"The mark of Satan!" repeated Gebb, puzzled by this description of Ferris.
"Hist!" cried Martin, with uplifted finger. "He is a wizard and she a witch, and they dance in the Yellow Room when the moon is up. Young Arthur has a red mark on his cheek; Satan baptized him there with blood. Oh, blood! oh, blood!" moaned the wretched creature, "nothing but blood.
"'A knife for you, and a rope for me,
And death in the Yellow Room;
I am alive, and you are dead,
But each hath gotten a tomb.'"
And with a long, dolorous cry Martin ran up the avenue swinging his arms, leaving Gebb to puzzle out his enigmatic verse as best he could.
[CHAPTER XII]
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE
Gebb, much to his disgust, returned to Norminster as wise as he had left it. Beyond meeting a lunatic, and interviewing an obstinate young woman, he had spent his time and money to little purpose; and it was with a perplexed brain that he sat down to consider his future movements. In the face of his failure he was at a loss how to act. Miss Wedderburn, with what looked like deliberate intention, only repeated the story he already knew.
Miss Gilmar had confessed to a fear of Dean. She had fled from the Hall on account of that fear; her travels and hidings and extraordinary precautions had been undertaken solely to thwart the revenge of Dean. Gebb was aware of these facts; but there was nothing more in them likely to instruct him. He had, so far, exhausted their capabilities.
"What am I to do?" he asked himself for, say, the fiftieth time. "How am I to act? In which direction am I to move? Miss Wedderburn, without any given reason, says that Dean is innocent. Prain is of the same way of thinking, and so am I. Parge alone seems to believe in Dean's guilt, and I don't agree with him. The man himself may be able to supply evidence to reveal the truth; but where is he to be found?"
Gebb could answer this question no more than he could the others he propounded, and vainly racked his usually inventive brain to settle on some course likely to elucidate the mystery. Finally, after mature reflection, he resolved to call upon Prain, and ask him to explain the meaning of Miss Wedderburn's fainting. The lawyer had told him to ask a certain question, and see what answer it would bring. Well, he had done so; and the answer was that the girl, without any apparent cause, had fainted. Perhaps Prain knew the reason; and since Edith refused to reveal it, his sole course was to question the solicitor. So to Prain the detective went, full of curiosity, two days after his return from the country. The interval had been filled up in attending to business unconnected with the Grangebury mystery; but now Gebb returned to it again, and sought Mr. Prain in the hope of learning something tangible. But his spirits were very low.