As Tom Brownell crossed the rug that lay before the outer door of the Lawton apartment, something between it and the tiled flooring slid under the pressure of his foot. Checking his first impulse to pass on and get out as quickly as possible, he turned back, even though the door itself was open, and, lifting the corner of the rug, picked up two thin keys, one smaller than the other, that were joined by a steel ring. Accustomed to fit two and two together rapidly, he involuntarily glanced at the spring lock on the door to see if they belonged to it, but found it of a different pattern. Stepping outside, the better to see by the hanging electric light, he found that the keys bore no name or mark other than figures, probably the factory number of keys of a fine make. Turning to Lucy, who had already come into the main hall and, half closing the door behind her, was watching him, he muttered a hasty apology for his curiosity concerning the keys, saying: “To me unfamiliar keys have always had a strange fascination, for all my life I have expected to find one that would unlock a mystery. These probably belong to some of Mrs. or Miss Lawton’s possessions—a travelling bag or jewel case. Will you please take charge of them? And thank you for showing me the way out,” turning up the corridor as he spoke. “You needn’t thank me for showing you the way, as you evidently don’t know it,” said Lucy; “that is, unless you have professional reasons for going down in the luggage lift with trunks, baby wagons, clothes-baskets, and scrubbing pails. No, you needn’t raise your eyebrows, I’m not English or infected with Anglomania either, simply I’m to the point, and _luggage lift_ is a much more smooth and pronounceable expression than baggage elevator, don’t you think? “To the right—there you are! Not running? Why, the thing was all right when I came in not an hour ago, but I’ve noticed that the power has a way of giving out, or the machinery needs oiling, about the time the man might be supposed to want an afternoon nap. You’ll have to walk downstairs. Good afternoon. Oh, by the way, do you happen to know Charlie Ashton? I beg his pardon, _Carolus_, though I only promised to call him that at his studio teas. He had a chum at college, he said, with a literary and reformatory streak, who a year ago had cut away from his father’s business, and incidentally his own fortune, and was climbing into journalism, not in at the top story, but up the cellar stairs. I’ve rather forgotten his name. He doesn’t chance to be you, does he?” “I’m afraid he does, and that Ashton has guyed me unmercifully to you, in spite of all the good turns that he has done me. But as I am myself, you must be his cousin, Miss Dean, of whom he talks so much at the club. I did not quite catch what name Miss Lawton said.”