“I hoped that some day or other I should be able to make a more careful inspection of the place, but that opportunity never came, although it seemed that I was going to have a chance a week or two before Mr. Trasmere’s death. I managed to get the key from his neck whilst he was in a kind of fit and take an impression, but the fit did not last very long, and I had hardly got the key back before the old gentleman recovered. It was a lucky thing for me that I had wiped the soap from the key on my sleeve, for the first thing he felt for was the chain round his neck. However, I had quite enough to work on, and I started in to make a key that would fit the impression. That is as much as I can tell you about the vault, which I never saw.
“I went to bed every night at ten o’clock and Mr. Trasmere used to lock the door which shut me off from the rest of the house, so that it was impossible for me to see what was going on at night. I complained to him and he had a key put in a glass box in my room so that in case of emergency I could smash the glass, and with the aid of the key, unlock the door that separated me from the rest of the house. He didn’t even agree to this until he was taken ill one night and I was unable to go to his assistance.
“To open the door which locked me in was one thing, to open the little glass cupboard and take out the key was, however, a simpler matter. I used that key several times. The first time I used it, I heard voices in the dining-room downstairs and wondered who it was calling at that late hour. I hadn’t the courage to go down and see for fear I should be detected, for there was a light in the hall. But another night, hearing a woman’s voice, I went down, the lights being out, and saw a young lady sitting at a table with a typewriter in front of her, tapping the keys whilst Mr. Trasmere walked up and down, with his hands behind him, dictating. She was the prettiest young lady I have seen in my life, and somehow I was sure that I had seen her before. I did not recognize her until I saw her photograph in an illustrated paper and then it seemed to me to be impossible that it could be Miss Ursula Ardfern, the well-known actress. I came down again the next night and this time they were talking together and Mr. Trasmere called her ‘Ursula’ and I knew I was right. She used to come from the theatre every night, and sometimes he would keep her there as late as two o’clock.
“One evening, soon after she came, I crept downstairs and in my stockinged feet, listened to them. I heard him say very sharply: ‘Ursula, where is the pin?’ The young lady answered, ‘It is there, somewhere,’ and then I heard him grumbling and grunting and presently he said, ‘Yes, here it is.’
“There was much more to be picked up in the house than I had imagined.” (Here Walters enumerated minutely and as far as can be ascertained exactly, the number and nature of the valuables which he succeeded in acquiring.) “When Mr. Trasmere was alone he used to sit at the table with a little porcelain dish in front of him and a brush. I don’t know what he was painting, I never saw any of his pictures. I only know that he did this because I managed to peep at him on several nights, and saw him at work. He did not use a canvas, he always painted on paper, and he always used black ink. The paper must have been very thin, because once the window was slightly open and a sheet blew away.
“I managed to see him because there was a glass fanlight over the door which I used to keep clean, and from the head of the stairs you could look into the room and if he happened to be sitting in a certain place, it was easy to see him.
“On the morning I left the house, I was engaged in working at the key I was making, and I could do this without any danger, because Mr. Trasmere never came into my room, the door of which I kept locked in case of accidents. I served lunch to my master, and he talked to me about Brown, the man I had turned away from the door. He told me that I had done quite right and that Brown was wanted by the police in this country and he wondered why he had taken the risk of coming back. He told me that Brown was an opium taker and a drunkard, and that he was a worthless fellow. After lunch he cleared me out of the room and I knew that he was going down to his vault, which he usually did on Saturday afternoons.
“At about ten minutes to three I was in my room working at the key and had just brought a cup of coffee from the kitchen, when the front door bell rang and I answered it. There was a messenger boy with a telegram and it was addressed to me. I had never before received telegrams at the house and I was surprised. On opening it I read a message
