THE DUPLICATE KEY

David Curtis balanced the Yale key in his hand in deep thought.

“And this key was the only object in Meredith’s safe deposit box?” he asked.

“It was.” Hollister lighted a cigar and puffed vigorously. “Damned odd, isn’t it? Why did Meredith preserve the key so carefully?”

“It might have been left there accidentally.”

“True.” The lawyer pointed to the inventory sheet lying on the window ledge. “That notation reads: ‘Contents of safe deposit box belongs to.’” He folded the paper and replaced it in his wallet. “What do you make of it? There were no ‘contents-’”

“Except this key,” ended Curtis. “But a key has to belong to a—lock.” He smiled. “It is obviously up to you, Hollister, to locate the lock.”

“You think—” Hollister glanced at him keenly as he paused.

“That behind the lock this key fits we may find the missing contents of the safe deposit,” Curtis explained. “I say may, remember, not will; and at that it is only a shot in the dark.”

Hollister looked dissatisfied. “How am I to go about it?” he grumbled. “Inspector Mitchell and I have been carefully through every desk and drawer in Meredith’s bedroom and the library. We have found nothing, documents or otherwise, except what is ordinarily in the possession of a very wealthy man. Meredith, judging superficially, left his financial affairs in good shape.”

Curtis did not answer at once. “This key, you say, is marked ‘duplicate’,” he began finally. “Do you recall seeing its original on Meredith’s bunch of keys?”

“I don’t remember it,” admitted Hollister. “But then there were a number of Yale keys on his ring.”

“Did you find a lock for every key that was there?”

“A good point!” exclaimed Hollister, his face clearing. “But I don’t believe that I can answer your question offhand. Mitchell has the keys. Let’s see if he is still on the premises.”

Laying down his cigar Hollister hastened across the room and over to the house telephone. It took him a second or two to get an answer to his ring. “Hello—hello!” he called. “Who is this? Fernando?” finally distinguishing the latter’s broken English. “Where is Inspector Mitchell? At the lodge? Hurry over and ask him to return here, Fernando. Tell him that Mr. Hollister wishes to see him. Hold on, Fernando!” as the Filipino started to hang up his earpiece. “Bring Inspector Mitchell to Mr. John Meredith’s bedroom.”

Replacing his receiver on the house telephone hook, Hollister found Curtis had crossed the room and was waiting for him at the door. As the two men stepped into the corridor and started for Meredith’s bedroom, Gretchen flitted down the corridor leading to the servants’ quarters, paused for a second to cast an uneasy glance at the backs of the two men and then, doubling on her tracks, slipped unheard along the corridor in the direction of Lucille Hull’s bedroom. She missed, by a fraction of a second, encountering Inspector Mitchell and Fernando as they came up the circular staircase. The Filipino had acted so promptly on Hollister’s order that he had caught the Inspector just as he was stepping into a police car driven by Detective Sergeant Brown, which had been parked under the trees near the entrance to Ten Acres.

Inspector Mitchell listened with close attention to Hollister’s account of finding the inventory sheet with its notation regarding a safe deposit box and the discovery of the “duplicate” key.

“Is that the only box Meredith had at the bank?” he asked.

“No,” replied Hollister. “He had another, which we opened to-day in the presence of the proper authorities. It contained the securities, jewelry, and other valuables listed in Meredith’s memorandum of special bequests. We checked it off this morning and all were accounted for.”

“Then you think this notation refers to the box holding only the duplicate key?” asked Mitchell.

“That is my idea, yes,” answered Hollister.

“Did you think to ask the bank officials when Meredith rented the, shall we say, second box?” broke in Curtis.

Hollister nodded his head vigorously. “Yes. The box containing the securities he has had for going on ten years, while this smaller box he rented only four weeks ago to-day.” Hollister looked squarely at Mitchell. “The box rents for twenty-five dollars a year. Now, why should Meredith pay that amount and place only a duplicate key in it?”

“He may have intended to place other valuables there,” suggested the Inspector, shaking several bunches of keys out of a chamois bag which he removed from an inside pocket. He spread the keys on the table before them, and then, taking them up one by one, he matched each key with the one bearing the linen tag with its single word, “duplicate,” written plainly upon it. The Inspector was thorough in his examination and Curtis had time to become impatient before he spoke.

