brought some new, some dreadful
creature, from Burma...."

"No, Petrie," snapped Smith, turning upon me suddenly. "Not from
Burma--from Abyssinia."

* * * * *

That day was destined to be an eventful one; a day never to be
forgotten by any of us concerned in those happenings which I have to
record. Early in the morning Nayland Smith set off for the British
Museum to pursue his mysterious investigations, and I, having
performed my brief professional round (for, as Nayland Smith had
remarked on one occasion, this was a beastly healthy district), I
found, having made the necessary arrangements, that, with over three
hours to spare, I had nothing to occupy my time until the appointment
in Covent Garden Market. My lonely lunch completed, a restless fit
seized me, and I felt unable to remain longer in the house. Inspired
by this restlessness, I attired myself for the adventure of the
evening, not neglecting to place a pistol in my pocket, and, walking
to the neighbouring Tube station, I booked to Charing Cross, and
presently found myself rambling aimlessly along the crowded streets.
Led on by what link of memory I know not, I presently drifted into New
Oxford Street, and looked up with a start--to learn that I stood
before the shop of a second-hand bookseller where once two years
before I had met Karamaneh.

The thoughts conjured up at that moment were almost too bitter to be
borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for
sale, I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and, rather in
order to distract my mind than because I contemplated any purchase,
began to examine the Oriental pottery, Egyptian statuettes, Indian
armour, and other curios, displayed in the window of an antique
dealer.

But, strive as I would to concentrate my mind upon the objects in the
window, my memories persistently haunted me, and haunted me to the
exclusion even of the actualities. The crowds thronging the pavement,
the traffic in New Oxford Street, swept past unheeded; my eyes saw
nothing of pot nor statuette, but only met, in a misty imaginative
world, the glance of two other eyes--the dark and beautiful eyes of
Karamaneh. In the exquisite tinting of a Chinese vase dimly
perceptible in the background of the shop, I perceived only the
blushing cheeks of Karamaneh; her face rose up, a taunting phantom,
from out of the darkness between a hideous, gilded idol and an Indian
sandal-wood screen