Sophia in her wantonness had put some minute
touches of colour, which gave its head two eyes and a grinning mouth.

He sat down again at the table where the certificate still lay open
before him. That entry of Martin's birth must be in the handwriting of
Sophia Flannery, of faithless, irresponsible Sophia Flannery, flaunting
as her own flowers, mocking as the face of her own caterpillar.

There was a dead silence over all, the utter blank silence that falls
upon a country town in the early morning hours. Only the loud-ticking
clock on the mantelpiece kept telling of time's passage till the
carillon of Saint Sepulchre's woke the silence with New Sabbath. It was
three o'clock, and the room was deadly cold, but that chill was nothing
to the chill that was rising to his own heart. He knew it all now, he
said to himself--he knew the secret of Anastasia's marriage, and of
Sharnall's death, and of Martin's death.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

The foreman of the masons at work in the under-pinning of the south-east
pier came to see Westray at nine o'clock the next morning. He was
anxious that the architect should go down to the church at once, for the
workmen, on reaching the tower shortly after daybreak, found traces of a
fresh movement which had taken place during the night. But Westray was
from home, having left Cullerne for London by the first train.

About ten of the same forenoon, the architect was in the shop of a small
picture-dealer in Westminster. The canvas of the flowers and
caterpillar picture lay on the counter, for the man had just taken it
out of the frame.

"No," said the dealer, "there is no paper or any kind of lining in the
frame--just a simple wood backing, you see. It is unusual to back at
all, but it _is_ done now and again"--and he tapped the loose frame all
round. "It is an expensive frame, well made, and with good gilding. I
shouldn't be surprised if the painting underneath this daub turned out
to be quite respectable; they would never put a frame like this on
anything that wasn't pretty good."

"Do you think you can clean off the top part without damaging the
painting underneath?"

"Oh dear, yes," the man said; "I've had many harder jobs. You leave it
with me for a couple of days, and we'll see what we can make of it."

"Couldn't it be done quicker than that?" Westray said. "I'm in rather
a hurry. It is difficult for me to get up to London, and I should
rather like to be by, when y