ror in the Grey Boom. He's a demon; and he's killed the old dog;
and I believe he's a Borge himself if the truth was known."

CHAPTER XIII. TWO NOTES

They walked in the garden next morning, and Sir Walter delayed to write
to Scotland Yard until after seeing Signor Mannetti again. The
old gentleman descended to them presently, and declared himself
over-fatigued.

"I must sit in the sun and go to sleep again after lunch," he said.
"Stephano is annoyed with me, and hints at the doctor."

"Mannering will be here to lunch. You will understand that nobody is
more deeply interested in these things than he."

"But yourself," said Mary. "Come and sit down and rest. You are looking
very tired to-day."

"A little reaction--no more. It was worth it." He then proceeded where
he had broken off on the preceding night.

"There remains only to tell you how I found myself caught up in your sad
story. It had not occurred to you to wonder?"

"I confess I had never thought of that, signor. You made us forget such
a trifling detail."

"But, none the less, you will want to know, Sir Walter. Our common
friend, Colonel Vane, put the first thought in my head. He laid the
train to which I set the match so well. He it was who described the Grey
Room very exactly, and the moment that I heard of the ancient carved
furniture, I knew that he spoke of curios concerning which I already
had heard. The name of Lennox completed the clue, for that had already
stirred memories in my ancient mind. I had listened to my father, when
I was young, telling a story in which a bed and chairs and a gentleman
named Lennox were connected. He spoke of an ancient Italian suite of
three pieces, the work of craftsmen at Rome in the fifteenth century. It
was papal furniture of the early Renaissance, well known to him as being
in a Spanish collection--a hundred and fifty years ago that is now--and
when these things came into the market, he rejoiced and hurried off to
Valencia, where it was to be sold. For he was even such a man as your
grandfather--a connoisseur and an enthusiastic collector. But, alas, his
hopes were short-lived; he found himself in opposition to a deeper purse
than his own, and it was Sir John Lennox, not my father, who secured
the bed and the two chairs that go with it. These things, as I tell you,
returned to my recollection, and, remembering them, I guessed myself
upon the right track. The arms of the Borgia, and the successful
exper