I looked hard at him as I spoke. He changed the subject.
“Does the music upstairs annoy you?” he asked.
“Not in the least, Major.”
“It will soon be over now. The singing-master is going, and the Italian master has just arrived. I am sparing no pains to make my young prima donna a most accomplished person. In learning to sing she must also learn the language which is especially the language of music. I shall perfect her in the accent when I take her to Italy. It is the height of my ambition to have her mistaken for an Italian when she sings in public. Is there anything I can do before I leave you again? May I send you some more champagne? Please say yes!”
“A thousand thanks, Major. No more champagne for the present.”
He turned at the door to kiss his hand to me at parting. At the same moment I saw his eyes wander slyly toward the bookcase. It was only for an instant. I had barely detected him before he was out of the room.
Left by myself again, I looked at the bookcase—looked at it attentively for the first time.
It was a handsome piece of furniture in ancient carved oak, and it stood against the wall which ran parallel with the hall of the house. Excepting the space occupied in the upper corner of the room by the second door, which opened into the hall, the bookcase filled the whole length of the wall down to the window. The top was ornamented by vases, candelabra, and statuettes, in pairs, placed in a row. Looking along the row, I noticed a vacant space on the top of the bookcase at the extremity of it which was nearest to the window. The opposite extremity, nearest to the door, was occupied by a handsome painted vase of a very peculiar pattern. Where was the corresponding vase, which ought to have been placed at the corresponding extremity of the bookcase? I returned to the open sixth drawer of the cabinet, and looked in again. There was no mistaking the pattern on the fragments when I examined them now. The vase which had been broken was the vase which had stood in the place now vacant on the top of the bookcase at the end nearest to the window.
Making this discovery, I took out the fragments, down to the smallest morsel of the shattered china, and examined them carefully one after another.
I was too ignorant of the subject to be able to estimate the value of the vase or the antiquity of the vase, or even to know whether it were of British or of foreign manufacture. The ground was of a delicate cream-color. The ornaments traced on this were wreaths of flowers and Cupids surrounding a medallion on either side of the vase. Upon the space within one of the medallions was painted with exquisite delicacy a woman’s head, representing a nymph or a goddess, or perhaps a portrait of some celebrated person—I was not learned enough to say which. The other medallion enclosed the head of a man, also treated in the classical style. Reclining shepherds and shepherdesses in Watteau costume, with their dogs and their sheep, formed the adornments of the pedestal. Such had the vase been in the days of its prosperity, when it stood on the top of the bookcase. By what accident had it become broken? And why had Major Fitz-David’s face changed when he found that I had discovered the remains of his shattered work of art in the cabinet drawer?
The remains left those serious questions unanswered—the remains told me absolutely nothing. And yet, if my own observation of the Major were to be trusted, the way to the clue of which I was in search lay, directly or indirectly, through the broken vase.
It was useless to pursue the question, knowing no more than I knew now. I returned to the bookcase.
Thus far I had assumed (without any sufficient reason) that the clue of which I was in search must necessarily reveal itself through a written paper of some sort. It now occurred to me—after the movement which I had detected on the part of the Major—that the clue might quite as probably present itself in the form of a book.
I looked along the lower rows of shelves, standing just near enough to them to read the titles on the backs of the volumes. I saw Voltaire in red morocco, Shakespeare in blue, Walter Scott in green, the History of England in brown, the Annual Register in yellow calf. There I paused, wearied and discouraged already by the long rows of volumes. How (I thought to myself) am I to examine all these books? And what am I to look for, even if I do examine them all?
Major Fitz-David had spoken of a terrible misfortune which had darkened my husband’s past life. In what possible way could any trace of that misfortune, or any suggestive hint of something resembling it, exist in the archives of the Annual Register or in the pages of Voltaire? The bare idea of such a thing seemed absurd. The mere attempt to make a serious examination in this direction was surely a wanton waste of time.
And yet the Major had certainly stolen a look at the bookcase. And again, the broken vase had once stood on the bookcase. Did these circumstances justify me in connecting the vase and the bookcase as twin landmarks on the way that led to discovery? The question was not an easy one to decide on the spur of the moment.
I looked up at the higher shelves.
Here the collection of books exhibited a greater variety. The volumes were smaller, and were not so carefully arranged as on the lower shelves. Some were bound in cloth, some were only protected by paper covers;
