The Washington herald., 1912-06-02
CHAPTER xvII1.
AnErnenrIre Ikey.

An Expensive Key.
TT was 3 o'clock in the morning when
Deane softly opened the door Of
= his bedroom in the Hotel Univer-
sal, and looked up and down the side
corridor There was no one in sight,
no sound Of any one passing in the
main corridor, few yards away. For
several moments he stood and listened
intently. Then he moved few yards
TO the left, and stopped opposite an
other door. He scrutinized the num-
ber-27. II was the number he sought.
He felt in his pocket for the keys
which he had collected from various
sources One BY one he tried them in
the lock In vain Not one fitted. He
tried the handle of the door softly.
There was no doubt about il. The door
was securely fastened He recognized
at once the failure of his FIRST attempt,
and returned to his room. His bed was
as yet undisturbed. He had not even
changed the tweed travelling suit in
which he had journeyed up from Rak-
ney. II was a fools errand, after all,
he thought. on which he had come. Yet
somehow or other, after his converse
ton with Ruby Sinclair, after. he had
realized how thorough her search would
indeed be, how convinced she was that
somewhere among the effects Of the
dead man lay the secret of wealth, he
had realized more completely than ever
before the danger in which he stood.
Granted, even, that no suspicion of COM
Plcity with Rowan attached to him, his
financial ruin would be none the less
complete If that paper should ever
come into the hands of people who un-
dersood its worth. Never had the sit
uation seemed so clear, so dangerous,
as that night after he had walked home
with the girl and turned his face again
toward the sea. Something in the very
desolation of the marshes seemed to
help thought, perhaps by the absence
of any distracting object. There was
a sense of breadth about the place As
he walked, with only the murmur of the
sea IN his ears, he saw things clearly.
He saw himself in the prime of life,
suddenly flung from the place to which
he had climbed, flung down to join all
those poor millions of strugglers whose
first foot has yet to be planted upon
the first rung of the great ladder. He
was too old to begin at the beginning.
There was no place for him down
among those on whom failure had al
ready placed her mark He could not
have borne it. To be stripped of his
riches, his name, the position Of which
he was without a doubt proud, to suf-
fer the breaking of his engagement. the
downfall of all his ambitiOns-the very
thought of it was intolerable And in
the deep silence of that night, as he lis
tened to the gurgling of the sea be-
low, and the faint movement of the
wind across the level land, he realized,
with a sudden pain at .his heart, the
danger in which he stood. In three
days the girl would be there. Scotland
Yard would send one of its myrmidons
with her. She would have free access
to all the dead mans belongings. She
would take with her a lawyer Every
scrap of paper the man had possessed.
every trifing object, would have its
value. The Little Anna Gold Mine was
world famous There would be no
chance of their overlooking a single
document bearing such a name
Before he had reached his strange
dwelling place he had come to a reso-
luton. Early next morning, stopping
only to leave a note telling the girl
London, he was of by the early train.
BY means of little diplomacy he had
succeeded in gaining a room within a
few doors of the one in which Sinclair
had been killed Only a few feet of
wall separated him from the room in
which, somewhere or other, was to be