“This Yale key is unlike any we have here.” Mitchell spoke with more gravity; he had not at first taken Hollister’s comments on the importance of the duplicate key very seriously. “And these keys are all that we found in this bedroom, in the library and in the pockets of Meredith’s suits of clothes.”

“Did you look in the pocket of Meredith’s pajamas?” questioned Curtis.

“Wasn’t a thing in it, except a handkerchief,” replied Mitchell. “If you’ll let me keep this key, Mr. Hollister, I’ll have Sergeant Brown and an assistant search for its mate.”

“And the lock which it fits,” put in Curtis swiftly, as the Inspector, taking Hollister’s permission for granted, slipped the keys back in the chamois bag, keeping, however, the key under discussion in his right hand.

“We will institute a thorough search, don’t fear,” responded Mitchell, none too well pleased with Curtis’ tone. He brushed by the blind surgeon and was the first to step into the hall, the others just behind him. “Where is that wretched parrot of Mr. Meredith’s? It isn’t in his old bedroom.”

His question was overheard by Fernando, who had loitered near the head of the circular staircase, one eye on the closed door behind which the three men were conferring and the other on the front hall beneath.

“Mees Anne has Ruffles,” he volunteered, coming toward them. “The bird, she cry so much, an’ Mees Anne say ‘Fernando, bring Ruffles to my room.’”

“Oh!” Mitchell scratched his head in some doubt. “Well, see that the bird isn’t taken out of the house, Fernando. Say, didn’t you look after Mr. Meredith?”

“I took care of his clothes and his room, yes, sir,” explained the Filipino. “Always I run errands for him, and I wait at the table under Herman, yes, sir.”

“Do you recognize this key?” As he spoke Inspector Mitchell thrust it almost under Fernando’s nose. “Do you know what it unlocks?”

Fernando turned the key over and over, his expression inscrutable as he fingered the linen tag. “I no see it before,” he stated, handing it back.

“Have you seen one like it?” asked Curtis, breaking his silence.

“Perhaps,” was Fernando’s noncommittal reply.

“Mr. Meredith kept always the keys under his pillow at night; sometimes,” looking first at one man and then the other, “Mr. Meredith forget in the morning and send me for them.”

“Do you identify this positively as like one Mr. Meredith had?” persisted Mitchell.

“Honorable sir,” Fernando dropped back a step to let Mitchell pass, and bowed low to the Inspector, “it look like most any key on Mr. Meredith’s—what you call it—bunch? You see for yourself; you got keys.”

Mitchell took his last words for a statement, but to Curtis’ keen ears they sounded like an interrogation.

“So you don’t know what this key unlocks?” The Inspector held it out for a second before pocketing it. “All right, Fernando, trot along.” He turned to Hollister. “Good-by, sir; I’ll be over later in the afternoon.”

“Wait,” Curtis laid a detaining hand on Mitchell’s shoulder. “About that scalpel—” He hesitated. “Have you learned anything?”

“Not yet, but I am dead certain that it was used to kill Meredith—”

Hollister started forward. “You have found the weapon?” he exclaimed, running down the steps after Mitchell. “How—where—”

“Come along and I’ll show it to you,” called Mitchell over his shoulder, and not waiting for the others to catch up with him, went toward the front door. Curtis hesitated a second, then, tucking his cane under one arm and grasping the banisters, he hastened to keep up with his more active companions.

As their heads disappeared out of sight down the staircase, Fernando drew a long breath. With a prolonged glance up and down the silent corridor, he walked to Mrs. Marshall Meredith’s boudoir door and knocked softly upon it. At his second tap he heard Mrs. Meredith’s curt, “Come in,” and stepped inside, closing the door at his back with care not to let it slam.

“You sent for me, madam?” he asked.

“Yes.” Mrs. Meredith pushed her chair back from her desk and regarded Fernando through her gold lorgnettes. “I have already told Herman and the other servants that by the terms of Mr. Meredith’s will my daughter inherits Ten Acres,” she stated, having seen in her swift glance about the boudoir that the communicating door between it and Anne’s bedroom was tightly closed. “Miss Anne is still a minor and I am her legal guardian. Thus, you understand, Fernando, that retaining your present situation in this house depends upon your fidelity to me.”

“Yes, madam.”

“So far I have found you satisfactory. I fail to see why you hesitate now.”

