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decisive way, "and the officer here might 'phone for the
ambulance. I have some investigations to make also. I must have the
pocket lamp."
    He raced upstairs to his room, and an instant later came running
down again. The front door banged.
    "The telephone is in the hall," I said to the constable.
    "Thank you, sir."
    He went out of the surgery as I switched on the lamp over the
table and began to examine the marks upon Forsyth's skin. These, as
I have said, were in groups and nearly all in the form of elongated
punctures; a fairly deep incision with a pear-shaped and
superficial scratch beneath it. One of the tiny wounds had
penetrated the right eye.
    The symptoms, or those which I had been enabled to observe as
Forsyth had first staggered into view from among the elms, were
most puzzling. Clearly enough, the muscles of articulation and the
respiratory muscles had been affected; and now the livid face,
dotted over with tiny wounds (they were also on the throat), set me
mentally groping for a clue to the manner of his death.
    No clue presented itself; and my detailed examination of the
body availed me nothing. The gray herald of dawn was come when the
police arrived with the ambulance and took Forsyth away.
    I was just taking my cap from the rack when Nayland Smith
returned.
    "Smith!" I cried—"have you found anything?"
    He stood there in the gray light of the hallway, tugging at the
lobe of his left ear, an old trick of his.
    The bronzed face looked very gaunt, I thought, and his eyes were
bright with that febrile glitter which once I had disliked, but
which I had learned from experience were due to tremendous nervous
excitement. At such times he could act with icy coolness and his
mental faculties seemed temporarily to acquire an abnormal
keenness. He made no direct reply; but—
    "Have you any milk?" he jerked abruptly.
    So wholly unexpected was the question, that for a moment I
failed to grasp it. Then—
    "Milk!" I began.
    "Exactly, Petrie! If you can find me some milk, I shall be
obliged."
    I turned to descend to the kitchen, when—
    "The remains of the turbot from dinner, Petrie, would also be
welcome, and I think I should like a trowel."
    I stopped at the stairhead and faced him.
    "I cannot suppose that you are joking, Smith," I said,
"but—"
    He laughed dryly.
    "Forgive me, old man," he replied. "I was so preoccupied with my
own train of thought that it never occurred to me how absurd my
request must have sounded. I will explain my singular tastes later;
at the moment, hustle is the watchword."
    Evidently he was in earnest, and I ran downstairs accordingly,
returning with a garden trowel, a plate of cold fish and a glass of
milk.
    "Thanks, Petrie," said Smith—"If you would put the milk in a
jug—"
    I was past wondering, so I simply went and fetched a jug, into
which he poured the milk. Then, with the trowel in his pocket, the
plate of cold turbot in one hand and the milk jug in the other, he
made for the door. He had it open when another idea evidently
occurred to him.
    "I'll trouble you for the pistol, Petrie."
    I handed him the pistol without a word.
    "Don't assume that I want to mystify you," he added, "but the
presence of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I don't expect
to be long."
    The cold light of dawn flooded the hallway momentarily; then the
door closed again and I went upstairs to my study, watching Nayland
Smith as he strode across the common in the early morning mist. He
was making for the Nine Elms, but I lost sight of him before he
reached them.
    I sat there for some time, watching for the first glow of
sunrise. A policeman tramped past the house, and, a while later, a
belated reveler in evening clothes. That sense of unreality
assailed me again. Out there in the gray mists a man who was vested
with powers which rendered him a law unto himself, who had the
British Government behind him in all that he might choose to do,
who had been summoned from Rangoon to London on singular and
dangerous