“Well,” she responded after some little hesitation, “I was very glad indeed when she went off in a flounce, and I hope she’ll never darken my door again. You may think me very timid, but if you had seen what I discovered after she had gone you’d have been of my way of thinking.”
“What did you discover?” I asked, surprised.
“Well, in her bedroom there was, in a small silver box, an old ring that my late husband had prized very much. It had belonged to one of the Popes, and had been blessed by him. The relic was no doubt an extremely valuable one.”
“And when she went?” I asked.
“When she went I had a look round her room to see that nothing had been taken, but to my surprise I found the ring and the box actually burnt up. Only the ashes remained! There was a picture of the Virgin also in the room, an old panel-painting which my husband had picked up in Holland, and what was most extraordinary was that although this picture had also been wholly consumed, the little easel had been left quite intact. Some Devil’s work was effected there, but how, I can’t imagine.”
This was certainly a most startling statement, and the old lady was evidently still nervous regarding it. Did it not fully bear out what had already occurred in my own rooms and in those of the man whose life had so suddenly gone out?
“Do you think, then, that the picture was deliberately burned?” I inquired.
“I examined the ashes very closely,” she replied, “and found that by whatever means the picture was destroyed, the table-cloth had not even been singed. Now, if the picture had been deliberately lighted, a hole must have been burned in the cloth; but as it was, it seemed as though the picture, which the Roman Catholics hold in such reverence, had been destroyed by something little short of a miracle.”
“Have you preserved the ashes?”
“No,” responded the old lady; “Ann threw them into the dustbin at once. I didn’t like to keep them about.”