ad all, however, completely
disappeared, and left hardly a trace of their presence. No doubt by now
the emerald Buddha was far on its way toward the little shrine in Ping
Yang, carefully secreted among the belongings of the old temple priest.
I felt a sort of secret satisfaction at learning this, and I think
Sergeant McQuade did as well. Certainly it did not belong in this part
of the world, and its possession could have brought nothing but trouble
and danger to all of us. I think Major Temple was glad, as well,
although I never heard him mention the subject of the jewel again. I
fancy he felt to some extent responsible for Ashton's death, or at least
for having sent him upon the quest which ultimately resulted in it.

I had six stitches taken in my head by an excellent old doctor in town,
who tried his best to find out how I had come by such a severe wound,
but I refused to satisfy his curiosity, and drove back with Gibson an
hour later, after saying good-by to the man from Scotland Yard. He
never, to my knowledge visited The Oaks again, although I received a
letter from him later, with reference to the investigation which the
authorities had made into the cause of the accumulation of the
carbonic-acid gas in the room which Ashton and myself had successively
occupied with such disastrous results. It seems that the heating system
in the house had been installed by its former occupant and owner, a
native of Brazil, unused to our cold English winters. It consisted of a
series of sheet iron pipes, leading from a large furnace in the cellar.
The pipe which supplied the heat for the green room, whether by accident
or design, lead directly from the combustion chamber of the furnace
instead of from a hot-air chamber, as was the case with the other pipes.
The consequence was that while the hot air taken to the other rooms was
pure air, drawn from without and heated, that which supplied the green
room carried away from the furnace great quantities of carbon dioxide,
produced in the combustion of the coal. An old valve in the pipe showed
that this source of supply could be shut off when so desired, and from
this I judged that the owner of the house may have had the piping
intentionally so constructed, with the idea of putting out of the way
some undesirable friends or relatives. That such was actually the case
seemed borne out by the rumors of at least two sudden and mysterious
deaths which were known to have occurred in the house