Fernando, standing respectfully before her, shifted from one foot to the other, and his yellow face reddened under her angry gaze.

“Do you understand?” demanded the irate woman, a second time.

“Yes, madam. You wish me to find a certain key in Mr. Meredith’s bedroom.”

Fernando drew a step nearer. “The detective man has one like it.” Mrs. Meredith paled under her rouge. “And you did not get it from him?”

“But have patience, please, madam.” Fernando was taking pains with his English and spoke with care. “It may be difficult, madam.”

“I suppose that means you need a bribe.” Mrs. Meredith unclasped her handbag and handed the servant a gold piece. “Have you anything to report?”

“No, madam,” humbly, then as an afterthought, “Herman tell me that Mr. Armstrong try to see Mees Anne alone.”

Their gaze clashed. Mrs. Meredith was the first to speak.

“Thank you, Fernando. You may go.”

But Fernando did not stir. “Please, madam, will Mees Anne marry the blind doctor?”

Mrs. Meredith looked at him in marked displeasure. “My daughter’s affairs are not a topic for discussion,” she stated, frigidly. “That is all, Fernando.”

As the hall door clicked shut on the servant’s retreating figure, Mrs. Meredith turned back to her desk with a heavy frown. Could it be possible that her willing tool was growing restive?

Fernando reached the first floor in time to open the front door as the bell sounded. A stranger stood on the threshold.

“May I see Mr. Samuel Hollister?” he asked. “I was told at his office that he was here.”

Looking past the stranger Fernando descried Hollister coming up the graveled walk accompanied by Doctor Curtis.

“Here he is,” he exclaimed. “Behind you, sir. How better you go join him?”

With a somewhat surprised glance at the Filipino, the stranger wheeled around and going down the veranda steps reached Hollister and Curtis as they paused under the pergola.

“Mr. Hollister?” he asked, raising his hat. “My name is Elliott—Frank Elliott, of Chicago. Your clerk sent me out here as I have only a brief time in Washington.” His slight hesitation was but momentary. “I understand that you were John Meredith’s lawyer and are now an executor of his estate under the terms of his will.”

“Your information is correct,” replied Hollister, as the other stopped. “Let me introduce Doctor David Curtis, Mr. Elliott.”

Elliott looked with some curiosity at the blind surgeon as they shook hands.

“I must see you, Mr. Hollister, on a matter touching Meredith’s estate,” he said. “It is of vital importance—”

“Pardon me,” broke in Curtis. “I had better withdraw.”

“No,” objected Hollister, before Elliott could speak. “Doctor Curtis is engaged to marry Miss Anne Meredith, the chief beneficiary under her uncle’s will; therefore—”

“I can speak before him,” finished Elliott. He stroked his clean-shaven chin and cleared his throat nervously. Evidently he found difficulty in broaching the reason of his presence at Ten Acres, or so Curtis concluded from his rapid breathing.

“I am one of a group of men,” began Elliott, his hand dropping from his chin to his watch fob, which he stroked with restless fingers. “We are, frankly, fighting prohibition and have pooled our interests.”

“By interests you mean money?” asked Curtis quietly, and Elliott eyed him more keenly; he had before centered his attention on the lawyer, and had addressed his remarks exclusively to him.

“Yes, money,” he admitted. “This money we placed in John Meredith’s hands to bank for us.”

“When?” demanded Curtis.

“To be exact it was just four weeks ago to-day.” replied Elliott. “I came on here and personally saw Meredith place the money in his safe deposit box.” Hollister stared at Elliott, his excitement rising. Curtis let his cane swing from one hand to the other as he drew a step closer to the stranger.

“Do you recall the number of the safe deposit box and the bank?” he asked.

“The last, yes—it was the Metropolis Bank. But Meredith did not tell me the number of the box,” responded Elliott. “I do know, however, that he rented it that morning expressly to hold our funds.” Twice Hollister opened his mouth to speak, then glanced in doubt at his blind companion. Elliott, also, was staring at Curtis and it would have taken a more astute person than the little lawyer to read his expression.

“Mr. Elliott,” Curtis lowered his voice to a confidential pitch, “have you any objection to telling us the amount of money you placed in John Meredith’s care?”

“I have no objection at all,” declared Elliott, modifying somewhat his hearty voice. “It was one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”