He held the mask up in the moonlight, and the lineaments, sinister enough, of Mr. Longcluse stood, sharply defined in every line and feature, in intense white and black, against the vacant shadow behind. There was the flat nose, the projecting underjaw, the oblique, sarcastic eyebrow, even the line of the slight but long scar, than ran nearly from his eye to his nostril. The same, but younger.
“There is no doubt about that. But when was it taken? Will you read what is written upon it?”
Uncle David had taken out the candle, and he held it beside the mask. The baron turned it round, and read, “Walter Longcluse, 15th October, 1844.”
“The same year in which Mace's was taken?”
“So it is, 1844.”
“But there is a great deal more than you have read, written upon the parchment in this one.”
“It looks more.”
“And is more. Why, count the words, one, two, four, six, eight. There must be thirty, or upwards.”
“Well, suppose there are, Sir: I have read, nevertheless, all I mean to read for the present. Suppose we bring these three masks together. We can talk a little then, and I will perhaps tell you more, and disclose to you some secrets of nature and art, of which perhaps you suspect nothing. Come, come, Monsieur! kindly take the candle.”
The baron shut the iron door with a clang, and locked it, and, taking up the box, marched into the next room, and placing the boxes one on top of the other, carried them in silence out upon the gallery, accompanied by David Arden.