Then he wrote on the pad in big, plain Roman letters:
HINTER
WAYNE'S
BILDNISSE
"There it is," said the investigator, "done into the German language, line for line. Brush up your knowledge now; let me see you turn it into English."
Pendleton, whose German was rusty from long disuse, pondered over the three words. Suddenly a light shot across his face; then his eyes were in a blaze.
"Behind Wayne's Portrait!"
He fairly shouted the words. Astonishment filled him; he was trembling with excitement.
"By Heaven," he gasped, "you have it, Kirk. Now I understand the smashing of the portraits of General Wayne. There was something of value hidden behind one of them—between the picture and the back! But what?"
"It was nothing of any great bulk; the hiding place indicated points that out, surely," said Ashton-Kirk, composedly. "A document of some sort, perhaps."
Pendleton stood for a moment, lost in the wonder of the revelation; then his mind began to work once more.
"But I can't understand the writing of the thing upon the step," said he.