He ceased strumming at the harp and his eyes went toward the sword upon the wall. A step or two, and he had it in his hands.
“It brought fortune to the Hohenlos, eh?” said he, and his eyes seemed dreamy as he gazed at it. “A good blade!” Then the eyes lifted, and he continued: “Those strings, Scanlon, where are they?”
“Here,” said the big man, taking the tangled mass from his coat pocket, and offering it to the other.
“Pull one out. That’s it. Thanks.”
Ashton-Kirk took the proffered string; it was quite long, and trailed upon the floor in a soiled heap. Starting at a point close to the hilt, he began wrapping the string around the sword blade.
The big man watched his friend narrowly as he worked with the string and the sword blade. He felt that in this, queer as the proceeding seemed, there was to be an explanation of some things that had gone before.
“Kirk’s the fellow to explain them,” he told himself, as he watched. “He’s never in a hurry to do it, of course; and maybe that’s the reason why he never makes a mistake. But explain them he does; and don’t let that get away from you.”
Miss Knowles was also intensely interested; she followed the fingers of the special detective with the utmost attention. Carefully Ashton-Kirk wrapped the string about the great blade. Often he paused and inspected what he had done, as though to make sure that it was what he wanted.
“The romance which might attach to a weapon of this sort,” said he, “is endless.” Slowly he worked, and carefully. Every moment or two he paused and surveyed what he had done. “For history, poetry, drama, all tell us that such blades were forged when romance was thick upon every hand. What backs has it hung across in journeys through strange lands? What strong hands have clasped its hilt as the desert’s dust showed the cohorts of the infidel? What scaling ladders has it mounted? What castle walls has it topped? What helmets and plates of proof has it rung upon? What captive damsels has it freed? What number of the oppressed and helpless has its hiss and its swing released from tyranny? What stout squires have ridden behind its owner? What brawny lanz-knechts have cheered to see it flash, and have pressed after it into the heat of the fight?
“And now,” continued the crime specialist, “to what base uses has it come. From being the weapon of a hero, it becomes the means of one criminal communicating with another.”