st was none too good for him."

Beyond this again was a bedroom. The bed was a huge Flemish affair,
and also elaborately carved; over it was a spreading Genoese canopy,
which through lack of care had grown dusty and tattered. Rich old rugs
were spread upon the neglected floor; a beautiful Louis Quinze table
had its top covered with discolored rings made by the bottoms of
glasses, and the lighted ends of cigars had burned spots on it.

"The bed of a prince and the floor coverings of a duke," said
Pendleton with indignation. "And used much as a coal heaver would use
them. Now, this table is really a scandal. If its owner has been
murdered, I don't wonder at it. Some outraged lover of such things has
probably taken the law into his own hands."

But Ashton-Kirk was paying little attention to the things that
appalled Pendleton.

"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 unusual