“How?” she said.
“Upon my first visit,” said Ashton-Kirk, “I knew that you were calling my attention urgently to this instrument. And, in consequence, I took especial interest in it. I noted some peculiarities, but I did not form any conclusions until after I’d had Scanlon’s report of what he’d witnessed, and had another and specialized examination of its parts a while ago.
“The harp,” he went on, glancing at his two hearers, “is not, as a rule, a powerfully made thing. This is especially so in the case of those of this small size. The wood and the metal that go into its construction are light.” His keen glance now fixed itself upon Miss Knowles, and he asked: “Do you know whether this instrument has been sent away at any time recently for repairs?”
“It has. Shortly after we came here,” she answered. “Something was broken, I understood.”
Ashton-Kirk nodded.
“The gilding is much newer in some places than it is in others,” said he. “It’s the sign of the repairer of anything that he never does all over a job with his finishing tool, merely touching up the parts he’s worked upon.
“More than likely,” he went on, his eyes now upon the harp, “the sending of the instrument away was for a reason altogether different from the one given out. For in those parts where the tinker’s hand is plainest, I find that some very important and unusual departures have been made.”
“The upper strings are odd,” said the girl, eagerly. “I often noticed them. They are of metal.”
“And very heavy—of steel I should say; and they are strung to an astonishing tension—infinitely higher than the customary strings of the harp. The ‘pull’ of a number of steel strings of this thickness, and keyed to this pitch, would be too much for a frame of the ordinary sort. It would be pulled asunder. Consequently this one has been powerfully re-inforced; the keys are of a special type, and the sockets in which they turn appear marvellously strong.”
“But why all this?” asked Scanlon, his frowning gaze upon the harp.