leasant gift to send to anybody," I said, "but
probably you know more about it than I do."

"Take it away," he repeated. "Take it away, for God's sake, take it
away, Knox!"

He was quite beyond reason, and therefore:

"Very well," I said, and wrapped the casket in the brown paper in which
it had come. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Throw it in the river," he answered. "Burn it. Do anything you like
with it, but take it out of my sight!"

III

THE GOLD-CASED NAIL

As I descended to the street the liftman regarded me in a curious and
rather significant way. Finally, just as I was about to step out into
the hall:

"Excuse me, sir," he said, having evidently decided that I was a fit
person to converse with, "but are you a friend of Mr. Adderley's?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, sir, I hope you will excuse me, but at times I have thought the
gentleman was just a little bit queer, like."

"You mean insane?" I asked sharply.

"Well, sir, I don't know, but he is always asking me if I can see
shadows and things in the lift, and sometimes when he comes in late of a
night he absolutely gives me the cold shivers, he does."

I lingered, the box under my arm, reluctant to obtain confidences from a
servant, but at the same time keenly interested. Thus encouraged:

"Then there's that lady friend of his who is always coming here," the
man continued. "She's haunted by shadows, too." He paused, watching me
narrowly.

"There's nothing better in this world than a clean conscience, sir," he
concluded.

*****

Having returned to my room at the hotel, I set down the mysterious
parcel, surveying it with much disfavour. That it contained the hand of
the Mandarin Quong I could not doubt, the hand which had been amputated
by Dr. Matheson. Its appearance in that dramatic fashion confirmed
Matheson's idea that the mandarin's injury had been received at the
hands of Adderley. What did all this portend, unless that the Mandarin
Quong was dead? And if he were dead why was Adderley more afraid of him
dead than he had been of him living?

I thought of the haunting shadow, I thought of the night at Katong, and
I thought of Dr. Matheson's words when he had told us of his discovery
of the Chinaman lying in the road that night outside Singapore.

I felt strangely disinclined to touch the relic, and it was only after
some moments' hesitation that I undid the wrappings and raised the lid
of the casket. Dusk was very nea