nd--that!"

He pointed to the severed hand. No one spoke for a moment. Then--

"The new problem," said the Commissioner, "is this: who took the
slipper, Dexter or Hassan of Aleppo?"

"That's it, sir," agreed Bristol. "Dexter had two passages booked
in the Oceanic: but he didn't sail with her, and--that's his hand!"

"You say he has not been traced?" asked the Commissioner.

"No doctor known to the Medical Association," replied Bristol, "is
attending him! He's not in any of the hospitals. He has completely
vanished. The conclusion is obvious!"

"The evident deduction," I said, "is that Dexter stole the slipper
from the Museum--God knows with what purpose--and that Hassan of
Aleppo recovered it from him."

"You think we shall next hear of Earl Dexter from the river police?"
suggested Bristol.

"Personally," replied the Commissioner, "I agree with Mr. Cavanagh.
I think Dexter is dead, and it is very probable that Hassan and
Company are already homeward bound with the slipper of the Prophet."

With all my heart I hoped that he might be right, but an intuition
was with me crying that he was wrong, that many bloody deeds would
be, ere the sacred slipper should return to the East.

CHAPTER XVI

THE DWARF

The manner in which we next heard of the whereabouts of the Prophet's
slipper was utterly unforeseen, wildly dramatic. That the Hashishin
were aware that I, though its legal trustee, no longer had charge
of the relic nor knowledge of its resting-place, was sufficiently
evident from the immunity which I enjoyed at this time from that
ceaseless haunting by members of the uncanny organization ruled by
Hassan. I had begun to feel more secure in my chambers, and no
longer worked with a loaded revolver upon the table beside me. But
the slightest unusual noise in the night still sufficed to arouse
me and set me listening intently, to chill me with dread of what
it might portend. In short, my nerves were by no means recovered
from the ceaseless strain of the events connected with and arising
out of the death of my poor friend, Professor Deeping.

One evening as I sat at work in my chambers, with the throb of busy
Fleet Street and its thousand familiar sounds floating in to me
through the open windows, my phone bell rang.

Even as I turned to take up the receiver a foreboding possessed me
that my trusteeship was no longer to be a sinecure. It was
Bristol who had rung me up, and upon very strange bu