Marjorie took the candle and went down the rickety stairs. A cold wind blew up from the vault-like dairy as she passed the flight of stone steps leading down to it. She felt almost like a thief herself, as she crossed the kitchen and made her way to the ancient fireplace. There was the old oak cupboard, the door of which had often attracted her attention by its quaint appearance.
The small cupboard was locked, but the key was in it. She turned it in the lock, and the carved door flew open. She hunted amongst the rubbish with which it was filled, but she found no box. Odds and ends of all descriptions were there, but nowhere could she discover the one thing she had come to seek.
Perhaps the letter was in the other cupboard. There was no key in that; but she found that she could open it with the key she had found in the first one. She unlocked it; and at first she thought that this second cupboard was empty; she could see nothing whatever in it.
However, as she felt along the shelf, she discovered in one corner of it, tightly jammed into the wall, and well out of sight, a small tin box. It took her some minutes to get it out, and then, by the light of her candle, she looked at it. It was tied up tightly with string, and the string was sealed in several places. She carried it upstairs and put it in the old woman's hands.
"Is that it?" she said.
"Yes, my dear, that's it. Will you open it?"
"I hardly like to do it," said Marjorie, "and yet—Did you say the name was Forty Screws? Do you think it possible, Mother Hotchkiss, that it could have been Fortescue?"
"Very likely, my dear; I never can remember names, only I thought of the screws in a box my old man used to keep 'em in. They're there yet, dear. And then I thought of forty of them. See? And I remembered it that way. But maybe I didn't hear her quite right, my dear."
Again Marjorie hesitated. But if it should be—if it was possible that it could be something that he had lost and that he wanted—something that he would be glad to have once more in his hands. Yes, she would open it; it could not be wrong—it surely could not be wrong.
She broke the seals and unfastened the string. Then it was easy to take off the lid of the box. Inside was a sheet of foolscap paper, closely covered with writing.