had got the ace?" said Mr. Pellew. And really this
was a reasonable question.

"By the mark on the back. I noticed it when I turned it up, when hearts
were trumps, last deal. I don't consider that cheating. All the same, I
enjoy cheating, and always cheat whenever I can. Card games are so very
dull, when there's no cheating."

"But, Gwen dear, I don't see any mark." This was Miss Grahame, examining
the last trick. She put the ace, face down, before this capricious
whist-player, who, however, adhered to her statement, saying
incorrigibly:--"Well, look at it!"

"I only see a shadow," said Mr. Pellew. But it wasn't a shadow. A shadow
moves.

Explanation came, on revision of the ace's antecedents. It had lain in
that drawer five-and-twenty years at least, with another card
half-covering it. In the noiseless air-tight darkness where it lay,
saying perhaps to itself:--"Shall I ever take a trick again?" there was
still dust, dust of thought-baffling fineness! And it had fallen, fallen
steadily, with immeasurable slowness and absolute impartiality, on all
the card above had left unsheltered. There was the top-card's
silhouette, quite recognisable as soon as the shadow was disestablished.

"It will come out with India-rubber," said Miss Grahame.

"I shouldn't mess it about, if I were you," said Gwen. "I know
India-rubber. It grimes everything in, and makes black streaks." Which
was true enough in those days. The material called bottle-rubber was
notable for its power of defiling clean paper, and the sophisticated
sort for becoming indurated if not cherished in one's trouser-pockets.
The present epoch in the World's history can rub out quite clean for a
penny, but then its _dramatis personae_ have to spend their lives dodging
motor-cars and biplanes, and holding their ears for fear of gramophones.
Still, it's _something_!

Mr. Pellew suggested that the best way to deal with the soiled card
would be for whoever got it to exhibit it, as one does sometimes when a
card's face is seen for a moment, to make sure everyone knows. We were
certainly not playing very strictly. This was accepted _nem. con._

But the chance that had left that card half-covered was to have its
influence on things, still. Who can say events would have run in the
same grooves had it not directed the conversation to dust, and caused
Mr. Pellew to recollect a story told by one of those Archaeological
fillahs, at the Towers three days ago? It was that of t