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By the lodge-gates stood a dog-cart; in the flare of the lamps Bell recognised the features of the driver, a very old servant of Littimer's. Bell took in the situation at a glance. "Is this the way you come for me, Lund?" he asked. "I'm very sorry, sir," Lund replied. "But a clergyman near the station said you had gone another way, so I turned back.
Look how cleverly she worked out that Rembrandt business, how utterly she puzzled Henson, and how she helped me to get into Littimer's good books again without Henson even guessing at the reason. And now she has forced the confidence of that rascal Merritt.
He had got the real ring, too, which was likely to prove a very useful thing in case he ever wanted to make terms. A second and a faithful copy was made the copy you hold in your hands to hold temptingly over Lady Littimer's head when he wanted large sums of money from her." "The scoundrel! He gets the money, of course?" "He does. To my certain knowledge he has had nearly £70,000.
No, we must look farther for the thief." "There is something else also we have to look for," said Dr. Bell. "And that is the frame. You say it was of iron and consequently heavy. The thief would discard the frame and roll up the print." "That is a brilliant suggestion," said Chris, eagerly. "And if we only had the frame I could set Lord Littimer's doubts to rest entirely.
"But I read to-day that it is still in Littimer Castle," said David. "Another one," Bell observed. "Oblige me by opening yonder parcel. There you see is the print that I purchased to-day for £5. This, this, my friend, is the print that was stolen from Littimer's lodgings in Amsterdam. If you look closely at it you will see four dull red spots in the left-hand corner.
He unrolled the paper before Enid's astonished eyes. Margaret Henson glanced at it listlessly; she was fast sinking into the old, strange oblivion again. But Enid was all rapt attention. "I would have sworn to that as Lord Littimer's own," she gasped. "It is his own," Bell replied. "Stolen from him and a copy placed by some arch-enemy in my portmanteau, it was certain to be found on the frontier.
While he was waiting for the proper moment to descend thither, he could not get the shoe question out of his mind. Surely, the boot-boy could not have been so idiotic as to have left that ancient, broken-down pair at Littimer's threshold! And yet it was possible. Crombie felt another flush of humility upon his cheeks.
"Why not adopt the same method by which you originally introduced yourself to the distinguished novelist?" he asked. "Why not use Littimer's telephone?" Chris pushed her plate away impetuously. "I am too excited to eat any more," she said. "I am filled with the new idea. Of course, I could use the telephone to speak to Mr. Steel, and to Enid as well.
Enid's face grew colder. Bell drew a long tube of discoloured paper carefully tied round a stick from his pocket. "I am going to disprove that once and for all," he said. "The Rembrandt is at present in Lord Littimer's collection. There is an account of it in to-day's Telegraph. It is perfectly familiar to both of you. And, that being the case, what do you think of this?"
The typewriter and secretary business was a new whim of Littimer's. He wanted an assistant to catalogue and classify his pictures and prints, and he had told the vicar so. He wanted a girl who wasn't a fool, a girl who could amuse him and wouldn't be afraid of him, and he thought he would have an American.
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