Free And on the Eighth Day by Ellery Queen Page B

and placed it in the exact center of the table top. “Symmetry,” he said, “is a way of life with me, Elroï. I hold it the purest of esthetic forms.”
    This startled Ellery, who had seen no evidence of esthetic devotion in the village: beauty, yes, but unrealized. Euclid alone looked on beauty bare …
    “—and when I awoke this morning, I found the bracelet where you see it now—not centered on the table, but near a corner. By this I know that someone entered my room as I slept. And what is far more serious—”
    “—must have entered the holy house without ringing the bell, by stealth?” The Teacher nodded, fixing Ellery with his prophet’s eyes. “This is not necessarily so, Teacher,” Ellery said.
    “How not? Though it is true that I am the lightest of light sleepers. Still, the bracelet has been moved. I can hardly count the years I have slept here, and nothing like this has happened before. Is it a sign? A warning?”
    Ellery looked around, studied each of the slat-thin windows in turn. “No one could have come through one of these,” he said, “not even the smallest child. But someone could have reached through … with a fishing rod—No,” seeing the incomprehension on the old face, “no fishing rod here. All right—a pole, then, a long stick of some sort. With it, someone could have lifted the bracelet from the table, pulled it through the window, and later returned it the same way.”
    “But why?” asked the Teacher, in the same troubled way.
    Ellery picked up the key. It was crudely fashioned from the same dull metal as the bracelet. It looked rough and pitted, but it felt smooth—too smooth. Partly on impulse, partly because he had felt this smoothness on keys before, Ellery lifted it to his nose. That wild, pungent odor—
    “Do you keep bees here?” he asked.
    “Yes, although not many. We save most of the honey for the sick. And the wax—”
    “Just so,” said Ellery. “The wax.”
    Someone had taken a wax impression of the key during the night. And someone had fashioned, or was even now engaged in fashioning, a duplicate key—to what?
    “This is the key to the sanquetum, the forbidden room. It is the only key, and I alone may have it, for I alone may enter. Not even the Successor may accompany me,” the old man said. “Or have I told you that?”
    They were silent. Voices faded down the lane, died away. A far-off cowbell sounded; an ass; the woodcutters broke their own silence: ka-thuh- thunk , ka-thuh- thunk . Somewhere children sang a simple song of a few pure notes. With such treasure as this, what was there to conceal in the sanquetum?
    Ellery asked the question.
    The old man sat down on one of his stools. Elbow on knee, hand on forehead, he pondered. At last he rose, beckoning Ellery to follow. They went out into the meeting room and stood together beneath the lamp burning over the locked door.
    “It would be permitted for you to enter,” said the Teacher, with some difficulty.
    “Oh, no,” Ellery said, very quickly.
    “If you are here to open the Way, you may surely open this door.”
    But Ellery could not bring himself to the act. Whatever strange error had mistaken him for their Guest, to take advantage of it by setting foot in the holy of holies would desecrate it.
    “No, Teacher. Or, at least, not now. But do you, please, go in. Look around with care. If anything is missing, or even out of place, tell me.”
    The Teacher nodded. From a niche in the wall he took a ewer and a basin and a cloth and washed his hands and face and feet and dried them, murmuring prayers. His lips still moving, he unlocked the door. And in reverent silence, walking delicately, the old man entered the forbidden room.
    Time passed.
    Ellery waited in patience.
    Suddenly the Teacher was back. “Elroï, nothing is missing from the sanquetum. Nothing is out of place. What does it mean?”
    “I don’t know, Teacher. But that someone has made a duplicate key to this holy room, I am sure.