Divided as she was among several opinions, torn by doubts and sufferings from grief, Viola Carwell found distinct relief in a message that awaited her on her return to the house after her failure to find Colonel Ashley. The message, given her by a maid, was to the effect:
“The safe man has come.”
“The who?” asked Viola, not at first understanding.
“The safe man. He said you sent for him to open a safe and—”
“Oh, yes, I understand, Jane. Where is he?”
“In the library, Miss Viola.”
Viola hastened to the room where so many fateful talks had taken place of late, and found there a quiet man, beside whose chair was a limp valise that rattled with a metallic jingle as his foot brushed against it when he arose on her entrance.
“Have you come from the safe company?” she asked.
“Yes. I understood that there was one of our safes which could not be opened, and they sent me. Here is the order,” and he held out the paper.
He spoke with quiet dignity, omitting the “ma'am,” from his salutation. And Viola was glad of this. He was a relief from the usual plumber or carpenter, who seemed to lack initiative.
“It is my father's private safe that we wish opened,” she said. “He alone had the combination to it, and he—he is dead,” she added softly.
“So I understood,” he responded with appreciation of what her grief must be. “Well, I think I shall be able to open the safe without damaging it. That was what you wanted, was it not?”
“Yes. Father never let any one but himself open the safe when he was alive. I don't believe my mother or I saw it open more than ten times, and then by accident. In it he kept his private papers. But, now that he is—is gone, there is need to see how his affairs stand. The lawyer tells me I had better open the safe.
“When we found that none of us knew the combination, and when it was not found written down anywhere among father's other papers, and when his clerk, Mr. Blossom, did not have it, we sent to the company.”
“I understand,” said the safe expert. “If you will show me—”
Viola touched a button on the wall, a button so cleverly concealed that the ordinary observer would never have noticed it, and a panel slid back, revealing the door of the safe.
“It was one of father's ideas that his strong box was better hidden this way,” said Viola, with a little wan smile. “Is there room enough for you to work? The safe is built into the wall.”
“Oh, there is plenty of room, thank you. I can very easily get at it. It isn't the first safe I've had to work on this way. Many families have safes hidden like this. It's a good idea.”
He looked at the safe, noted the manufacturer's number, and consulted a little book he carried with him. Then he began to turn the knob gently, listening the while, with acute and trained ears, to the noise the tumblers made as they clicked their way, unseen, amid the mazes of the combination.
“Will it be difficult, do you think?” asked Viola. “Will it take you long?”
“That is hard to say.”
“Do you mind if I watch you?” she asked eagerly. She wanted something to take her mind off the many things that were tearing at it as the not far distant sea tore at the shore which stood as a barrier in its way.
“Not at all,” answered the expert. Then he went on with his work.
In a way it was as delicate an operation as that which sometimes confronts a physician who is in doubt as to what ails his patient. There was a twisting and a turning of the knob, a listening with an ear to the heavy steel door, as a doctor listens to the breathing of a pneumonia victim. Then with his little finger held against the numbered dial, the expert again twirled the nickel knob, seeking to tell, by the vibration, when the little catches fell into the slots provided for them.
It was rather a lengthy operation, and he tried several of the more common and usual combinations without result. As he straightened up to rest Viola asked:
“Do you think you can manage it? Can you open it?”
“Oh, yes. It will take a little time, but I can do it. Your father evidently used a more complicated combination than is usually set on these safes. But I shall find it.”
Viola's determination to open the safe had been arrived at soon after the funeral, when it was found that, as far as could be ascertained, her father had left no will. A stickler for system, in its many branches and ramifications, and insisting for minute detail on the part of his subordinates, Horace Carwell did what many a better and worse man has done—put off the making of his will. And that made it necessary for the surrogate to appoint an administrator, who, in this case, Viola renouncing her natural rights, was Miss Mary Carwell.
“I'd rather you acted than I,” Viola had said, though she, being of age and the direct heir, could well and legally have served.
