present would now proceed to the safe recently tenanted by the late Mr.
John Marbury, and take from it the property which he himself had
deposited there, a small leather box, which they would afterwards bring
to that room and cause to be opened in each other's presence.

It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and
bars before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so
recently rented by the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased.
And at first sight of it, he saw that it was so small an affair that it
seemed ludicrous to imagine that it could contain anything of any
importance. In fact, it looked to be no more than a plain wooden
locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it reminded Spargo
irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had kept
his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake
smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury's name had been newly painted
upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door--the
front door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly
opened by the chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and
expectation still leapt in the bosoms of the beholders.

"The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please," commanded the chairman,
"the duplicate key!"

Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a
curious-looking key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about
to christen a battleship: the steel door swung slowly back. And there,
in a two-foot square cavity, lay the leather box.

It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary's room that the
procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the