"Cyrus, he knows that he can trust us," she said rebukingly. "I am sorry for the poor man. He is making amends."
"I shall say so when I hear that he has told the truth about the murder," I remarked grimly. "How he intends to do so I can't say. But, look, Gertrude, do you see how he finishes? Your father, after getting rid of the cipher coin in the river, came back and took all his things away. He told Striver--here it is--that he was returning to America and would never come to England again. Well"----I paused.
"Poor papa," sighed Gertrude, "why could he not have come down and asked me to help him? After all, he is my father, and I could never be hard on him."
"I don't think he is worthy of your regrets," I said, for really Mr. Walter Monk's behavior sickened me, "but, as he has departed, there is no use your going up to see him to-morrow about the eye."
"Especially as the eye is now destroyed," said Gertrude, taking up the paper, "and the cipher is set down here. What do you make of it, Cyrus?"
I put Striver's letter into my pocket--there was no more writing after the information of Mr. Monk's departure for America--and bent over the paper. "It's a bird in the middle of a lot of dust," I said.
"Dust." Gertrude pointed out two of the specks. "Then dust has wings."
"Oh, then it's a bird midst a cloud of insects."
"And these odd signs?"
"An 'A' reversed, and an 'S' turned in the wrong direction."