He kissed her and departed. He must get home, and quietly think matters over. Suppose the fellow had bolted for good and all? What was to be done in that event? It required careful consideration, and should have it at once.
He called at the bank on the way home, to get his keys. The parcel, tied with string and sealed with his own seal, was delivered to him just as he had left it. He drove to his house, where he found several letters awaiting him. Like a good man of business, he set to work to dispose of all lighter matters, before addressing himself to the consideration of the weightier. He opened and glanced at the letters; he took up the parcel, once more examined the seal, tore off the paper, unlocked the wallet, and spread the keys on the table. All right. Was it? Surely there was something wrong?
What could it be?
He puzzled over the keys again and again, but without result. He seemed to be constantly on the verge of detecting the deficiency, whatever it was; but the clearness and readiness of his thinking powers had of late in great measure departed, and it continued to escape him. At last he thought that he must be the victim of a nervous delusion, and with an effort, turned his thoughts to other matters. He would first, according to custom, visit his diamonds; then he would answer such of the letters as required a reply; then he would be at leisure to reflect upon the next step to be taken with regard to his son-in-law. And once more the dominant wish rose in his mind, filling it like a poisonous mist.
He took his lantern and the keys, and went to the strong-room, which he entered, closing the doors as usual carefully behind him. What was it, as he turned towards the safe, that sent him staggering back to the wall, his eyes starting from his head, his hair crisping with horror? The drawer full of papers lay on the table. The iron semicircular handle projected from the orifice. It was in an upright position—it had not been turned to the horizontal one. And the safe was closed.
He saw the whole sequence of events in one agonising second of time, as drowning men are said to review instantaneously the whole course of their past lives. It was the absence of the duplicate keys which had puzzled him in the study; and their absence at once explained the absence of Ferrard. He now remembered how, while at breakfast, just before leaving the house, he had placed all his keys, as he had then supposed, into his wallet; how he had then and there put the locked wallet into his pocket, and had driven straight to the bank, where, without opening it, he had made it into a parcel, sealed it with his signet, and handed it to the manager, taking his receipt. The parcel had been given back to him exactly as he had left it—of that he had assured himself. Only one thing could have happened. The duplicates had never been in the wallet at all. Unused to their presence, he had doubtless left them behind; and the wretched man whom he had so insanely trusted had stolen them, had the same night entered the strong-room and the safe, and——
What would he have to face, when that massy door should glide away? The dingy face of the picture, guardian of the deadly trap and its awful secret, seemed to sneer and gibe at him, daring him to seek an answer to the question.
Stay! There was one hope. He might have carried away the keys in his hand or his pockets, and dropped them in the street, or left them on the bank counter. If this were so, some common marauder might have met with his deserts—or, if he had recently entered, might even now be waiting to make a dash for liberty!
He approached the door, and listened. All was silent. He called in a quavering voice, which rang weirdly in the vaulted roof, ‘Who is there?’ No reply—no movement.
He sat down in the one chair, and tried to remember whether on that fatal night he had withheld from his guest the ultimate secret, of the necessity for half-turning the handle before withdrawing it. In vain. All was confused and dream-like. Either he had disclosed the secret, or he had not. If he had not——