“Then there must be two keys, or else the door was locked with a skeleton key,” said Harry.
“No! No!” suddenly exclaimed the stricken man. He wrote rapidly.
“There is only one key, and no skeleton key would fit this lock,” which was easy to believe when its ponderous nature was taken into consideration.
“Um!” mused Harry, when this had been read to those in the room. “Then it’s simmering down to a question of who it was knocked him out, and how they managed to lock the door after they had left with the treasure, and how they got the key back inside.”
“That’s the question,” assented Bob.
“But why should the thief go to such trouble to get the key back in the room, after he had left Mr. Beegle unconscious?” asked Ned. “That’s what I can’t understand.”
“He probably did it to throw suspicion off,” suggested Bob. “By leaving the key close to Mr. Beegle’s hand he might have thought his victim would come to the conclusion that he hadn’t been robbed at all—or else that in a sort of dream or sleep-walking act he had taken away his own valuables and hidden them.”
“Of course that’s possible,” said Chief Duncan.
“No! No!” cried Hiram, with more power than he had yet spoken since he was stricken. Once more he quickly wrote:
“I did not hide that box. Why should I? It was mine and is yet, no matter who has it. Someone sneaked in here while I was looking at my treasure and overpowered me with some powerful drug, I believe—some sort of gas, maybe the kind they used in the Great War. When I toppled over they came in, got the box, went out and locked me in.”