I smiled to myself, for well I knew that the police would experience considerable difficulty in ascertaining the identity of the original of that picture.
"Are you quite sure, Mrs. Dean, that it was the same lady who came to visit Mr. Gregory?" I asked the landlady.
"Quite positive, sir. That funny little pendant she is wearing in the photograph, she was wearing when she came to see the old gentleman—a funny little green stone thing—shaped like one of them heathen idols."
I knew to what she referred—the small green figure of Maat, the Goddess of Truth—an ancient amulet I had found, while prying about in the ruins of a temple on the left bank of the Nile, a few miles beyond Wady-Halfa—the gate of the Sudan. I knew that amulet well, knew the hieroglyphic inscription upon its back, for I had given it to her as a souvenir.
Then Lola—the mysterious Lola, whose memory had occupied my thoughts, both night and day, for many and many a month—had reappeared from nowhere, and had visited the eccentric Gregory.
In that room I stood, unconscious of what was going on about me; unconscious of that glittering litter of plate and jewels; of fifteenth century chalices and gem-encrusted cups; of sixteenth century silver, much of it ecclesiastical—probably from churches in France, Italy, and Spain—of those heavy nineteenth century ornaments, that wonderful array of diamonds and other precious stones, in ponderous early-Victorian settings, which lay upon the faded, threadbare carpet at my feet.
I was thinking only of the past—of that strange adventure of mine, which was now almost like some half-forgotten dream—and of Lola, the beautiful and the mysterious—whose photograph I now held in my nerveless fingers, just as the detective had given it to me.
At that moment a constable entered with a note for his inspector, who took it and opened it.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, turning to Frayne. "Here's another surprise for us! I made inquiries this morning of the Sheffield police concerning old Mr. Gregory. Here's their reply. They've been up to Messrs. Gregory and Thorpe's works, but there is no Mr. Gregory. Mr. Vernon Gregory, senior partner in the firm, died, while on a voyage to India, nearly a year ago!"
"What?" shrieked Mrs. Dean in scandalized tones. "Do you mean to say that that there old man, my lodger, wasn't Mr. Gregory?"