tell you. All the preamble I wish to make to my remark is this; that the favour I shall ask of you is one that you can fulfil without the slightest injury to your honour. On the contrary it will be an act of kindness and humanity which no one in the world could object to."
"I feel sure of that," I interposed with a bow, "you need not say another word on that point."
I was really quite falling in love with the old lady, and her old-world courtesy of manner.
"I will then come straight to the point," she proceeded, taking a curious key from her pocket; it was a key with a finely-wrought handle in which was the letter C.
"I want you to open a secret drawer in this room, which, since its hiding-place was contrived, has been known only to me and to one other, the workman who made it, a Belgian long since dead. Please take this key."
I took it.
"Now," she continued, "cast your eyes round this room, and see if you can detect where the secret safe is hidden."
I looked round the room as she wished, and could see nothing which gave me the slightest clue to it.
"No," I said, "I can see nothing which has any resemblance to a safe."
She laughed, and, rising from her seat, turned to the fireplace and touched a carved rose in the frame of the handsome over-mantel; immediately the looking-glass moved up by itself in its frame, disclosing, apparently, the bare wall.