Chapter XI.
The Bow and Arrow
Without a glance behind him at the beautiful lady, Anthony make for the study, entered it, and closed the door behind him.
The great room bore an aspect widely different from that of his first visit. Down the centre ran the long trestle table of the coroner’s court. Two smaller ones were ranged along the walls. The far end of the room was blocked with rows of chairs.
Anthony realised, with something of surprise, what a vast room it was. Then he banished from his mind everything save his immediate purpose, and turned to the little rosewood table which stood between the door and the grandfather clock.
He bent to see more clearly the scar on the table-top, the scar which he had noticed on his second visit to the room and which had, in some vague way he could not define, been persistently worrying him during the day. It was an even more perfect impression of the wood-rasp than he had remembered it to be, an orderly series of indentations which made a mark two inches wide and nearly a foot in length.
That something kept jogging in his mind; something about the mark that was indefinably wrong because the mark itself was so undoubtedly right.
Beside him the door opened. He straightened his back and turned to see Sir Arthur.
“Hallo, Gethryn. Can I come in? Thought you might be in here. Turn me out if you’d rather be alone.”
“No, no,” said Anthony. “Come in. I’m here because I wanted to look at something and because it was the best way of escape. What sweetness! I feel quite sticky, I do!”
Sir Arthur smiled. “Dodo Mainwaring, eh? I caught a glimpse of her. What d’you think?”