I went from master burglar to master cleaner in just one hour!

It was the most revered place in Mojacar that wasn’t a bar. It was the highest residency in the village commonly called el Castillo. In the early 60’s it was the residency of one Enrique Arias, Colombian concert pianist of RCA record fame.
He shared musical nights with the natives and it soon became famous and made Mojacar known on the Costas as the “enchanted town with great music.”
When D. Enrique gravitated to the beach to Cueva del Lobo (where his son now lives) the castle drifted into disrepair and neglect. Then, a call came out to sell it. Everyone wanted that prestigious job, but it was one Franny Barbar, who had a house in the village and moonlighted as an estate agent from her Park Avenue home in New York.
Franny was a 75-year-old hippy, irreverent to one and all. She wanted it cleaned and patched up and I was delighted to do it. Such an honour!
So I herded up some cleaning equipment and got my maid fired up to clean it so I could take all the credit.
I had the key for the front door and then problems started. The main secondary door was locked, from the “other side,” with the key in the lock. I flew about the village as a man possessed how to enter. The clients were arriving the next day in Almeria in their own jet but were only in Mojacar for one day. When I realised I had no solution without breaking down the door I had to resort to my last secret device – thinking. What would the Shadow do?
The Shadow was fictional character of my boyhood radio listening. The Shadow initiated thinking “outside of the box” to solve crime riddles. So I sat and thought, how would the Shadow solve the dilemma? Then I remember an episode wherein the shadow had to break into a house to save a damsel.
He had exactly the same situation, locked door, old skeleton key in the lock and a needy situation to be on the other side. Well Shadow told his audience the ultra simple solution: First, slip a single sheet of newspaper under the door well on the other side. Then, poke a pencil end toward the tip of the key in a jiggling motion and the key loosens and drops to the ground, landing of course on the newspaper which you can retrieve by pulling back under the door.
  Well I was so pleased with myself and raised my eyebrows to the maid which had been cautiously observing my gyrations and tricks. Whereupon she decided I was the most masterful thief she had ever witnessed and refused to clean. “I am a gitana, what if I get caught cleaning when I am not supposed to be here?” She then promptly left the room and went outside back to my car in a giant huff refusing to work. And I, master burglar, soon became a master cleaner.