Undershaw was at once all civility and alacrity.

“I have already made some inquiries at Keswick, Mr. Melrose, where I was this morning.  He was staying, it appears, with some friends at the Victoria Hotel—­a Mr. and Mrs. Ransom, Americans.  The hotel people thought that he had been to meet them at Liverpool, had taken them through the Lakes, and had then seen them off for the south.  He himself was on his way to Scotland to fish.  He had sent his luggage to Pengarth by rail, and chose to bicycle, himself, through the Vale of St. John, because the weather was so fine.  He intended to catch a night train on the main line.”

“Just as I supposed!  Idle scapegrace!—­with nothing in the world to do but to get himself and other people into trouble!”

“You saw the card that I left for you on the hall table?  But there is something else that we found upon him in undressing him which I should greatly prefer, if I might, to hand over to your care.  You, I have no doubt, understand such things.  They seem to be valuable, and neither the nurses nor I at all wish to have charge of them.  There is a ring”—­Undershaw searched his pockets—­“and this case.”

He held out two small objects.  Melrose—­still breathing quick with anger—­took them unwillingly.  With the instinctive gesture of the collector, however, he put up his eyeglass to look at the ring.  Undershaw saw him start.

“Good heavens!”

The voice was that of another man.  He looked frowning at Undershaw.

“Where did you get this?”

“He wore it on his left hand.  It is sharp as you see, and rather large, and the nurse was afraid, while he is still restless and sometimes delirious, he might do himself some hurt with it.”

Melrose opened the case—­a small flat case of worn green leather some six inches long; and looked at its contents in a speechless amazement.  The ring was a Greek gem of the best period—­an Artemis with the towered crown, cut in amethyst.  The case contained six pieces,—­two cameos, and four engraved gems—­amethyst, cornelian, sardonyx, and rock crystal; which Melrose recognized at once as among the most precious things of this kind in the world!  He turned abruptly, walked to his writing-table, took out the gems, weighed them in his hand, examined them with a magnifying glass, or held them to the light, muttering to himself, and apparently no longer conscious of the presence of Undershaw.  Recollections ran about his brain:  “Mackworth showed me that Medusa himself last year in London.  He bought that Mars at the Castellani sale.  And that’s the Muse which that stupid brute Vincent had my commission for, and let slip through his fingers at the Arconati sale!”

Undershaw observed him, with an amusement carefully concealed.  He had suspected from the beginning that in these possessions of the poor stricken youth means might be found for taming the formidable master of the Tower.  For himself he scorned “la curiosite,” and its devotees, as mere triflers and shell-gatherers on shores bathed by the great ocean of science.  But like all natural rulers of men he was quick to seize on any weakness that suited his own ends; and he said to himself that Faversham was safe.