ian, without noticing my condition, "are as interesting as
those from the Continent. I have filed everything already published, and
have applied the result to this map of London. The two cases that
occurred in Norfolk, the porter in Norwich, and the stationmaster at
Tebworth Junction, I omit, for the reason that they tell us nothing. Of
the cases notified in this city, careful inquiries on the part of the
authorities have elicited the information that twenty-five spent the
evening at the Antiquarian Club last night, seventy-one at the Fancy
Dress Ball at Covent Garden, while, strangely enough, no less than
thirty-seven can be proved to have been among the guests of the Duchess
of Amersham at her ball in Carlton House Terrace. The others are more
difficult to account for, being made up of costermongers, homeless
vagrants, street hawkers, and others of the same class."

I could bear no more, but stumbled from the room like a drunken man out
into the hall beyond. A servant, thinking I was ill, hastened to inquire
if he could be of any assistance to me.

"Get me a cab," I faltered huskily.

The man ran into the street and blew his whistle. A hansom drove up, and
I made my way into the street and scrambled into it, scarcely knowing
how I managed it, and then fell back upon the cushions as if I were in a
fit. The cab sped along the streets, threaded its way in and out of the
traffic with a dexterity and a solicitude for my safety that was a more
biting sarcasm than any lips could utter. What was my safety to me now?
Knowing what I knew, I had better, far better, be dead.

The dreadful secret was out. In less than five minutes the mystery of
two months had been solved. Now I knew the meaning of the spot I had
discovered upon my arm on the morning following my terrible adventure in
the Pyramid; now I could understand my illness in the desert, and the
sudden death of the poor Arab who had nursed me. In the light of this
terrible truth, everything was as clear as daylight, and all I wanted
was to get back to Park Lane and find myself face to face with Pharos,
in order that I might tax him with it, and afterwards go forth and
publish his infamy to the world. Fast as the man was driving, he could
not make his horse go fast enough for me. Though at first my blood had
been as cold as ice, it now raced through my veins like liquid fire. A
feverish nervousness had seized me, and for the time being I was little
better than a madman.