He shook hands with us and we walked out with him to the landing and stood watching him as he ran down the stairs. Glancing at Thorndyke by the light of the gas lamp on the landing, I thought I detected in his impassive face that almost imperceptible change of expression to which I have already alluded as indicating pleasure or satisfaction.
“You are looking quite pleased with yourself,” I remarked.
“I am not displeased,” he replied calmly. “Autolycus has picked up a few crumbs; very small ones, but still crumbs. No doubt his learned junior has picked up a few likewise?”
I shook my head—and inwardly suspected it of being rather a thick head.
“I did not perceive anything in the least degree significant in what Stephen was telling you,” said I. “It was all very interesting, but it did not seem to have any bearing on his uncle’s will.”
“I was not referring only to what Stephen has told us, although that was, as you say, very interesting. While he was talking I was looking about the room, and I have seen a very strange thing. Let me show it to you.”
He linked his arm in mine and, walking me back into the room, halted opposite the fireplace.
“There,” said he, “look at that. It is a most remarkable object.”
I followed the direction of his gaze and saw an oblong frame enclosing a large photograph of an inscription in the weird and cabalistic arrowhead character. I looked at it in silence for some seconds and then, somewhat disappointed, remarked:
“I don’t see anything very remarkable in it, under the circumstances. In any ordinary room it would be, I admit; but Stephen has just told us that his uncle was something of an expert in cuneiform writing.”
“Exactly,” said Thorndyke. “That is my point. That is what makes it so remarkable.”
“I don’t follow you at all,” said I. “That a man should hang upon his wall an inscription that is legible to him does not seem to me at all out of the way. It would be much more singular if he should hang up an inscription that he could not read.”
“No doubt,” replied Thorndyke. “But you will agree with me that it would be still more singular if a man should hang upon his wall an inscription that he could read—and hang it upside down.”
I stared at Thorndyke in amazement.
“Do you mean to tell me,” I exclaimed, “that that photograph is really upside down?”
“I do indeed,” he replied.
“But how do you know? Have we here yet another Oriental scholar?”
Thorndyke chuckled. “Some fool,” he replied, “has said that ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’ Compared with much knowledge, it may be; but it is a vast deal better than no knowledge. Here is a case in point. I have read with very keen interest the wonderful history of the decipherment of the cuneiform writing, and I happen to recollect one or two of the main facts that seemed to me to be worth remembering. This particular inscription is in the Persian cuneiform, a much more simple and open form of the script than the Babylonian or Assyrian; in fact, I suspect that this is the famous inscription from the gateway at Persepolis—the first to be deciphered; which would account for its presence here in a frame. Now this script consists, as you see, of two kinds of characters; the small, solid, acutely pointed characters which are known as wedges, and the larger, more obtuse characters, somewhat like our government broad arrows, and called arrowheads. The names are rather unfortunate, as both forms are wedge-like and both resemble arrowheads. The script reads from left to right, like our own writing, and unlike that of the Semitic peoples and the primitive Greeks; and the rule for the placing of the characters is that all the ‘wedges’ point to the right or downwards and the arrowhead forms are open towards the right. But if you look at this photograph you will see that all the wedges point upwards to the left and that the arrowhead characters are open towards the left. Obviously the photograph is upside down.”
“But,” I exclaimed, “this is really most mysterious. What do you suppose can be the explanation?”
“I think,” replied Thorndyke, “that we may perhaps get a suggestion from the back of the frame. Let us see.”
He disengaged the frame from the two nails on which it hung, and, turning it round, glanced at the back; which he then presented for my inspection. A label on the backing paper bore the words, “J. Budge, Frame-maker and Gilder, 16, Gt. Anne Street, W.C.”
“Well?” I said, when I had read the label without gathering from it anything fresh.
“The label, you observe, is the right way up as it hangs on the wall.”
“So it is,” I rejoined hastily, a little annoyed that I had not been quicker to observe so obvious a fact. “I see your point. You mean that the frame-maker hung the thing upside down and Jeffrey never noticed the mistake?”
“That is a perfectly sound explanation,” said Thorndyke. “But I think there is something more. You will notice that the label is an old one; it must have been on some years, to judge by its dingy appearance, whereas the two mirror-plates look to me comparatively new. But we can soon put that matter to the test, for the label was evidently stuck on when the frame was new, and if the plates were screwed on at the same time, the wood that they cover will be clean and new-looking.”
He drew from his pocket a “combination” knife containing, among other implements, a screwdriver, with which he carefully extracted the screws from one of the little brass plates by which the frame had been suspended from the nails.
“You see,”
