"They said he couldn't speak English," I put in.
"You didn't notice, then, that he was listening to everything that was said," observed Nikka.
"No, but I saw him read the rhyme up there over the fireplace. He gave me the shakes."
"Who was the Bey person?" inquired Hugh.
Nikka's lip curled.
"That fellaheen cur! I know the breed. They live by graft and worse. If we go to Paris I think I shall make inquiries about some of them. I know persons at the Prefecture of Police who ought to have their dossiers."
We fell silent, as Watkins, the company out of the way, brought in tea.
"How did they get on the subject of that verse of Lady Jane's?" demanded Hugh suddenly.
"It was the countess and Mrs. Hilyer," I explained. "They saw it, and insisted on reading some hidden meaning into it."
As I spoke I looked up again at the overmantel where the Gothic characters showed dimly in the light from the smoldering logs and the rays of the sunset. I conned over the four lines deliberately. "Ye Prior's Vent." The last three words seemed to jump out at me. "Some secret meaning.... A key to something else, you know." Mrs. Hilyer's phrases reëchoed in my brain. I studied the rhyme a second time.