No one had closed it since the afternoon that he had been carried in and laid on the horse-hair sofa.

He had given Mary the key then, and had asked her to fetch the bottle of brandy from one of the long divisions where it stood beside a big ledger.

The little gentleman had hesitated to give trouble in asking to have it locked again, though that it should be open offended his ideas of privacy.

Now he looked at it, and then let his eyes rest upon the nephew of the Misses Woodhouse.
"Gifford," he said, "would you be so obliging as to take the small brass key from my ring,"-- here he thrust his lean hand under his pillow, and produced his bunch of keys, which jingled as he held them unsteadily out,--"and unlock the little lower drawer in the left-hand side of my writing-desk ?" Gifford took the ring over to the candle, which made the shadow of his head loom up on the opposite wall, as he bent to find the little brass key among a dozen others of all shapes and sizes.
"I have unlocked it, sir," he said, a moment later.
"Take the candle, if you please," responded Mr.Denner, "and you will see, I think, in the right-hand corner, back, under a small roll, a flat, square parcel." "Yes, sir," Gifford answered, holding the candle in his left hand, and carefully lifting the parcel.
"Under that," proceeded Mr.Denner, "is an oval package.

If you will be good enough to hand me that, Gifford.