“In God’s name, Pendleton, what do you mean; Zindorf, using a sign of God in the service of the devil.”

And my father answered him: 

“The corpse of Ordez lay in the bare cut of the abandoned road, and beside it, bedded in the damp clay where he had knelt down to rifle the pockets of the murdered body, were the patch prints of Zindorf’s knees!”

VII.  The Fortune Teller

Sir Henry Marquis continued to read; he made no comment; his voice clear and even.

It was a big sunny room.  The long windows looked out on a formal garden, great beech trees and the bow of the river.  Within it was a sort of library.  There were bookcases built into the wall, to the height of a man’s head, and at intervals between them, rising from the floor to the cornice of the shelves, were rows of mahogany drawers with glass knobs.  There was also a flat writing table.

It was the room of a traveler, a man of letters, a dreamer.  On the table were an inkpot of carved jade, a paperknife of ivory with gold butterflies set in; three bronze storks, with their backs together, held an exquisite Japanese crystal.

The room was in disorder — the drawers pulled out and the contents ransacked.

My father stood leaning against the casement of the window, looking out.  The lawyer, Mr. Lewis, sat in a chair beside the table, his eyes on the violated room.

“Pendleton,” he said, “I don’t like this English man Gosford.”

The words seemed to arouse my father out of the depths of some reflection, and he turned to the lawyer, Mr. Lewis.

“Gosford!” he echoed.

“He is behind this business, Pendleton,” the lawyer, Mr. Lewis, went on.  “Mark my word!  He comes here when Marshall is dying; he forces his way to the man’s bed; he puts the servants out; he locks the door.  Now, what business had this Englishman with Marshall on his deathbed?  What business of a secrecy so close that Marshall’s son is barred out by a locked door?”

He paused and twisted the seal ring on his finger.

“When you and I came to visit the sick man, Gosford was always here, as though he kept a watch upon us, and when we left, he went always to this room to write his letters, as he said.

“And more than this, Pendleton; Marshall is hardly in his grave before Gosford writes me to inquire by what legal process the dead man’s papers may be examined for a will.  And it is Gosford who sends a negro riding, as if the devil were on the crupper, to summon me in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia, — to appear and examine into the circumstances of this burglary.

“I mistrust the man.  He used to hang about Marshall in his life, upon some enterprise of secrecy; and now he takes possession and leadership in his affairs, and sets the man’s son aside.  In what right, Pendleton, does this adventurous Englishman feel himself secure?”