Gimblet glanced to right and left, up the glen and down it. There was no one to be seen. The sun had fallen by this time beneath the rim of the hills; a greyness of twilight was spread over the whole scene, and under the trees the dusk of night was already silently ousting the day. He turned once more to Lady Ruth.
"Lady Ruth," he said, "can you keep a secret?"
"My husband trusted me," she replied. "He was judicious as well as judicial."
"I am sure I may follow his example," Gimblet said, after looking at her fixedly for a moment. "So I will tell you that I believe I am on the point of discovering Lord Ashiel's missing will--and not that alone. Somewhere, concealed probably within a few feet of where we are standing, we may hope to find other and far more important documents, involving, perhaps, not only the welfare of one or two individuals but that of kings and nations. Apart from that, and to speak of what most immediately concerns us at present, I am convinced that within this stone will be found the true clue to the author of the murder."
"You don't say so," gasped Lady Ruth, her round eyes rounder than ever.
"I found some directions in the handwriting of the murdered man," went on Gimblet, "which I could not understand at first. But their meaning is plain enough now. 'Take the bull by the horn,' he says. Well, here are the bulls, and I shall soon know which is the horn."
He walked round to the front of the statue, so that he faced the stooping figure of Pandora, and laid his hand upon one of the curved and projecting horns of the left-hand bull. Nothing happened, and he tried the next. There were seven heads in all along the face of the great block, and he tested six of them without perceiving anything unusual. Was it possible that he was mistaken, and that, after all, the words of the message did not refer to the statue?
When he grasped the first horn of the last head, the hand that did so was shaking with excitement and suspense. It seemed, like the rest, to possess no attribute other than mere decoration. And yet, and yet--surely he had missed some vital point. He would go over them again. There remained, however, the last horn, and as he took hold of it with a premonitory dread of disappointment, he felt that it was loose in its socket, and that he could by an effort turn it completely over. With a triumphant cry he twisted it round, and at the same moment Lady Ruth started back with an exclamation of alarm.