Alan was struck by the quotation from a three hundred year old oracle after hearing Marie’s story of the secret which possession and examination of the peacock would reveal. “Jewels and gold,” he repeated slowly, “yes; it does sound as though that line referred to the Begum’s hoard. Odd, very odd indeed.” “It will come true, it will come true,” sang Marie, dancing a step or two in her gleeful way, and with the exuberant joy of twenty. “Then we’ll pension Uncle Ran off, and have The Monastery and the money to ourselves. Oh, Alan, let us build castles in the air.” “They won’t turn into bricks and mortar until we find the peacock,” said Mr. Fuller gloomily, “and that will not be easy, seeing it means the capture of poor Grison’s assassin. Moon can find out nothing and if he fails how can mere amateur detectives such as Dick and I are succeed. However, we know that he was murdered for the sake of the peacock, and this strange story of yours helps a bit to strengthen the clue. But let me impress upon you again, Marie, not to tell your uncle.” “Certainly not, though I really don’t know why you mistrust him.” “I scarcely know myself,” said Alan candidly, “but I certainly do.” By this time—walking demurely apart in case Mr. Sorley should be awake and on the watch—they had entered the house, to find themselves in a large and chilly hall, with a black and white pavement and marble busts of the Cæsars set round about it close to the walls. No rosy glow came from the old-fashioned fireplace, since Mr. Sorley deemed it waste of coal to heat such a mausoleum; so, with a shiver, the two crossed into the library, which was at the end of a lordly corridor to the right. “There’s a fire here,” said Marie as they entered, “it’s Uncle Ran’s favorite room, and you can trust him to make himself comfortable, even if he has to pay for it.” “Then he can’t be a genuine miser,” remarked Fuller, walking towards the fire, which was a tolerably good one; “they starve themselves in every way, my dear, and—oh, I beg your pardon.” This last was addressed to a small elderly woman who suddenly rose from a deep grandfather’s chair which looked like a sentry-box. She had sandy hair smoothly plastered down on either side of a sallow, wrinkled face; also thin, firmly compressed lips and hard blue eyes, staring and unwinking. Her figure was lean, her waist was pinched in, and her shoulders were so sloping that the worn black velvet cloak she wore would have slipped off had it not been firmly fastened down the front with large buttons of cut jet. As the cloak was down to her very heels, the dress she had on could not be seen, but her head was adorned with an early Victorian bonnet and her thin hands were covered with drab thread gloves. She had crape on her bonnet, and crape round her neck, but it did not need this evidence of mourning to assure Fuller that he beheld the sister of the dead man, since he remembered Dick’s description fairly well.