The Lost Clue by O.F. Walton

BEFORE Captain Fortescue left his father's room that morning, he took up the bunch of keys on which the old man's eyes had rested with such anxious care, and which were still lying on a small table near his bed. He slipped them at once into his pocket, for he did not know who might come into that room, and he wished to feel assured that the safe would not be tampered with.

But, eager though he was to discover what secret the letter addressed to him contained, it was not until late in the day that he went into the room of death, that he might open the safe, and find the envelope which his father had described to him. He had been much moved by his father's death; and, in his intense refinement of feeling, he shrank from too quickly bringing to light that which might possibly reveal to him something in his father's past life, which would bring discredit on his memory, and might cause him to think less kindly and tenderly of the dead.