Selby was still at the place where we had secured him, bound hand and foot, shouting and cursing until he was hoarse, and uttering all kinds of threats against us. But we had secured the historic jewels of the notorious Lucrezia, and now intended to make the best of our way to Crailloch. With that intention, therefore, we tidied ourselves as well as we could, and walked on to Dildawn, the fine estate of our host’s good friend, Charlie Phillips, and there borrowed a conveyance to take us home, a distance of about fourteen miles as the crow flies.
So disreputable our appearance, so mysterious our movements, not to mention the absence of guns or game bags, that our friend’s curiosity was aroused; but we merely explained that we had been out for a day’s excursion and got stranded, the railway being of no use to us. He gave us some whisky, smiled knowingly, but was much puzzled.
“My opinion is that you fellows have been up to some trick or other that you oughtn’t to have been,” was his remark as we drove away.
“All right, old chap,” shouted Fred; “we’ll tell you all about it some day.” And the smart pair of bays swung away down the drive.
We agreed to say nothing to anyone, not even to the rest of the party at Crailloch. At present, in view of our forthcoming investigations at Crowland, it was not judicious to make any statement. We had forestalled our enemies at Threave, and for the present that was sufficient.
Our tardy and unexpected return gave rise to a good deal of comment, as may be imagined. The ladies of the party were soon around Sammy imploring him to tell them the reason of our mysterious movements, and many questions were put to Fred by the men. But to all we were dumb. We had been visiting friends was all we explained.
“Friends!” exclaimed Jack Handsworth, sucking at his cigar. “Been down a drain somewhere, by the look of your clothes,” a remark that was greeted with considerable laughter.
That night, after the others had retired, the four of us held a secret sitting in Fred’s study, where we examined our find, and discovered it to be more remarkable and important than we had believed it to be. The emerald collars were magnificent; but, besides what I have already enumerated, there was a magnificent Byzantine cross of diamonds, containing in the back the relic of St. Peter, which is known to have been the property of Lucrezia’s father, the Borgia Pope. In the Vatican archives are several mentions of it; but on the death of Alexander VI it unaccountably disappeared, having been given, no doubt, to his golden-haired daughter. There was a heavy gold bracelet, too, in the form of a serpent, and several fine rings. One, in gold, was engraved with the sacred tau, believed in the Borgia era to guard the wearer against epilepsy; another, of agate, carved with an image of St. John the Divine, which was worn in those days as a protection from venom; and in a third was set a piece of toadstone or bufonite—the fossil palatal tooth of the ray fish Pycnodus—the most potent periapt against black magic.
The most interesting of all, however, was a beautiful ring of gold niello, of the fourteenth century, with a hollow bezel or sharp point pierced by two tiny holes, which had undoubtedly been used to contain poison. It was quite easy to see that this ring, if charged with the deadly liquid, could be used with fatal effect in a hand-grasp with an enemy—a curio of world-wide interest, the actual poison-ring of that veneficious bacchante Lucrezia Borgia, which had caused the death of so many unsuspecting and innocent persons, from cavaliers in Ferrara to cardinals in Rome.
I turned it over in my hand and felt the sharpness of that fine needle-point. Surely the controversy regarding the venom of the Borgias would now be set at rest forever.