Griggs started, and his pale face took on an unwonted blush. “I had indeed forgotten the ring,” he said, “but that it will in any way help to clear up the affair, I don’t for one moment believe.” Then turning to Everard, he added: “The ring to which my wife refers is a quite plain hoop of gold, in fact, just like a wedding-ring, except that it is about four times as massive. It was the only article of jewellery found among my sister’s luggage, although she was said to have been wearing a gold watch and chain and several dress rings at the time she fell overboard. Unfortunately, about four years ago I was very much pressed for money and was compelled to put the ring in pledge, obtaining on it an advance of thirty shillings. I am sorry to say that I have never since been in a position to redeem it, but it has not been lost, because I have been careful to pay the interest as it fell due.”
“As you say,” replied Everard, “there is not much likelihood of a ring such as you describe this one as being helping me in any way to discover what I am in search of. Still, I should very much like to see and examine it, and if you will allow me to pay the cost of taking it out of pledge I shall be greatly obliged to you.”
“Truth to tell, sir,” answered Griggs with a shrug, “I haven’t money enough of my own to spare to enable me to do so. But in any case, nothing can be done in the matter till to-morrow.”
So Everard left money for the redemption of the ring and went his way.
At half-past seven the next evening he was again at the house of Kirby Griggs. The ring had been redeemed in the interim. It was what the lawyer’s clerk had described it as being, a plain massive hoop of gold, but on the inner side Lisle’s keen eyes detected what seemed to him like a faint tracery of some kind, but apparently so worn that without the help of a magnifying glass it was impossible to make out what it was intended to represent. Griggs, who admitted that he had noticed the marks, but without attaching any value to them, volunteered to obtain the loan of a lens from a working watchmaker who lived close by, and accordingly did so. With the aid of the lens and the exercise of some patience, Everard was enabled to make out that what to the naked eye had looked like so many meaningless scratches was in reality an engraved inscription which ran thus: “J. A. C. to G. R. Pour tout temps.”
Scarcely had he succeeded in deciphering the inscription before it flashed across him that the words, “Pour tout temps” formed the somewhat arrogant motto of the Clares of Withington Chase, as also that the letters J. A. C. were the initials of John Alexander Clare.
By the time he got away from the house, taking the ring with him, it was too late to think of going down to the Chase before next morning. So he wandered about some of the quieter streets till a late hour, turning over and over in his mind his discovery in connection with the ring, but nowhere finding an adequate solution of the singular problem which was thus put before him. From whichever point of view he looked at the matter, it still remained as much a tangle as at first. Out of a dozen questions which he asked himself, there was not one he could answer. He turned into his hotel a little before midnight and went to bed, but sleep came to him only by fits and starts, and all through the dark hours the same series of questions kept ringing their changes in his brain.
After an early breakfast he caught the eight-thirty train for Mapleford. A fly took him and his luggage from the station to Elm Lodge, from whence, a few minutes later, he walked across the park to the Chase.
Sir Gilbert had lingered over breakfast, talking to his son, and in the corridor Everard met him face to face, looking a dozen years younger than when he had seen him last. The change in him was indeed marvellous.
“What! back already?” he said beamingly. “I thought you were going to take a few days’ holiday in London. Why didn’t you, eh? Why didn’t you? But we’ll have no work to-day, that’s certain. The best thing you can do will be to have the dog-cart out after luncheon and take your sweetheart for a drive—lucky dog that you are, to have won the love of such a girl!” Then his voice took on a deeper tone. “What a happy chance for me was that which brought you and my son together at Liverpool and so gave Alec back to me weeks before I should otherwise have had him! I cannot help feeling as if I somehow owe it all to you. Well, well”—laying a kindly hand on his shoulder—“when your wedding-day is here you will find that I have not forgotten you.” And with a smile and a nod he passed on.