The Ashiel Mystery

The little detective, as he had said, preferred to work without an audience when he could, so he left Mark to his search, and stole silently away down the passage.

He passed two more rooms, and paused at the last door, opposite the foot of a winding stair.

This, from what Juliet had said, must be the door of the gun-room.

The door opened readily at his touch, and he stepped inside and shut it behind him.

It was a small bare room, with one large deal table in the middle of it. Gun-cases and wooden cartridge-boxes were ranged on the linoleum-covered floor, and three glass-fronted gun-cabinets were hung upon the walls. One, the smallest of these, was of a different wood from the others, and bore in black letters the initials D. S.

Three or four guns were ranged in it: two 12-bore shot-guns, an air-gun, and a little 20-bore. Another rack was empty; no doubt it had held the Mannlicher rifle, which the police had carried away to use as evidence in their case for the prosecution. The door was locked and there was no sign of a key.

Gimblet turned to the other cupboards.

There were more weapons here, and a few minutes' examination showed him that, as Mark had said, he and his uncle were less particular as to where their guns were kept, for the first two that the detective glanced at bore Lord Ashiel's initial, and the next was an old air-gun with M. McC. engraved on a silver disk at the stock.

Side by side were the rifles used by the uncle and nephew for stalking, Gimblet knew from Mark that the Mannlicher was his, while Lord Ashiel had apparently used a Mauser or Ross sporting rifle, as there was one of each in the case.

Gimblet lifted down the Mannlicher and laid it on the table. This, then, was the kind of weapon with which the deed had been done. It was a .355 Mannlicher Schonauer sporting weapon of the latest pattern. He opened it and examined the mechanism, which he soon grasped. He squinted down the glistening tunnel of the barrel and even closely scrutinized the workmanship of the exterior, repressing a shudder at the meretricious design of the chasing on the lock, and passing his fingers caressingly over the wood of which the stock was made. It shone with a rich bloom, as smooth and even as polished marble, except at the butt end which was criss-crossed roughly to prevent slipping; but wood in any shape has a homely friendly feeling, as different from any the polisher can impart to a piece of cold stone as the forests, where it once stood, upright and lofty, are from the inhospitable rocks on the peaks above them.