I have been taken real sick, threatened with nervous prostration they say. I have had to go to Dr. ——'s sanatorium at Amityville. Don't know how long I'll be here. Now Mrs. Bradford, I'm in a fix because I've lost my keys. I keep duplicates in my safe, and so I'm sending my nephew to you with this to get them. He has wavy, blond hair and blue eyes, and nice white teeth. He slurs his rs a little when he talks like a child. So he will call you Mrs. B'adfo'd. These details will identify him to you.
Please let him into my room with your pass-key, and remain with him while he is there. Not but what he is a good boy, but boys will be boys you know. Don't let him see this. I have given him the combination of my safe. Inside is an old handbag with fifty dollars in it and a bunch of keys. He will give you thirty dollars of it for the rent, and ten for your trouble. Nothing else in the safe must be touched. Thanking you for your trouble,
Yours sincerely,
(Mrs.) ELIZABETH WATKINS.
P.S. I hope your rheumatism is better.
I made copies of the letters and the safe combination, and told Blondy to go ahead and do exactly as he had been told. I suspected from Lorina's care that the little safe would make interesting disclosures. However, I could get into it some other time. I was inclined to believe her story about the safety deposit box. Like all first-class liars she wove truth into her lies when she could. I was hoping, while scarcely daring to hope, that in a matter of such vital importance she would not dare trust any one short of the "boss" himself. If he would only come after the keys!
Next day I got the following letter from Blondy.
DEAR MR. ENDERBY:
I did everything just as the letter said. Mrs. Bradford was a suspicious kind of woman. She lived in a cellar kind of place below the street level. She asked me about a thousand questions before she would let me in. But I wasn't afraid of her. Suspicious people are generally easy to fool.*
* Pretty good observation for eighteen years old! B. E.
No. — East Fifty-Ninth street is an old building that is let out in stores and studios. Mrs. Mansfield's room was second floor rear. I couldn't look around much the old woman watched me so close. It was just an ordinary furnished room, nothing rich like the Lexington avenue house. There was an alcove with a bed in it. The only thing funny was the number of trunks standing around. I counted seven of them. They had covers and cushions on them.