“Look,” said he.

He indicated the walls.  Here and there the plaster was broken as though some fastened object had been violently torn away.  At one place an empty picture frame, its glass smashed, hung askew from a hook.  As Pendleton caught sight of other empty frames littered about the room, the glass of each broken, their pictures torn out, he exclaimed in astonishment: 

“Hello!  Someone has torn them down and smashed them.  What an extraordinary thing to do!”

The pictures, mostly engravings, but with here and there a painting, were strewn about.  Ashton-Kirk carefully gathered them up and spread them upon the table.  They were by various hands, but unquestionably represented the same person—­a handsome, resolute looking man in the uniform of an officer in the army of Washington.

“General Anthony Wayne,” said Ashton-Kirk, softly.

There was something in the tone that made Pendleton look at him swiftly.  The splendid head was bent over the portraits; eagerness blazed in the dark eyes; the keen face was rigid with interest.

“Some drunken freak, do you think?” asked Pendleton, more to hear his friend’s view than anything else.

But Ashton-Kirk shook his head.

“On the contrary, the thing seems full of a vague meaning,” said he.  “There were seventeen pictures upon the walls of this room; fourteen have been torn down and destroyed; the other three are undisturbed.”

Pendleton gazed at the pictures that remained upon the walls.  Two were of fine looking houses of the colonial type; the third was the portrait of a man—­a man of repulsive, sneering face, heavy with evil lines and with unusually small eyes.

“If they had destroyed that one it would have had some meaning to me,” commented Pendleton.  “But, as it is, I hardly think I follow you.”

“The meaning that I find,” replied Ashton-Kirk, “lies in the fact that the pictures violently used were those of General Wayne only.  Mark that fact.  That they were deliberately selected for destruction is beyond question.”

“How do you make that out?”

“It is simple.  If this were a mere random stripping of the room of its pictures, all would have suffered.  Look,” indicating a spot in the wall, “here is a place where the plaster is broken.  A hook had been driven here to hold one of the portraits; and the breaking of the plaster shows that some determination was required to tear the picture down.  Yet—­next this—­is an engraving of an old mansion which remains untouched.  The next four again were portraits of the General, and all have been demolished.”

Pendleton nodded.

“That’s true,” said he.  “Whoever did this was after the Revolutionary hero alone.  But why?”

Ashton-Kirk smiled.

“We’ll look into matters a little further,” said he.  “Perhaps there are facts to be gathered that will shed some light upon the things that we have already seen.”