nd yawning.

"The detective of fiction would be hard at work on this case, now,"
he said, smiling, "but I don't even pretend to be. I am at a
standstill and I don't care who knows it."

"You have absolutely no clue to the whereabouts of Earl Dexter?"

"Not the slightest, Mr. Cavanagh. You hear a lot about the machinery
of the law, but as a matter of fact, looking for a clever man hidden
in London is a good deal like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Then, he may have been bluffing when he told you he had the Prophet's
slipper. He's already had his hand cut off through interfering with
the beastly thing, and I really can't believe he would take further
chances by keeping it in his possession. Nevertheless, I should like
to find him."

He leaned back against the mantelpiece, scratching his head
perplexedly. In this perplexity he had my sympathy. No such
pursuit, I venture to say, had ever before been required of Scotland
Yard as this of the slipper of the Prophet. An organization founded
in 1090, which has made a science of assassination, which through
the centuries has perfected the malign arts, which, lingering on in
a dark spot in Syria, has suddenly migrated and established itself
in London, is a proposition almost unthinkable.

It was hard to believe that even the daring American cracksman
should have ventured to touch that blood-stained relic of the
Prophet, that he should have snatched it away from beneath the very
eyes of the fanatics who fiercely guarded it. What he hoped to
gain by his possession of the slipper was not evident, but the fact
remained that if he could be believed, he had it, and provided
Scotland Yard's information was accurate, he still lurked in hiding
somewhere in London.

Meanwhile, no clue offered to his hiding-place, and despite the
ceaseless vigilance of the men acting under Bristol's orders, no
trace could be found of Hassan of Aleppo nor of his fiendish
associates.

"My theory is," said Bristol, lighting a cigarette, "that even
Dexter's cleverness has failed to save him. He's probably a dead
man by now, which accounts for our failing to find him; and Hassan
of Aleppo has recovered the slipper and returned to the East, taking
his gruesome company with him--God knows how! But that accounts
for our failing to find him."

I stood up rather wearily. Although poor Deeping had appointed me
legal guardian of the relic, and although I could render but a poor
account of my