They looked at him wonderingly.
"What do you mean?" said Cayley.
"Well, it's just a question of where people happen to keep their
keys. You go up to your bedroom, and perhaps you like to lock
your door in case anybody comes wandering in when you've only got
one sock and a pair of braces on. Well, that's natural enough.
And if you look round the bedrooms of almost any house, you'll
find the keys all ready, so that you can lock yourself in at a
moment's notice. But downstairs people don't lock themselves in.
It's really never done at all. Bill, for instance, has never
locked himself into the dining-room in order to be alone with the
sherry. On the other hand, all women, and particularly servants,
have a horror of burglars. And if a burglar gets in by the
window, they like to limit his activities to that particular
room. So they keep the, keys on the outside of the doors, and
lock the doors when they go to bed." He knocked the ashes out of
his pipe, and added, "At least, my mother always used to."
"You mean," said Bill excitedly, "that the key was on the outside
of the door when Mark went into the room?"
"Well, I was just wondering.
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