CHAPTER XXIV

The Secret of the Screens

The library door closed upon the three prisoners. Goodall’s mouth was set in lines that were grim and hard—the man-hunting game is no occupation for the squeamish. “Clegg and his men will have them in the cells in no time,” he declared. “And the papers will sell well to-morrow morning.”

But his remark evoked no response from the others—all eyes had gone to Charles Stewart. He had sunk into a chair—the very chair, as it happened, where his father had been sitting when he had met his death—thoroughly overcome by the events of the evening. “Butterworth,” he muttered incredulously in a broken voice—“Butterworth! A man that my father would have trusted with anything”—he put his head into his hands and his shoulders shook in his emotion.

“Come—come,” said Anthony, “you mustn’t break down like this—personally I was somewhat relieved to find that it was Butterworth whom we were trailing and not anybody else.”

Stewart lifted up his face and looked at Anthony searchingly. “You were _relieved_?” he queried. “Didn’t you know then till to-night?”

“Some time before to-night, Mr. Stewart,” replied Bathurst with a sympathetic movement of the head. “You see I had some occasion to suspect him from the very first.”

Stewart looked at him again blankly and a trifle doubtfully. “To me,” he continued, “it has come as a very great shock. I don’t think I shall ever be able to forget it.”

Anthony patted him on the shoulder and went across to the others in the room. Goodall picked up the two screens—the two objects that had been engaging the attention of Alice Mortimer as she knelt upon the floor just prior to the arrest. He placed them on the table—in its center—Anthony removing everything else to obtain clear room-space. Then he looked carefully at the screens. There they stood——the one that had come back to the house from which it had been removed—the other just as Peter Daventry had seen it in the Hanover Galleries before the murders. The first had been the property of Laurence P. Stewart, who had been murdered. The second had been the property of Lord Clavering, who had died in his bed. The screens were as they had been for over three hundred years—they had defied Time, and up to now had defied also the challenging and predatory lusts of men. Stewart’s screen was of the dark bronze-like metal work that Marjorie Lennox had described. It stood about four feet high, with the Queen’s Lion in the top left-hand corner and the “fleur-de-lis” in the corresponding position on the right. In the middle could be read the two words from Virgil—“_Timeo Danaos_”—they had been scratched on with infinite care and patience. Below them swam the fish just as Miss Lennox had pictured it. At the bottom, in the two corners, were the Leopards and Lilies of England—the Leopards directly beneath the Lion and the Lilies below the “fleur-de-lis.” Lord Clavering’s screen, that had traveled to Day, Forshaw and Palmers’ and thence to Mr. and Mrs. “Snoop” Mortimer, stood perhaps an inch or two higher—upon a carved wood pedestal. The glass-shielded tapestry was just as Peter Daventry remembered it. It was the counterpart of the other as regards decoration and ornament, save for its centerpiece. The colored beads took the place of the Latin words—they were all that there was there—“JESUS CHRIST, GOD AND SAVIOUR.” Peter pointed to the fourth word, “It is written in full,” he exclaimed, “just as I told you.” Anthony nodded.

“Yes—that’s all right. I’ve abandoned that particular theory.” He turned to the others, who were beginning to be infected with his strange combination of eagerness, enthusiasm and excitement. “Judging from the faces of the little gathering that we were discourteous enough just recently to interrupt,” he declared, “I don’t fancy that the lady had successfully interpreted the riddle that her father had put in front of her.”

“Her father,” interjected Goodall, “you mean her husband, Mr. Bathurst!”

“I don’t,” smiled Anthony, “I mean her father, as I said—you will find that Alice Mortimer was _née_ Butterworth—she met her esteemed husband in the States.”

Charles Stewart gasped and Peter Daventry raised his eyes in astonishment.

“Assuming therefore,” continued Anthony, “that the secret of the screens still remains unsolved, I purpose putting a little idea of mine to the test—I think you will find it interesting, gentlemen.” He walked to the French doors. “O’Connor,” he called. The black-bearded giant stepped smartly into the room.

“At your service, Mr. Bathurst—what is it that you’re wantin’ of me?”

Anthony pointed to the smaller of the two screens. “You know a good deal about metal work, O’Connor,” he exclaimed, “have a look over here, will you?” Michael O’Connor strode across to the table. “What would be the effect, O’Connor, of heavy blows upon this metal work?”

O’Connor ran his fingers over the embossed surface of the screen. Then he ran them through his hair. “Would it be with a hammer that you mean?” he questioned doubtfully.

“Yes—something of that kind.”

“Well”—he scratched his head still more doubtfully—“you could beat it and beat it and kape on beatin’ it. You could knock it into all shapes and that ’ud be about all you could do—you couldn’t knock holes into it. It’s old and hard that metal work is—and it ’ud stand all the banging you could give it. That’s my opinion, sir.” He paused and looked round at them, as though inviting either a criticism or a confirmation of what he had stated.

From Anthony there came the latter. “Just my own opinion, O’Connor,” he declared, “it would stand as much hammering as you chose to give it.” He walked up to the table and inspected the two screens intently. Goodall and Peter Daventry joined him, while Charles Stewart came round to the other side of them. Suddenly Bathurst put his finger on the point of the metal work that comprised the eye of the swimming fish. But to no purpose—and his circle of spectators saw something like a gleam of disappointment cross his face. Then he tried a second time—the forefinger of his left hand pushing on the fish’s eye and the forefinger of his right pressing on its tail! There was a sudden clicking sound and a sharp exclamation of amazement from Charles Stewart. As though by magic the embossed body of the fish on the reverse side of the screen to which Bathurst had pressed, swung away—revealing a cavity in the metal work the size of a man’s hand. Anthony plunged his hand into it and drew out what looked like a wad of discolored cotton wool.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, with dramatic triumph, “allow me to introduce you to the ‘Twenty-Two Black Pearls of Lorraine.’”