‘No; the manuscript was evidently written some considerable time after. It refers to tradition concerning it.’
‘Then the writer knew it by tradition.’
The moment Charley’s logical faculty was excited his perception was impartial.
‘Besides,’ he went on,’ it does not follow that the sword had really never been drawn before. Mr Close even may have done so, for his admiration was apparently quite as much for weapons themselves as for their history. Clara could hardly have drawn it as she did if it had not been meddled with before.’
The terror lest he should ask me how I came to carry it home without the scabbard hurried my objection.
‘That supposition, however, would only imply that Brotherton might have learned the fact from the sword itself, not from the book. I should just like to have one peep of the manuscript to see whether what he read was all there!’
‘Or any of it, for that matter,’ said Charley. ‘Only it would have been a more tremendous risk than I think he would have run.’
‘I wish I had thought of it sooner, though.’
My suspicion was that Clara had examined the blade thoroughly, and given him a full description of it. He might, however, have been at the Hall on some previous occasion, without my knowledge, and might have seen the half-drawn blade on the wall, examined it, and pushed it back into the sheath; which might have so far loosened the blade that Clara was afterwards able to draw it herself. I was all but certain by this time that it was no other than she that had laid it on my bed. But then why had she drawn it? Perhaps that I might leave proof of its identity behind me—for the carrying out of her treachery, whatever the object of it might be. But this opened a hundred questions not to be discussed, even in silent thought, in the presence of another.
‘Did you see your mother, Charley?’ I asked.