“But not with one hand,” said Miss Cornelia, with her gaze now directed
at the row of tall closets around the walls of the room. “When that
detective comes back I may have a surprise party for him,” she
muttered, with a gleam of hope in her eye.
Dale explained the situation to Jack.
“Aunt Cornelia thinks the money’s still here.”
Miss Cornelia snorted.
“I _know_ it’s here.” She started to open the closets, one after the
other, beginning at the left. Bailey saw what she was doing and began
to help her.
Not so Lizzie. She sat on the floor in a heap, her eyes riveted on the
Unknown, who in his turn was gazing at Miss Cornelia’s revolver on the
hamper with the intent stare of a baby or an idiot fascinated by a
glittering piece of glass.
Dale noticed the curious tableau.
“Lizzie—what are you looking at?” she said with a nervous shake in her
voice.
“What’s _he_ looking at?” asked Lizzie sepulchrally, pointing at the
Unknown. Her pointed forefinger drew his eyes away from the revolver;
he sank back into his former apathy, listless, drooping.
Miss Cornelia rattled the knob of a high closet by the other wall.
“This one is locked—and the key’s gone,” she announced. A new flicker
of interest grew in the eyes of the Unknown. Lizzie glanced away from
him, terrified.
“If there’s anything locked up in that closet,” she whimpered, “you’d
better let it stay! There’s enough running loose in this house as it
is!”
Unfortunately for her, her whimper drew Miss Cornelia’s attention upon
her.
“Lizzie, did you ever take that key?” the latter queried sternly.
“No’m,” said Lizzie, too scared to dissimulate if she had wished. She
wagged her head violently a dozen times, like a china figure on a
mantelpiece.
Miss Cornelia pondered.
“It may be locked from the inside; I’ll soon find out.” She took a wire
hairpin from her hair and pushed it through the keyhole. But there was
no key on the other side; the hairpin went through without obstruction.
Repeated efforts to jerk the door open failed. And finally Miss
Cornelia bethought herself of a key from the other closet doors.
Dale and Lizzie on one side—Bailey on the other—collected the keys of
the other closets from their locks while Miss Cornelia stared at the
one whose doors were closed as if she would force its secret from it
with her eyes. The Unknown had been so quiet during the last few
minutes, that, unconsciously, the others had ceased to pay much
attention to him, except the casual attention one devotes to a piece of
furniture. Even Lizzie’s eyes were now fixed on the locked closet. And
the Unknown himself was the first to notice this.
At once his expression altered to one of cunning—cautiously, with
infinite patience, he began to inch his chair over toward the wicker
clothes hamper. The noise of the others, moving about the room, drowned
out what little he made in moving his chair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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