ike the voice
of some one strangling, calling out in the darkness, 'Sapphires!
Sapphires!' and a few moments later, when, as the reporter said, the
tramp told him, he was scuttling away in a panic, he came suddenly
upon the figure of a man who was dancing round and round like a
whirling dervish, with his mouth wide open, his tongue hanging
out, and the forefinger of each hand stuck in his nostril as if----"

"What's that? What's that?" Cleek's voice flicked in like the crack
of a whip. "Good God! Dancing round in circles? His mouth open? His
tongue hanging out? His fingers thrust into his nostrils? Was that
what you said?"

"Yes. Why? Do you see anything promising in that fact, Cleek? It
seems to excite you."

"Never mind about that. Stick to the subject. Was that report found
to be correct, then?"

"In a measure, yes. Only, of course, one had to take the tramp's
assertion that the man had been calling out 'Sapphires' upon
faith, for when discovered and conveyed to the hospital, he was in a
comatose condition and beyond making any sound at all. He died,
without recovering consciousness, about twenty minutes after
Petrie's arrival; and, although the doctors performed a post-mortem
immediately after the breath had left his body, there was not a
trace of anything to be found that differed in the slightest from
the other cases. Heart, brain, liver, lungs--all were in a healthy
condition, and beyond the reddened throat and the signs of recent
enteric there was nothing abnormal."

"But his lips--his lips, Mr. Narkom? Was there a smear of earth upon
them? Was he lying on his face when found? Were his fingers clenched
in the grass? Did it look as if he had been biting the soil?"

"Yes," replied Narkom. "As a matter of fact there was both earth and
grass in the mouth. The doctors removed it carefully, examined it
under the microscope, even subjected it to chemical test in the hope
of discovering some foreign substance mixed with the mass, but failed
utterly to discover a single trace."

"Of course, of course! It would be gone like a breath, gone like a
passing cloud if it were that."

"If it were what? Cleek, my dear fellow! Good Lord! you don't mean
to tell me you've got a clue?"

"Perhaps--perhaps--don't worry me!" he made answer testily; then rose
and walked over to the window and stood there alone, pinching his
chin between his thumb and forefinger and staring fixedly at things
beyond. After a time, however: