Sanderson came up the room carrying a large quarto, open.
"Here's your bronze, right enough," he said, putting the book down on the table. "It's under the heading, Hammerton Collection."
He pointed to a small engraving inscribed, "Bronze statuette of Augustus. Very rare."
"But some fellow's been scribbling something here," continued Sanderson, turning the book around to read a note written along the margin. He read out: "'A forgery. Sold by Lady Hammerton to Mr. Solomons, 1819. See case Solomons versus Hammerton, 1820.'"
The turning of the book showed Mildred a full-page engraving entitled, "The Gallery, Hammerton House." It represented a long room somewhat like the one in which they stood, but still more like the room she had seen in the crystal; and in the middle distance there was a slightly sketched figure of a woman in a light dress. Half incredulous, half frightened, she pored over the engraving which reproduced so strangely the image she had seen in Maxwell Davison's mysterious ball.
"How funny!" she almost whispered.
"You may call it funny, of course, that Lady Hammerton succeeded in cheating a Jew, which is what it looks like," rejoined Sanderson, bent on hunting down his quarry; "but it was pretty discreditable to her too."
"Not at all," Maxwell Davison's harsh voice broke in. "That was Solomons's look out. I sha'n't bring a lawsuit against the fellow who sold me that Augustus, if it is a forgery. A man's a fool to deal in things he doesn't understand."
"What is this glass ball, Mr. Davison?" asked Miss Moore, in her turn taking up the uncanny thing Mildred had laid down.
"It's a divining-crystal. In the East certain people, mostly boys, look in these crystals and see all sorts of things, present, past, and to come."