“After your talk with your father finished—your father went to bed—but only ostensibly. He was on the qui vive that night—he undressed—slipped a dressing-gown over his pajamas—a revolver into the right-hand pocket——”
“Left,” cut in Peter Daventry crisply. Anthony ignored the interruption.
“——And waited until something happened that brought him downstairs. To the library—for this was the room where he had previously discovered signs of interference with his private papers. Butterworth was in there—engaged on a book of French memoirs to which I shall refer again. Like ‘John Shand,’ he had always been a natural scholar—with an unusual aptitude for learning and culture—this aptitude unhappily has brought him, finally, to what I believe is sometimes described as ‘the nine o’clock walk.’ But I digress! Butterworth heard his master’s footsteps—sprang to the light switch and snapped out the light. Stewart fired at the unknown intruder—we know where the bullet went. Butterworth then disclosed his identity—probably with an instinct for self-preservation. Shocked at the perfidy of the man he trusted implicitly, but at the same time realizing that he surely would not need the revolver again, Stewart then replaced it in his left-hand pocket. Do you agree, Daventry?” Peter nodded rather shamefacedly and could have kicked himself for his recent interruption. Anthony smiled. “Stewart wrested part of the truth from him, in all probability, and then heaped rebuke and scathing censure on his head. And I think—although perhaps it’s largely guesswork—that he let Butterworth know that the provision that he had made for him in his will would be immediately negatived. Then the butler was dismissed and Stewart sat down to think things over. He didn’t notice that Butterworth had made his exit by the French doors into the garden and not by the door. Stewart scrawled his few words—intended for Llewellyn—I suggest it would have read had it been completed—‘urgent in the morning. M. L. and Co. to act re’—well—what shall we say—perhaps a new will—perhaps they were to receive more explicit instructions re the tapestry screen that had now been invested with an intrinsic value concerning which his curiosity had been considerably whetted. But Butterworth, with his half-share in the proceeds of the ‘Twenty-Two Black Pearls of Lorraine’ greatly imperiled, to say nothing of an immediate pension of five hundred pounds a year at stake, came back from the garden with murder in his heart. Fate had placed his weapon handy. He struck! As we know, he cleaned as much of the dirt from the table as he could see—he forgot the proximity of the bowl of ink. He then collected the Museum Room screen, locked the library door on the inside, went out by the French doors, borrowed O’Connor’s bicycle and ’phoned his daughter at Blanchard’s Hotel. Her precious husband—a real product of the Bowery—went on with her to the Hanover Galleries and completed the job. Meanwhile, Butterworth returned, disposed of the screen somewhere, and went to bed.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Bathurst,” interposed Goodall. “Why did Butterworth replace the book he was at work on—I can’t understand that?”
“It’s hard to say—I question very much if he knew that the bullet was embedded in it—he was probably obsessed with the idea of leaving the room quite normal. Alternatively, Stewart may have replaced it.”
“I think it was a mistake,” declared the Inspector.
“We all make ’em,” continued Anthony. “That’s why we’re waiting for the perfect crime. Where was I? Oh, I remember. Well, I now began to consider what it was that lay behind it all. M. Réné, Daventry, please?” He pointed to the bookcase. Mr. Daventry took down once again “The Memoirs of Réné de St. Maure” and handed it to him. Anthony read the paragraph to them. Goodall’s face was a study, and Michael O’Connor’s black eyes gleamed with excitement.
“Pretty vague,” commented Charles Stewart.
“Vague, certainly,” said Anthony, “but it told me conclusively that they were after something valuable—the clue to which lay in some way in these two screens. Butterworth no doubt had got on the track of it through his delvings into your father’s library, had realized that the late Lord Clavering’s screen—advertised for sale—would give him the evidence that he had been wanting and had brought his choice specimen of a son-in-law over from the States to take a hand in the game. A morning’s research gave me a hint as to what the query might very well be. Perhaps you would care to listen to a little history. Mary, Queen of Scots, besides being Queen of Scotland, was Dowager of France, the widow of the little King Francis. She was also the niece of His Eminence the Cardinal of Lorraine. He showered upon her a much greater measure of affection than was usual in those days, and when she eventually sailed for Scotland he made her a ‘great gift’ of twenty-two black pearls—you’ve handled some of them to-night, gentlemen. When Mary suffered her defeat years afterwards at Carbery Hill, which meant the complete overthrow of her fortunes, she took the steps about which you have just heard to preserve many of her treasures—the Cardinal’s gift among them. First of all I anticipated that they were buried somewhere in Scotland and the clue to their hiding-place was contained somewhere on the screens. So I set to work to read the riddle.” He walked up to the two screens and beckoned up the others. They crowded round. “Look at them,” he exclaimed. “What strikes you as strange about either of them?”
“A good many things,” muttered Goodall. “But I don’t know that I can pick out anything in particular!”