Various - Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 729, December 15, 1877

I am a professional man, and reside in the West End of London. One morning some few months back, my assistant on coming to attend to his duties produced a bunch of keys, which he informed me he had just picked up at the corner of a street leading from Oxford Street.

'Hadn't they best be handed over to the police?' suggested my assistant. I wish to goodness I had at once closed with his suggestion; but I didn't, much to my own cost, as will be presently seen.

'Well, I don't know,' was my answer. 'I rather think it will be a wiser plan to advertise them, if the owner is really to have a chance of recovering them; for to my mind, articles found in that way and handed over to the police are rarely heard of again.'

An advertisement for the Times was duly drawn up and sent off for insertion. It merely stated where the keys had been picked up, and where the owner of the bunch could have it returned to him on giving a proper description. The next morning the advertisement appeared; and though I half expected that some applications might be made later on in the same day, it passed over quite quietly. But the following morning I had a foretaste of the trouble that awaited me so soon as the postman had deposited my letters in the box and given his accustomed knock. A glance at my table shewed me that my correspondence was very considerably beyond its average that morning. The very first letter I opened was in reference to the advertisement; and before I had gone through the collection I found there were over twenty applications for the bunch of keys in my possession. Some of the writers took the trouble to describe the keys they had lost; but none of them were in the least like those that had been picked up by my assistant. Some did not take the trouble to give any description at all, or to state if they had been in the part of the town where the keys were found; and a few boldly claimed them on the strength of having dropped a bunch miles from the spot indicated in the advertisement!

By the time I had got through my letters and my breakfast, my servant came to tell me that my waiting-room was already full of people – 'mostly ladies,' he said – though it was nearly two hours before the time I was accustomed to see any one professionally. With a foreboding that a good deal of worry and a loss of much valuable time was in store for me, I entered my consulting-room, and gave orders that the ladies should be admitted in the order of their arrival. They were all applicants for the keys; and out of the sixteen persons that were waiting, fourteen were ladies. The two gentlemen were soon despatched. They had lost keys, near the spot for anything they could tell; but on being satisfied that what had been found did in no way agree with the description of what they had lost, they apologised for the trouble and went at once.

But it was no such easy matter to get rid of my fourteen lady-applicants. Some of them were for inflicting upon me a narration of family affairs that had not the most remote connection with the business in hand. A few kept closely enough to the subject on which they had come; but would not take a denial that the keys in my possession were not the least like those they said they had lost; and it was only at the sacrifice of some of my usual politeness that I was able to get rid of them. Not one of the morning's arrival could make out anything like a fair claim, and one or two owned that they had not even been in the quarter where the keys were found on the day specified.

More letters, more applicants, came as the day wore on; and I began heartily to repent of my well-meant desire to benefit my fellow-mortals by taking the trouble to find out the rightful owner of a lost article. I was just on the point of giving orders to my servant to put off all further applicants until the following morning, when he ushered in a comfortable-looking lady of middle age, who proceeded straight to business by at once describing with the greatest accuracy the bunch of keys that had given me so much anxiety that day; and assuring me that she had passed the spot indicated in the advertisement on the morning they were found.

'Nine keys on the bunch, all Chubb's patent; three very small ones, five of various sizes, and one latch-key longer than any of the others.'

The description was perfect. Some of the other applicants had curiously enough been right as to the number, but wrong as to description.

I at once told my lady visitor that I had no doubt the keys were hers; and that I was ready to hand them over to her. But I ventured to add that it would give me greater security were she to permit my assistant to accompany her to her residence, and there, in his presence, to open the different locks to which the keys belonged. To this proposal not the smallest objection was raised. She begged I would call my assistant, as she had a cab waiting at the door. The direction was given to some place in Bloomsbury, and they drove off. In less than an hour my assistant returned. He stated that the lady opened the street door with the latch-key, and that the other eight keys opened desks, writing-tables, cash-boxes, &c. – all quite correct and satisfactorily. The expense of the advertisement was of course paid.

Congratulating myself that this troublesome business was well over, and mentally resolving that another time, under similar circumstances, I should act on my assistant's suggestion, and hand such matters over to the police, I gave orders that all applicants that might come were to be told that the rightful owner had been found and that the keys were disposed of.

Two days passed, and I had almost dismissed the whole affair from my mind. On the morning of the third day my attention was attracted by an altercation going on between my servant and an irate lady – well advanced in years – to whom he refused admittance. Anxious to escape disturbance, I gave orders that she should be shewn into my consulting-room, where I presently went to see what she wanted.

'I want to know why you never answered my letter about the bunch of keys you advertised as having found, and which I lost? I have come for them now.'

'But, madam, none of the letters described the keys accurately, and I was therefore not bound to notice any of the written applications that reached me.'

'Not describe them properly! But I can describe them; they were nine in number on the bunch.'

'So far, that is right, madam. Proceed with your description.'

The description was entirely wrong; and I told her so. I told her, moreover, that the rightful owner had been found, who had not only described the keys properly, but who had taken my assistant to her house and had used each individual key in his presence. I added that if she were not satisfied, I could furnish her with the address of the lady to whom the keys had been given up, and that she might call and try to establish her claim if she fancied she had one.

She was very far from being satisfied. She wanted to argue the matter further and, as I feared, to an unreasonable length. I told her firmly I could waste no further time on her; whereupon she left vowing vengeance.

The threats of the old lady did not much disturb me; but they were not altogether so unmeaning as I supposed, for in two days thereafter a summons was handed into me, demanding my presence at the police court of the district, to answer for my refusal to deliver up to the rightful owner property belonging to her, which I owned to having found, but refused to account for.

That I was very much annoyed may be easily supposed; but at the same time I could not help being somewhat amused, bearing in recollection how I had tried to satisfy the unreasonable dame, who had evidently more money than wit, seeing she was ready to waste it on so hopeless a case.