"They are here, your Majesty." The Superintendent produced a small box with numbered slides.
"Very interesting," murmured the King again as he continued to handle the shards.
Presently he detected in one of these a faint trace of figures and lettering; he laid it to one side, took up the films, and began to examine them. Film after film he held up to the light; the scale was very small. Unable to decipher them in detail he sought only for the identifying numbers under which they stood catalogued.
After a while he came to the one he was in search of; that and the other two or three which immediately followed it he selected for closer scrutiny. Two of them he handed to the Prince. "This is just before," he said by way of explanation. "It was from behind those palisades that the bomb was thrown after our coach had passed."
"Here your Highness can see the actual explosion taking place," said their guide.
"Ah, very good! Very interesting!" murmured the Prince, with cordial appreciation. "That seems to have gone off quite well."
The King meanwhile had re-collected the four innocuous-looking films and set them apart from the rest. "And have you been quite unable," he inquired, "to trace the bomb to its origin, or to discover anything as to who threw it?"
"No trace at all, sir. The whole thing is a perfect mystery."
"Remarkable!" said the King.
And then with the leisurely air of a collector of curios he took up again the four films and the shard bearing the faint trace of figures, and before the astonished eyes of the Superintendent put them into his breast-pocket.