ank you," said Cairn shortly.

Ten minutes later his father joined him. He was a slim, well-preserved
man, alert-eyed and active, yet he had aged five years in his son's
eyes. His face was unusually pale, but he exhibited no other signs of
emotion.

"Well, Rob," he said, tersely. "I can see you have something to tell
me. I am listening."

Robert Cairn leant back against a bookshelf.

"I _have_ something to tell you, sir, and something to ask you."

"Tell your story, first; then ask your question."

"My story begins in a Thames backwater--"

Dr. Cairn stared, squaring his jaw, but his son proceeded to relate,
with some detail, the circumstances attendant upon the death of the
king-swan. He went on to recount what took place in Antony Ferrara's
rooms, and at the point where something had been taken from the table
and thrown in the fire--

"Stop!" said Dr. Cairn. "What did he throw in the fire?"

The doctor's nostrils quivered, and his eyes were ablaze with some
hardly repressed emotion.

"I cannot swear to it, sir--"

"Never mind. What do you _think_ he threw in the fire?"

"A little image, of wax or something similar--an image of--a swan."

At that, despite his self-control, Dr. Cairn became so pale that his
son leapt forward.

"All right, Rob," his father waved him away, and turning, walked
slowly down the room.

"Go on," he said, rather huskily.

Robert Cairn continued his story up to the time that he visited the
hospital where the dead girl lay.

"You can swear that she was the original of the photograph in Antony's
rooms and the same who was waiting at the foot of the stair?"

"I can, sir."

"Go on."

Again the younger man resumed his story, relating what he had learnt
from Myra Duquesne; what she had told him about the phantom hands;
what Felton had told him about the strange perfume perceptible in the
house.

"The ring," interrupted Dr. Cairn--"she would recognise it again?"

"She says so."

"Anything else?"

"Only that if some of your books are to be believed, sir, Trois
Echelle, D'Ancre and others have gone to the stake for such things in
a less enlightened age!"

"Less enlightened, boy!" Dr. Cairn turned his blazing eyes upon him.
"_More_ enlightened where the powers of hell were concerned!"

"Then you think--"

"_Think_! Have I spent half my life in such studies in vain? Did I
labour with poor Michael Ferrara in Egypt and learn _nothing_? Just
God! what an end to his labour