cate key to the safe--" another voice struck in; I knew
it afterward for that of Professor Rhys-Jenkyns.

"Impossible to procure one, Professor," cried Mostyn, his eyes
sparkling with an almost boyish interest. "Mr. Cavanagh here holds
the keys of the case, under the will of the late Professor Deeping.
They are of foreign workmanship and more than a little complicated."

The eyes of the savants were turned now in my direction.

"I suppose you have them in a place of safety?" said Dr. Nicholson.

"They are at my bankers," I replied.

"Then I venture to predict," said the celebrated Orientalist, "that
the slipper of the Prophet will rest here undisturbed."

He linked his arm into that of a brother scholar and the little
group straggled away, Mostyn accompanying them to the main entrance.

But I saw Inspector Bristol scratching his chin; he looked very much
as if he doubted the accuracy of the doctor's prediction. He had
already had some experience of the implacable devotion of the Moslem
group to this treasure of the Faithful.

"The real danger begins," I suggested to him, "when the general public
is admitted--after to-day, is it not?"

"Yes. All to-day's people are specially invited, or are using
special invitation cards," he replied. "The people who received
them often give their tickets away to those who will be likely
really to appreciate the opportunity."

I looked around for the tall Oriental. He seemed to have vanished,
and for some reason I hesitated to speak of him to Bristol; for my
gaze fell upon an excessively thin, keen-faced man whose curiously
wide-open eyes met mine smilingly, whose gray suit spoke Stein-Bloch,
whose felt was a Boss raw-edge unmistakably of a kind that only
Philadelphia can produce. At the height of the season such visitors
are not rare, but this one had an odd personality, and moreover his
keen gaze was raking the place from ceiling to floor.

Where had I met him before? To the best of my recollection I had
never set eyes upon the man prior to that moment; and since he was
so palpably an American I had no reason for assuming him to be
associated with the Hashishin. But I remembered--indeed, I could
never forget--how, in the recent past, I had met with an apparent
associate of the Moslems as evidently European as this curiously
alert visitor was American. Moreover ... there was something
tauntingly familiar, yet elusive, about that gaunt face.

Was it not upon the ev