The idea was Morgan's.  
"We're going to call at Bloomsbury Mansions to begin with; that's to be the first move in our plan of campaign." Herbert Nash looking a note of interrogation, Mr. Morgan condescended to explain. "How many times am I to tell you that Bloomsbury Mansions was where Mr. Joseph Oldfield lived when he was in town? When he was there he was Peter Piper's Popular Pills; when he wasn't there if you'd talked to him about pills I dare say he wouldn't have known what you meant."
 
"But why should we go to Bloomsbury Mansions?"
 
"Doesn't your own common-sense tell you, my dear Nash, that the more a man knows about the game he's going to play the better chance he has of winning? Certainly it does, because you're one of the cleverest men I know. Very well then; if you and I can manage to be alone together in that flat for, say, half-an-hour, there's very little about Joseph Oldfield which, at the end of that time, we shan't know. Unless I'm mistaken, that's where the key to the situation is; it must be somewhere, and I tell you it's there. That's where all his business papers are, which you and Baynard couldn't find at Cloverlea; his books, his accounts, the lists of his securities; perhaps some of the securities themselves; and, what's more, the whole financial history of those immortal pills. We shall be able to find out what exactly Mr. Frank Clifford's position is, and how we shall best be able to get at him. I'm no gamester; I object to gambling on principle; yet I'm willing to bet a trifle that after I've been there half-an-hour I'll be in a position--with the aid of what I know already--to squash Mr. Frank Clifford between my finger and thumb; and between us, my boy, we'll have Peter Piper's Popular Pills, and the pile they represent, lying at our feet."
 
"I tell you again, Morgan, what I've told you before, that I think you pitch your anticipations too high; there are all sorts of difficulties in the way which you don't seem to appreciate. Anyhow how do you intend to get into this flat? do you propose to commit burglary?"
 
"Am I a criminal? a felon? I've been an honest man all my life, and I mean to die an honest man. No, my dear Nash, we're going in through the front door, in broad daylight, before the eyes of the whole staff of the Mansions, if the whole staff chooses to look on, and, as about flats they're mostly a prying lot, they may do; we're going to let ourselves in with Mr. Joseph Oldfield's own private and particular latch-key, and a very private and particular latch-key it is. I lay--betting again! you see, Nash, how a bad habit, once indulged in, grows on one--that, knowing what kind of people they are about flats, he had both lock and key specially made for him; and here that key is."
 
He held out a small and curious-looking key, of the Bramah type. Mr. Nash eyed it dubiously, as if it were something which he would rather leave alone.
 
"How do you know it is the key? and where did you get it from?"
 
"Question No. 2 first, as to where I got it. When the late Donald Lindsay was seized with that most unfortunate stroke I assisted in undressing him; afterwards I folded up his clothes and put them away, and, in the ordinary course of my duty, I examined the pockets. In a small and ingeniously placed pocket inside his waistcoat--which the commonplace searcher would have overlooked--I found this key, secreted. That set me thinking. You will observe that on the tiny ring to which it is attached there is a number. When I learnt certain facts I caused inquiries to be made of a firm which I happen to know manufactures keys like this, asking how long it would take them to make Mr. Joseph Oldfield a duplicate key to his fiat in Bloomsbury Mansions, quoting this number. They replied to the effect that they could let him have another key in four-and-twenty hours; so that's how I know that this is the key to the flat in Bloomsbury Mansions."
 
"You've a roundabout way of your own of finding out things."
 
"Roundabout ways are sometimes the shortest, and the safest. Now, my dear Nash, you and I are going together to Bloomsbury Mansions; you will be the bearer of the key; you will show the key to the porter who we shall probably find there; you will tell him that you are Mr. Oldfield's solicitor--which you are; let us keep to the strict and literal truth; he will say 'Walk in!' and, when we have walked in, I think that the rest you can leave to me."
 
Herbert Nash did not like Mr. Morgan's little plan; he disliked it very much, and said so with considerable force of language, which the gentleman to whom it was addressed did not at all resent. He simply smiled, and persuaded Mr. Nash; having means of persuasion at his command which that person seemed most unwillingly to feel that he was not in a position to resist; the result being that, as we have heard, the pair did gain access to the flat in Bloomsbury Mansions; the porter, as Mr. Morgan had prophesied, looking on as they went in. When they had entered they found themselves in a fair-sized hall.
 
"I wonder," said Nash, as if struck by the silence of the place, "how he managed for servants."
 
"The flat people provided service, I expect; they cater, and do everything for tenants if they're wanted to."
 
"Do you mean to say that he lived here all alone?"
 
"Generally, I fancy; though when the humour took him he may have kept up any sort of an establishment for all I know; I'll be able to tell you more on that head when I've been over the place. Now let me see. From what I know of the arrangements of flats I should say that that room over there was his own particular apartment." He moved to the door to which he referred. "Locked; however, there's the key in the lock, and it turns quite easily." He threw it open. "Right I am! Nash, this is Joseph Oldfield's Ali Baba's treasure-cave; perhaps presently you'll be fingering some of his precious things. But before we start at that let's see what's behind these other doors; I always like to know the lay of the land before I commence actual operations." Mr. Morgan began opening door after door, glancing at what was behind each, then shutting it again; Herbert Nash stood in the hall and watched. "Looks like a drawing-room; what did he want with a drawing-room, a lone-lorn bachelor? Seem to be some nice things in it too. A bedroom, furnished up to the knocker. My word! that bed cost money; he lay well. Bathroom; spared nothing even over his bath. Dining-room; nothing cheap about that either; he spent money upon this place; I suppose he walked straight out of the bath to his food. Another bedroom; everything in the palest pink; that's meant for a woman's occupation I'll swear. I won............