Now, perhaps, if we listen very carefully, we shall
understand how it is all done.
The cabinet, or whatever I am to call it, has looked
stolidly at me from the corner of the library for
years. It is nothing more than a row of pigeon-holes
in which I keep my secret papers. At least, the
man who sold it to me recommended it for this purpose,
dwelling lovingly as he did so upon the strength of
the lock. So I bought it—in those
first days (how far away!) when I came to London to
set the Thames on fire.
It was not long before I lost the key. I made
one or two half-hearted efforts to get into it with
a button-hook; but, finding that the lock lived up
to its reputation, I resigned myself to regarding it
for the future as an article for ornament, not for
use. In this capacity it has followed me about
from house to house. As an ornament it is without
beauty, and many people have urged me to throw it away.
My answer has been that it contained my secret papers.
Some day I would get a locksmith to open it, and we
should see what we should see.
The war being over, I came into the library and sat
down at my desk. Perhaps it was not too late,
even now, to set the Thames on fire. I would
write an incendiary article on—what?
The cabinet caught my eye. I went idly up to
it and pulled at the drawers, before I remembered
that it was locked. And suddenly I was annoyed
with it for being locked; the more I pulled at it,
the more I was annoyed; and I ended up by telling
it with some heat that, if it persisted in its defiant
attitude, I would shoot it down with my revolver. (This
is how the hero breaks his way into the room wherein
the heroine is immured, and I have often envied him.)
However, the revolver was not necessary. The
lock surrendered, after a short struggle, to the poker.
For the first time for seventeen years my secret papers
were before me. Can you not imagine how eagerly
I went through them?
They were a strange collection, these trifles which
had (I suppose) seemed so important to me seventeen
years ago. There was the inevitable dance programme,
covered with initials which must have stirred me delightfully
once, but now left me cold. There was a receipt
from a Cambridge tailor, my last outstanding Cambridge
bill, perhaps—preserved as a sign that
I was now free. There was a notice of a short-story
competition, stories not to exceed 5000 words; another
of a short-sketch competition, sketches not to exceed
1200 words. Apparently I was prepared to write
you anything in those days. There was an autograph
of a famous man; “Many thanks” and the
signature on a postcard, I suppose I had told him that
I admired his style, or that I proposed to model myself
on him, or had bought his last book, or—who
knows? At any rate, he had thanked me.
