eads. The script reads from left to right, like our own writing,
and unlike that of the Semitic peoples and the primitive Greeks; and the
rule for the placing of the characters is that all the 'wedges' point to
the right or downwards and the arrow-head forms are open towards the
right. But if you look at this photograph you will see that all the
wedges point upwards to the left and that the arrow-head characters are
open towards the left. Obviously the photograph is upside down."

"But," I exclaimed, "this is really most mysterious. What do you suppose
can be the explanation?"

"I think," replied Thorndyke, "that we may perhaps get a suggestion from
the back of the frame. Let us see."

He disengaged the frame from the two nails on which it hung, and,
turning it round, glanced at the back; which he then presented for my
inspection. A label on the backing paper bore the words, "J. Budge,
Frame-maker and Gilder, 16, Gt. Anne Street, W.C."

"Well?" I said, when I had read the label without gathering from it
anything fresh.

"The label, you observe, is the right way up as it hangs on the wall."

"So it is," I rejoined hastily, a little annoyed that I had not been
quicker to observe so obvious a fact. "I see your point. You mean that
the frame-maker hung the thing upside down and Jeffrey never noticed the
mistake?"

"That is a perfectly sound explanation," said Thorndyke. "But I think
there is something more. You will notice that the label is an old one;
it must have been on some years, to judge by its dingy appearance,
whereas the two mirror-plates look to me comparatively new. But we can
soon put that matter to the test, for the label was evidently stuck on
when the frame was new, and if the plates were screwed on at the same
time, the wood that they cover will be clean and new-looking."

He drew from his pocket a "combination" knife containing, among other
implements, a screw-driver, with which he carefully extracted the screws
from one of the little brass plates by which the frame had been
suspended from the nails.

"You see," he said, when he had removed the plate and carried the
photograph over to the gasjet, "the wood covered by the plate is as
dirty and time-stained as the rest of the frame. The plates have been
put on recently."

"And what are we to infer from that?"

"Well, since there are no other marks of plates or rings upon the
frame, we may safely infer that the photograph was never hung up until