SHORT STORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2320, 18 August 1898, Page 42

SHORT STORY.

AN OLD COBWEBBED KEY.

It was a winter's evening, and Lawrence Masterton was pacing to and fro in front of a cheorful fire, greatly agitated. A run on the bank would mean for him speedy ruin ; and to-night it seemed to him that nothing except a miracle could save the house.

Masterton's Bank stood at a cornel of the market-plate in Ditcliiord-le-Marsh. It was old and double-fronted, having been the counting-house and family residence of the Mastertons for a century and more. Young Masterton, sole proprietor of the bank through the recent death of a distant relation, had taken up his bachelor quarters in a set of rooms over the office.

While he still paced to and fro tlje post- ; man's knock fell upon his ear. He was alone in the great house, and he now went down into the hall to see what the postman had brought him. j There was only one letter of any apparent ' importance, and he sank into his armchair j before the fire to read it leisurely. It bore • a foreign postmark, and ran as follows : —

"When you dismissed me from your employ I plotted to break your bank. Hut I have relented. You will presently be ! threatened with a crisis, and it is in my j powei alone to avert disaster. I have en- i trusted my secret to one Helena Lightfoot, 1 in whom you may place implicit confidence, i The key to great wealth hangs on a nail j beside the window in the disused stable J across the yard. Place it unhesitatingly in ! her hand. She will show you the way." ;

The letter was written in a woman s neat caligraphy, and was signed by another almost illegibly But Masterton "recogni&ed the signature as " John Grhmvood," that of the dismissed clerk

The banker read the letter again and again. A key that opened the way to great . •wealth ! The thing appeared like a dream. It was absurd. Besides, Masterton had no faith in the man. He had been confiden- ' tiaJ clerk in the house during the late ' banker's time.

At the moment of the old man's sudden decease the frauds the fellow had practised upon the house had been discovered ; he had absconded, gone from bad to -worse ; a?id his end -as the address upon the letter showed — had probably come about in hospital at Citiro.

And yet what motive could the man have had for dictating this deposition if it had no shadow of truth? Jt was hard to regard a deathbed confession as a thing made with- , out rhyme or reason. Could it be pure hallucination, uttered in a delirious moment V Mrfstcrton crushed the letter in his hand with the thought to cast it into the fire. ' It seemed utter waste of time to puzzle over such {(..communication! He had risen from his chair, had raised his hand to fling the letter ; iuto the flames, when a sudden thought checked him. "Stop! Why not?" Masterton stepped towards the door, and stood with his hand upon it, hesitating, i Then he went resolutely downstairs, and, j taking up the hand-lamp from the hall j table, unlocked a back door at the end of ' the passage, and peered into the night. There was the little quadrangular yard, with the disused stable half 3 dozen paces across it. It was a place into which he had never yet had time or curiosity to enter. He had so recently taken up his re&idence at the bank, so many urgent affairs had needed his attention, that there were many rooms in the old house even which he had never yet thought to explore. He now lifted the stable-latch, and, find- j ing the door unfastened, went in. He cast j a rapid glance round the place. It contained a loose-box and a couple of stalls. It was the neglected, dust-ridden abode of spiders a.nd rats. There was the small, barred window with diamond-shaped panes facing the door at which he had entered. Masterton stepped towards this window and examined every corner of it with grow- i ing interest. . | "On a nail beside the stable window! 1 j No, not a sign of it! Why— what's this?" As the exclamation escaped him Masterton bent the light still nearer. The framework on both sides of the window was deep in cobwebs and dust ; and at first sight the faint outline of what was seemingly a key hanging upon a nail, beneath the spidery accumulation, had escaped his notice. Masterton hesitated to put his hand upon it. What motive, in fact, could he yet have for removing the key from its safe surroundings V The mystery as to the lock it could turn must remain a mystery until Helen Lightfoot— if such a being existed— should come to unravel it. But a sense of intense cuncsity had taken a hold upon Lawrence Masterton. He suddenly felt a keen impulse to lift the key j from the nail. He had stretched out his j arm, his fingers were within an inch of the ; cobwebs, when his touch was arrested by I the sound of a loud knock at the hall door. The young banker hastened to answer the summons. On the doorstep stood a girl, j breathless from haste, her handsome dark eyes raised to his with a look of eagerness. |

11. "Mr Mastorl-on?" she asked. "That is my name." - Mine," she said, " is Helena Ligntfoot.

"Will you come in?" Masterton led the way upstairs; and when he had placed a chair for his visitor beside the fire, he said : " Your letter from Cairo only reached me an hour ago."' Helena Lightfoot sat down. "I ought to apologise," she said, "for calling atso late an hour. But this matter is urgent." "Most urgent," he acquiesced. ( "My whole fortune— the fate of this bank "' >( Yes ; I know everything. I know," she said, "more than you imagine. Pray tell me! was the key in the place indicated?" " Yes ; hidden among cobwebs," was the reply. "I found it at the moment you knocked." She rose quickly. " Will you trust me to show the way? I believe I can! Have you the key?" "No; I left it in its place." 'Left it out there? That .was unwise*."

"Why?" She looked up quickly into his face. "Aren't you afraid of its being stolen?" "Stolen! How?"

Ho ha-d turned to cross towards the door, and while speaking he started round with an incipient look of dread which her words had awakened.

" I told you that I knew more about this affair — this key and its mystery" — she yiid, " than you would imagine ! I repeat, it was unwise."

" But," he argued, " could the key be in a place of greater safety? " " It couldn't be in a less safe place tonight ! "

"Indeed? And yet," said Masterton, '' it has escaped attention up till now, and "

" That's true ; but its place of concealment is now known," said the girl, " known to others besides ourselves ! It ia known to one whom I greatly mistrust. Tlia mon may rob you — steal that key, Mr Masterfcon, at any moment."

The banker looked at his beautiful visitor with intense concern.

"What, man?" he asked,

"Let me explain! I'm a nurse," said Helena, "in the hospital at Cairo, and John Grimwood — for whom I wrote the deposition that reached you by post to-night — isnow dead."

"Well?" Masterton eagerly asked

"In "a bed at Grimwood's side — feigning, sound sleep while the deposition was being made — was a wounded man."

" Ah ! I begin " " His name is Crickmay," said the girl, " and I have found out that he overheard all that passed. I've reason to dread that he contemplates making the attempt to carry oft 1 your gold to-night ! " Masterton waited to hear no more, although he would have been well content, except for the urgency of the affair which had suddenly thrown them together, to have Availed any length of time beside the hearth with this fascinating girl. At the foot of the stairs he stopped for an instant. "One question! How comes it," said he, " that Grimwood knew of this hidden wealth?"

" It came to liis knowledge," said Helena, " shortly before your predecessor — 1 mean old Mr Mastertoii — met with 'his sudden death. The fact is that Grimwood, Jiving for some years all alone with the old banker, discovered him creeping stealthily down those fciairs, and out at this back entrance, in the dead of a certain night. He followed him ; saw him take the key from a recess beside the stable window, ai.d " " Well? " '• Vim shall see ; come ' " urged the girl, " get me the cobwebbed key, and I'll do my best to point out the way to the door which, as John Grimwood assured me, it will unlock." They quickly reached the old stable, Masterton leading' the way ; but no sooner had the light from the banker's hand-lamp fallen upon the window-frame, with its dust and, cobwebs, than a cry of consternation broke from his lips. '• The key— look there — it's gone ! " " Gone ! " echoed Helena. They both stood staring in speechless amaze at the gap in the nest of cobwebs where —as Masterton grimly imagined — a grasping hand had been hurriedly thrust. The key had vanished. S hi. i Masterton was the first to speak. He glanced towards the girl. "What's to dq done? " Helena Lightfoot was a woman of un- | doubted pluck. She had served in her capa- | city of nurse upon more than one battlefield I among the wounded, and no danger had ever wakened any sense of fear. " Give me the lamp," said she. Masterton obeyed ; and then with her i finger uplifted she enjoined silence. | She now led him towards an inner door I across the stable, and, pushing it noiselessly open, peered cautiously on all sides. The I place was a coachhouse, no less dilapidated ! than the stable. Of a sudden the girl pointed down at a large round stone on one side of the planked flooring. This cobble j had been recently displaced ; upon closer inspection Masterton was startled at the discovery of a large, iron ring. Again he looked for guidance towards his fair companion. " That ring," she whispered—" I've Grimwood's word for it— lifts a trap-door. Can you raise it? "

He was a broad-shouldered, athletic man ; and having caught the ring in his grip, Maslerton began to pull. A trap-door slowly ro&e, disclosing a flight of steps. All wag darkness below. " It's the way to the cellar which that key unlocks," said Helena. "Are you inclined to go down? Mind you! there is risk! for it seems to me that we shall in all likelihood find the vault door open, and a despeiate man awaiting us at the foot of these stairs." Lawrence Masterton was no coward ; but the thought of exposing this brave girl to clanger caused him to waver. "Don't consider me!" said Helena, quick to interpret his thought; "I'm ready, if you are." " Light me ! " he said ; " Jet me go first. Helena stood near. Masterton stepped forward and began to descend. The girl pi i- pared to foMow ; but at that moment a, figure sprang forward — the figure of a man — and wilh a de^tf-rous movement slammed down the trap dncu with a thud, and before the girl could utter a. cry the lamp was struck out of her band, and a sharp bloAv brought her senseless to the floor. . Helena Lightfoot was seriously injured ;" but, tended night and day by Masterton'a laundress, she soon recovered. The man who had stolen the key— who proved to be Crickmay — was caught the same night ; for Maslerlon had succeeded in raising the trapdoor again without great difficulty, and had given chase. The fellow was tried on a charge of attempted lobbery and murder, and was sentenced to 14 years' penal servitude. Meanwhile a search was instituted in the vault, which resulted in a large amount of gold, packed in bags, being brought to light. The discovery saved the old bank; and Lawrence Masterton, whose senjbe of gr&U-

tude towaids Helena quickly ripened into love, ultimately persuaded the girl to become his wife.