X to investigate, but returned without any information worth the calling. He had aroused the portier only to learn that the street door had not been opened in two hours either for ingress or egress. Whoever the depredator was he must either have come in early and remained hidden or have entered through some unbarred window in the rear of the hotel, probably escaping by the same means. Having made his report Johann bathed and bound Grey’s finger, drew a bath for him, got out clean nightwear, remade the bed, and, just as the clock struck the half-hour after four, left him once more alone, still with the chloroformed handkerchief in his hand, which he was examining carefully for the third time. But it was merely a square piece of fine hemstitched linen without any distinguishing mark whatever. In that, certainly, there was no clue to his visitor.
But just as he was about to blow out his candles his foot trod on something hard, and he stooped and picked up a seal ring. It was very heavy and richly chased, and it bore an elaborately engraved coat of arms. In that last despairing clutch at the109 fellow’s hand he had evidently stripped this from his finger—this which could not but prove damaging evidence of his identity. The heraldic device was to Grey unfamiliar, but it would be a comparatively easy matter to learn to what family it belonged. Indeed, he had a vague recollection of having noticed a ring of this pattern on the little finger of Baron von Einhard’s ungloved hand the afternoon before in the hotel reading-room; but the pattern was not uncommon, and— but it was preposterous to fancy that a man of his position, no matter what Lindenwald had said, no matter what his reputation for chicanery, craft, and cunning, would personally undertake a deliberate attempt at homicide. Such impossible characters might figure in melodramas, but in real life they were out of the question. And then he looked at the ring again, turning it over and inspecting it very minutely in the light of the candle flame it is inevitable that the country must suffer..
Captain Lindenwald, when he was told of the affair, was quite sure it was von Einhard even before he was shown the ring, and when that was forthcoming he was willing to swear to it. The arms, he declared, were the von Einhard arms,110 and the ring could have been worn by no one save the Baron himself. He was for putting the matter in the hands of the police and thus avoiding future dangers, but after a little deliberation he realised that such a course would be impracticable. For the present it was absolutely necessary, he knew, to reveal nothing as to his and his charge’s whereabouts. Too much was known already; and general publicity, even though it put von Einhard where he could do no personal harm, would more greatly imperil the carrying out of the plans that were indispensable.