“Certainly, since I wish you to work with me in the endeavor to learn where Ferrier concealed the treasure. But I don’t want you to show the drawing all over the place, lest someone else should guess the secret.”
“Oh, I shall be careful,” said Fuller cheerfully, but making a mental reservation that Dick Latimer should see the sketch.
Satisfied with his promise, Sorley took the golden peacock from the cupboard of black oak, and unwrapped the chamois leather covering to display it on the table. But before doing so he locked the library door without apologizing, an action which seemed highly suspicious to his visitor. But if cautious with others who were in the house, Sorley was certainly very frank in his dealings with Alan, and although the young man could not bring himself to entirely trust his host, he admitted privately that the man did not act in a way which suggested terror of the law, And if he had murdered Grison to gain possession of the fetish, he assuredly would be more cautious in showing it to a lawyer. But Fuller never could make up his mind as to Sorley’s innocence or guilt, and wavered between belief and disbelief in a way which annoyed himself. But there was nothing else to be done until more evidence was forthcoming.
The young man looked searchingly at the beautiful specimen of goldsmith’s work which glittered on the table. Ferrier knew his trade thoroughly, and probably had acquired some skill when in India. The feathers, the form, and the head of the bird were perfectly done, and in a minute, delicate manner, which showed how painstaking its creator had been. The tiny emeralds on the head-tuft trembled on golden wires like the filaments of flowers, and the ruby eyes were set admirably in their sockets. The breast shone with few gems, but the body of the bird was of feathered gold, and the artist seemed to have reserved the full blaze of beauty for the outspread tail. Yet there were fewer jewels in this than might have been expected, for in the three curved rows which followed the semicircular outline of the tail, Alan counted only fifteen precious stones, namely: eight gems in the first row, four in the second, and three in the third. Then between the second and third was the triangle which contained fifteen minute rubies on each one of its three sides.
“Fifteen gems in the lines,” murmured Fuller thoughtfully, “and fifteen of them in each line of the triangle. I wonder, Mr. Sorley, if the number fifteen is the key to the secret.”
“I can’t say, I don’t know; I certainly cannot see how it can be,” replied the host doubtfully. “I have tried in every way to solve the riddle, but I cannot even see how to make a beginning, The secret may be contained in the position of the stones, the shapes of the stones, or the color of the stones.” Alan faced round. “What do you mean by the color answering the riddle?”
“It is just an idea I got from a man who is a theosophist. In what they—the theosophists I mean—call the aura of a human being, which can be seen by those gifted with astral sight, the colors all mean something.”
“I don’t quite follow you, Mr. Sorley, although I have heard something of this sort from Dick. He believes in these occult things. Do you?”
“I can’t say that I have looked into them,” rejoined Sorley in a careless manner. “I only attended to the matter so far as the meaning of colors was concerned—a kind of color alphabet as it were. Pink means affection, blue means religion, green sympathy, and so on. I applied the principle, but it wouldn’t work.”
Fuller quite believed this, as he did not see how the principle in question could be applied. However, he was too engrossed in drawing the bird to go into the subject at the present moment, but promised himself to ask for a more thorough explanation of the color alphabet—as Mr. Sorley aptly called it—from Dick Latimer. Meantime he drew the outline of the peacock, filled in the details, being particularly careful as to the position of the stones in the tail, and then slowly colored every part in accordance with the original object. When finished he laid down his brush with a tired sigh and held out the sketch at arm’s length. Mr. Sorley restored the peacock to its chamois leather wrapping and to the cupboard, after which he returned to examine Alan’s artistic effort.