"What does this mean?" she asked bewildered, and I looked also.
The paper contained a rude drawing representing a kind of bird. Whether kite or owl or barn-door fowl I could not say. Around were a number of spots, and beneath were two large letters: an "A" reversed, and an "S" twisted in the wrong direction. "What does it mean?" asked Gertrude.
"Let us read the letter," said I, sitting down, and we did so together, she looking over my shoulder.
Striver wrote that by this time no doubt I had found out the disappearance of the glass eye. Mr. Monk had taken it, he said, when my back had been turned, and had destroyed it. The glass portion he had smashed up, and had afterwards gone out to throw the silver coin with the inscribed cipher into the Thames. Thus wrote the gardener: "You can never learn the cipher from the eye itself. But I enclose a drawing I made of what was on the threepenny bit while it was in my possession. What it means I can't say, or I should have found the treasure for myself. You were right, Mr. Vance, in thinking that I had taken the eye from the drawing-room table. I did. When you left the window I saw that you were disturbed, and, moreover, was very jealous, as I fancied you had just exchanged a word with Gertrude. On the spur of the moment I ran to the window when you turned the corner of the terrace with Mr. Monk, and saw the eye. I was greatly amazed, as I could not think how it came to be there, and I was still more amazed to think you had not secured it----"
"I was a fool," I interjected, "but I had not my wits about me."
The letter went on to say that, finding he would make no impression on Gertrude with me beside her, Striver had taken the eye to America in order to lay a trap for Monk. But he swore solemnly that Monk did not possess the eye, "unless," wrote Striver, "he placed it on the drawing-room table. I think myself that he is innocent, as I watched him all the time he was talking to my aunt. He did not leave the shop, but after a quarter of an hour he went away down the road. I believe he left his motor car at Murchester and walked over. Hence--as no one came to the corner shop on that afternoon--his visit was not noticed. After he departed I went back to the bedroom to lie down, and told my aunt I was weary. She did not come up the stairs and I did not go down them. She went into the back room, and I lay down again in the bedroom. Then--but I shall not tell you the truth now. When the time comes you shall know all, and Gertrude need have no fear that she will ever be troubled again by the Mootley murder."
"Thank God for that," said Gertrude; "but who is guilty?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "We must wait until Striver speaks out. Perhaps he killed his aunt himself, and wished to escape abroad before confessing. But let us read the rest of his letter," and I continued.
The writer went on to say that he intended to leave England, as he had plenty of money. He could not return to Burwain to see Gertrude the wife of another, so probably he would go to Australia.
"Very foolish of him to tell us that, seeing he may be guilty," I said.