Miss Carwell had agreed to act. Then it became necessary to find out certain facts, and when they were not disclosed by a perusal of the papers of the dead man found in his office and in the safe deposit box at the bank, recourse was had to the private safe. LeGrand Blossom knew nothing of what was in the strong box-not even being entrusted with the combination.
“There! It's open!” announced the expert at length, and he turned the handle and swung back the door.
“Thank you,” said Viola. Then, as she looked within the safe, she exclaimed:
“Oh, there is an inner compartment, and that's locked, too!”
“Only with a key. That will give no trouble at all,” said the man. He proved it by opening it with the third key he tried from a bunch of many he took from his valise.
That was all there was for him to do, save to set the combination with a simpler system, which he did, giving Viola the numbers.
“Was it as easy as you thought?” she asked, when the expert was about to leave.
“Not quite—no. The combination was a double one. That is, in two parts. First the one had to be disposed of, and then the other worked.”
“Why was that?”
“Well, it is on the same principle as the safe deposit boxes in a bank. The depositor has one key, and the bank the other. The box cannot be opened by either party alone. Both keys must be used. That insures that no one person alone can get into the box. It was the same way with this safe. The combination was in two parts.”
“And did my father set it that way?”
“He must have done so, or had some one arrange the combination for him.”
“Then he—he must have shared the combination with some one else!” There was fright in Viola's eyes, and a catch in her voice.
“Yes,” assented the expert. “Either that or he set it that way merely for what we might call a 'bluff,' to throw any casual intruder off the track. Your father might have possessed both combinations himself.”
“And yet he might have shared them with—with another person?”
“Yes.”
“And the other—the other person”—Viola hesitated noticeably over the word—“would have to be present when the safe was opened?” She did not say “he” or “she.”
“Well, not necessarily,” answered the expert. “He might have had the combination in two parts, and used both of them himself. It is often done. Though, of course, he could, at any time, have shared the secret of the safe with some one else.”
“That would only be in the event of there being something in it that both he and some other person would want to take out at the same time; something that one could not get at without the knowledge of the other; would it not?”
“Naturally, yes. But, as I say, it might be the other way—that the double combination was used merely as an additional precaution.”
“Thank you,” said Viola.
She sat for several minutes in front of the opened safe after the expert had gone, and did not offer to take out any of the papers that were now exposed to view. There was a strange look on her face.
“Two persons!” she murmured. “Two persons! Did he share the secrets of this safe with some one—some one else?”
Viola reached forth her hand and took hold of a bundle of papers tied with a red band-tape it was, of the kind used in lawyers' offices. The bundle appeared to contain letters—old letters, and the handwriting was that of a woman.
“I wonder if I had better get Aunt Mary?” mused the girl. “She is the administrator, and she will have to know. But there are some things I might keep from her—if I had to.”
She looked more closely at the letters, and when she saw that they were in the well-remembered hand of her mother she breathed more easily.
“If he kept—these—it must be—all right!” she faltered to herself. “I will call Aunt Mary.”
The two women, seeing dimly through their tears at times, went over the contents of the private safe. There were letters that told of the past—of the happy days of love and courtship, and of the early married life. Viola put them sacredly aside, and delved more deeply into the strong box.
“It was like Horace to keep something away from every one else,” said his sister. “He did love a secret. But we don't seem to be getting at anything, Viola, that will tell us where there is any more money, and that's what we need now, more than anything else. At least you do, if LeGrand Blossom is right, and you intend to keep on living in the style you're used to.”
“I don't have to do that, Aunt Mary. Being poor would not frighten me.”
“I didn't think it would. Fortunately I have enough for both of us, though I won't spend anything on a big yacht nor a car that looks like a Fourth of July procession, however much I love the Star Spangled Banner.
“Oh, no, we mustn't dream of keeping the big car nor the yacht,” said Viola. “They are to be sold as soon as possible. I only hope they will bring a good price. But here are more papers, Aunt Mary. We must see what they are. Poor father had so many business interests. It's going to be a dreadful matter to straighten them all out.”
