She was stooping to the lock again.
"You are sure it was locked?"
"The bolt is still shot." I showed her.
"Then--where is the key?"
"The key!"
"Certainly. Find the key, and you will find the man who locked you
in."
"Unless," I reminded her, "it flew out when I broke the lock."
"In that case, it will be on the floor."
But an exhaustive search of the cabin floor discovered no key.
Jones, seeing us searching, helped, his revolver in one hand and a
lighted match in the other, handling both with an abandon of ease
that threatened us alternately with fire and a bullet. But there
was no key.
"It stands to reason, miss," he said, when we had given up, "that,
since the key isn't here, it isn't on the ship. That there key is
a sort of red-hot give-away. No one is going to carry a thing like
that around. Either it's here in this cabin--which it isn't--or
it's overboard."
"Very likely, Jones. But I shall ask Mr. Turner to search the men."
She went toward Turner's door, and Jones leaned over me, putting a
hand on my arm.
"She's right, boy," he said quickly. "Don't let 'em know what
you're after, but go through their pockets. And their shoes!" he
called after me. "A key slips into a shoe mighty easy."
But, after all, it was not necessary. The key was to be found,
and very soon.