"Most extraordinary," assented Lady Ruth. "He got it in Italy and had it sent the whole way by sea. It took all the king's horses and all the king's men to get it up here, I can tell you. And, as I say, nothing less apropos can one possibly imagine. That poor thin female with such very scanty clothing is hardly a cheerful object on a Scotch winter's day, and as for those little naked imps they would make anyone shiver, even in August."
They had drawn near the sculptured group. It consisted of the slightly draped figure of a girl, bending over an open box, or casket, from which a crowd of small creatures, apparently, as Lady Ruth had said, imps or fairies, were scrambling and leaping forth.
Gimblet gazed at it intently, as if he had never seen a statue before. In a moment his face cleared and he turned to Lady Ruth with burning eyes.
"It is Pandora," he cried. "Curiosity! Pandora and her box. Is it not Pandora?"
Lady Ruth stared at him amazed.
"I believe it is," she said, "that or something of the sort. I'm not very well up in mythology."
"Of course it is," cried Gimblet. "Face curiosity! And here's the bull, or I'll eat my microscope," he added, advancing to the side of the group and laying a hand upon the pedestal.
Lady Ruth followed his gaze with some concern. She was beginning to doubt his sanity. But there, sure enough, beneath his pointing finger, she perceived a row of carved heads: the heads of bulls, garlanded in the Roman manner, and forming a kind of cornice round the top of the great rectangular stone stand.
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."