“Well, LeGrand Blossom and Captain Poland will help us.”
“Captain Poland?” questioned Viola.
“Yes. Why not? He is a fine business man, and he has large interests of his own. Have you any objection?”
“Oh, I don't know. Of course not!” she added quickly, as she caught sight of a rather odd look on her aunt's face. “If we have to—I mean if you find it necessary, you can ask his advice, I suppose.”
“Wouldn't you?”
“Why, yes, I believe I would—just as a matter of business.”
Viola's voice was calm and cool, but it might have been because her attention was focused on a bundle of papers she was taking from the safe. And a casual perusal of these showed that they had a bearing on subjects that might explain certain things.
“Look, Aunt Mary!” the girl exclaimed. “Father seems to have kept a diary. It tells—it tells about that trouble he had with Harry—Rather, it wasn't with Harry at all. It was Harry's uncle. It's that same old trouble father so often referred to. He always declared he was cheated in a certain business deal, but I always imagined it was because he didn't make as much money as he thought he ought to. Father was like that. But see-this puts a different face on it.”
Together they looked over the papers, and among them-among the memoranda, copies of contracts and other documents—was a diary, or perhaps it might be called a business man's journal. Both Viola and her aunt were familiar enough with business to understand the import of what they read.
It was to the effect that Mr. Amos Bartlett, Harry's paternal uncle, had been associated with Mr. Carwell in several transactions involving some big business deals. Mr. Bartlett had been smart enough, by forming a directorate within a directorate and by means of a dummy company, to get a large sum to his credit, while Mr. Carwell was left to face a large deficit.
“And Harry Bartlett acted as agent for his uncle in the transactions!” exclaimed Miss Carwell as she looked over the papers.
“But I don't believe he knew anything wrong was being done!” declared Viola. “I'm positive he didn't. Harry isn't that kind of a man.”
“These papers don't say so.”
“Naturally you wouldn't expect father to say a good word for one he considered his business rival, not to say enemy. I don't believe Harry had anything more to do with it than he had with—with poor father's death.”
Miss Carwell said nothing. She was busy looking over some other papers which the opening of the private safe had revealed. And then, while her aunt was engaged with these, Viola found a little bundle that had on it her name.
For a moment she debated with herself whether or not to open it. The handwriting was that of her father, and it seemed as though something stayed her. But she broke the string at last and there tumbled into her lap some photographs of herself, taken at different ages, a number of them—in fact, most of them—amateur attempts, some snapped by her mother and some by her father, as Viola knew from seeing them. She recalled some very well—especially one taken on the back of a little Shetland pony. On the reverse of this picture Mr. Carwell had written: “My dear little girl!”
Viola burst into tears, and her aunt, seeing the cause, felt the strings of her heart being tugged.
“Well, one thing seems to be proved,” said the older woman, when they were again going over the papers, sorting out some to be shown to the lawyer who was advising them on the conduct of the estate, “and that is that your father didn't think very much of Harry Bartlett.”
“That was his fault—I mean father's,” retorted Viola. “He had no reason for it, even with what this paper says. I don't believe Harry would do such a thing.”
“Do you suppose the quarrel could have been about this?” and Miss Carwell held out the journal.
“I don't know what to think,” said Viola. “But here is another memorandum. We must see what this is.”
Together they bent over the remaining documents the safe had given up—secrets of the dead.
As they read a strange look came over Viola's face.
Miss Carwell, perusing a document, recited:
“Memo. of certain matters between Captain Poland and myself. And while I think of it let me state that but for his timely and generous financial aid I would have been ruined by that scoundrel Bartlett. Captain Poland saved me. And should the stock of the concern ever be on a paying basis I intend to repay him not only all he advanced me but any profit I may secure shall be divided with him in gratitude. That there will be a profit I very much doubt, though this does not lessen my gratitude to Captain Poland for his aid.”
There was a little gasp from Viola as she heard this.
“Captain Poland saved father from possible ruin,” she murmured, “and I—I treated him so! Oh! oh!”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg