They repassed through the other rooms; with his hand upon the frame of the door leading to the show room, Ashton-Kirk paused.

“Better brace yourself for rather a shocking sight,” said he to his friend.

“Go on,” said Pendleton, quietly.

CHAPTER IV

STILLMAN’S THEORY

There were four good-sized windows in the show room, all overlooking the street.  It was a large, square place, and, as Miss Vale had said, literally stuffed with odd carvings, pottery of a most freakish sort, and weird bric-a-brac.  Two large modern safes stood at one side, behind a long show case spread with ancient coins.  At the end of this case was a carpeted space, railed in and furnished with a great flat-topped desk.  Upon the floor at the foot of the desk, and with three separate streams of blood creeping away from it, lay the huddled, ghastly figure of a man.

Pendleton, though he had been warned, felt his breath catch and his skin grow cold and damp.

“Heavens!” said he, under his breath.  “It’s the man whose picture we saw inside there on the wall.”

Even the shock of death could not, so it seemed, drive the sneer from the thick lips; mockery was frozen in the dead eyes.

“What a beast he must have been,” went on Pendleton.  “Like a satyr.  I don’t think I ever saw just that type of face before.”

Ashton-Kirk was bending over the body; suddenly he raised himself.

“There is a heavy bruise on the forehead,” said he.  “He was felled first; then bayoneted.”

“Bayoneted!” Pendleton peered at the body.

“There it is, sticking from his chest.”  Ashton-Kirk drew aside the breast of the dead man’s coat and his companion caught sight of a bronze hilt.  The broad, sword-like blade had been driven completely home.

“If we attempted to move the body,” said the investigator, “I should not be surprised if we found it pinned to the floor.  It took brawn to give that stroke; the man who dealt it made sure of the job.”

With soft, quick steps he crossed the room.  The doors of the safes were locked.

“If the purpose was robbery,” said Ashton-Kirk, “the criminal evidently knew where to look for the most portable and valuable articles.  There seems to be no indication of anything having been tampered—­” He stopped short, his eyes upon a huge vellum covered tome which lay open upon the floor.  He whistled softly between his teeth.  “General Wayne once more!” he said.

The volume, as far as Pendleton could see, was a sort of scrap book in which had been fastened a great number of prints.  Upon the two pages that they could see, six prints had been affixed by the corners.  Of these, four had been torn out and lay upon the floor.

“Gambetta and John Bright have been spared,” said Ashton-Kirk, pointing at the book, “but,” and he gathered up the fragments of the mishandled prints, “upon Mad Anthony they laid violent hands four separate times.”