The gardener, seeing that I could beat him on every point, maintained a sullen silence. Mr. Monk, cheered by my several defences of his actions, leaned forward eagerly. "No doubt this is a false clue," he said, pointing to the case; "it may not be the real eye. Striver would never allow me to examine it, in case," he smiled bitterly, "I should destroy it." "Which you would have done," said the other bluntly. "I wouldn't trust you a single inch, Mr. Monk. The eye is the one worn by my aunt right enough, and contains the cipher of which she spoke. Look at the back?" Remembering the glimpse I had seen of the concave of the eye when it was on The Lodge table, I delicately turned over the object of the case. It may seem odd that I had not examined it before, but the interest of the conversation between Striver and Monk had held me spellbound. It was imperative, as is obvious, that I should lose no single word of the ill-assorted pair. However I did now what I should have done before, and tilted the eye, to behold in the hollow the piece of silver I had seen before. There it lay, and looked more than ever like a threepenny bit. Monk bent forward curiously and stared. "It's a silver coin--a threepenny bit," he explained, half to himself. "Gabriel told me that he had engraved the cipher on a threepenny bit, but he would never tell me where it was hidden. A very ingenious idea to hide it in Mrs. Caldershaw's eye. See, it is fastened by a piece of gold wire to the center of the pupil." It was as he said, the coin was so fastened and in the dense black of the pupil appeared the glint of a tiny piece of gold. In no other way could the coin have been kept in its place. But as it was sunken a good way into the concave of the artificial eye, the same, when worn, could not produce any irritation to the wearer. It was, as Monk said, a very ingenious idea. "I never saw it before," he murmured, and I believed that he was speaking the truth; "so this is how Gabriel concealed his secret?" I tried to read what was on the coin, but failed, as the engraving was so very small. "Have you a magnifying glass, Mr. Monk?" I asked. "Not to my knowledge," he said promptly; "however, I'll look for one," and he rose to make a search. I examined the eye again; then closed the case, and placed it on the table, intending to pocket it when I had used the magnifying glass. "Though I daresay," said I to Striver, who was seated in his chair looking very dejected, "you can tell me what the cipher consists of."