"It must be here—it must be in this room," says the lady, getting wild with the terror of losing. "I'm sure—positive—that I went straight to the shoe-bag and slipped it in there. And now I can't find it, and I must have it before I go out this afternoon for—for a very special reason. My daughter Evelyn will be home to-morrow and—why don't you look for it?"
"What is it, ma'am?"
"I told you once. My key—a little flat key that locks—a box I've got," she finishes distrustfully.
"Have you looked in the shoe-bag, ma'am?"
"Why, of course I have, you little stupid. I want you to hunt other places where I can't easily get. There are other places I might have put it, but I'm positive it was in the shoe-bag."
Well, I looked for that key. Where? Where not? I looked under the rubbish in the waste-paper basket; Mrs. Kingdon often fooled thieves by dropping it there. I pulled up the corner of the carpet and looked there—it was loose; it had often been used for a hiding-place. I looked in Miss Evelyn's boot and in her ribbon box. I emptied Mrs. Kingdon's full powder box. I climbed ladders and felt along cornices. I looked through the pockets of Mrs. Kingdon's gowns—a clever bell-boy it takes to find a woman's pocket, but even the real masculine ones among 'em are half feminine; they've had so much to do with women.
I rummaged through her writing-desk, and, in searching a gold-cornered pad, found a note from Moriway hidden under the corner. I hid it again carefully—in my coat pocket. A love-letter from Moriway, to a woman twenty years older than himself—'tain't a bad lay, Tom Dorgan, but you needn't try it.
At first she watched every move I made, but later, as her headache grew worse, she got desperate. So then I put my hand down into the shoe-bag and found the key, where it had slipped under a fold of cloth.
Do you suppose that woman was grateful? She snatched it from me.
"I knew it was there. I told you it was there. If you'd had any sense you'd have looked there first. The boys in this hotel are so stupid."