rful, when the false rumour of that intended loot was
circulated, that infidel eyes should look upon it, infidel hands profane
the sacred relic, he determined to remove it from Dambool to the
rock-hewn temple of Galwihara and to enshrine it there. For the purpose
of giving no clue to his movements, he chose to abandon his priestly
robes, to disguise himself as a common tribesman, and, the better to
defeat the designs of those who might seek to tear it from him and hold
it for ransom, he hid the holy tooth in the barrel of a gun. That gun
was in his hands when Ferralt leaped out and brained him!"

"Dear heaven!" cried Lady Chepstow with a sudden burst of realization.
"Then that holy relic, that fetish, the sacred tooth of Buddha----"

"Is embedded in the fleshy part of the thigh of your little son!" he
finished. "Enclosed, doubtless, in a sac or cyst which protective Mother
Nature has wrapped round it, the tooth is there; and, for five whole
years, he has been the living shrine that held it!"

And so, in truth, it proved to be. Ten minutes later the trifling
operation was over, and the long-lost relic lay in the palm of the
doctor's hand.

"Take it, Captain Hawksley," said Cleek, lifting it and carrying it over
to him. "There is a man in Soho, one Arjeeb Noosrut, who will know it
when he sees it; and there is a vast reward. Five lacs of rupees will
pay off no end of debts, and a man with that balance at his banker's
can't be accused of being a fortune-hunter when he asks in marriage the
hand of the woman he loves. Mr. Narkom, is your motor ready? I'm a bit
fagged out, and Dollops, I know, is all but starving. Ladies and
gentlemen, my best respects. The riddle is solved. Good-night!"

CHAPTER IV

THE CALIPH'S DAUGHTER

It was half-past ten on a wet September night when Superintendent
Narkom's limousine pulled up in front of Cleek's house in Clarges
Street, and the superintendent himself, disguised, as he always was when
paying visits to his famous ally, stepped out and with infinite care
assisted a companion to alight.

The figure of this second person, however, was so hidden by the folds of
a long, thickly wadded cloak, the hem of which reached to within an inch
or so of the pavement, that it would have been impossible for a
passer-by to have decided whether it was that of a man or a woman; but
the manner in which it bent, added to a shuffling uncertainty of gait--a
sort of "feeling the way" movement of