coolly to survey the room
in which he found himself. In several respects it was an
extraordinary apartment.

The only bright patch in the room was the shining disc upon the
ceiling; and the detective noted with interest that this marked
the position of an arrangement of mirrors. A white-covered table,
entirely bare, stood upon the floor immediately beneath this
mysterious apparatus. With the exception of one or two ordinary
items of furniture and a small hand lathe, the office otherwise
was unfurnished. Bristol turned his eyes again upon the daring
man who so audaciously had trapped him--the man who had stolen the
slipper of the Prophet and suffered the loss of his hand by the
scimitar of an Hashishin as a result. When he had least expected
to find one, Fate had thrown a clue in Bristol's way. He reflected
grimly that it was like to prove of little use to him.

"Now," said Dexter, "you can do as you please, of course, but you
know me pretty well and I advise you to sit quiet."

"I am sitting quiet!" was the reply.

"I am sorry," continued Dexter, with a quick glance at his maimed
arm, "that I can't tie you up, but I am expecting a friend any
moment now."

He suddenly raised the wicket with a twitch of his elbow and,
without removing his gaze from the watchful detective, cried
sharply--

"Carter!"

But there was no reply.

"Good; he's gone!"

Dexter sat down facing Bristol.

"I have lost my hand in this game, Mr. Bristol," he said genially,
"and had some narrow squeaks of losing my head; but having gone so
far and lost so much I'm going through, if I don't meet a funeral!
You see I'm up against two tough propositions."

Bristol nodded sympathetically.

"The first," continued Dexter, "is you and Cavanagh, and English
law generally. My idea--if I can get hold of the slipper again--oh! you
needn't stare; I'm out for it!--is to get the Antiquarian
Institution to ransom it. It's a line of commercial speculation I
have worked successfully before. There's a dozen rich highbrows,
cranks to a man, connected with it, and they are my likeliest
buyers--sure. But to keep the tone of the market healthy there's
Hassan of Aleppo, rot him! He's a dangerous customer to approach,
but you'll note I've been in negotiation with him already and am
still, if not booming, not much below par!"

"Quite so," said Bristol. "But you've cut off a pretty hefty chew
nevertheless. They used to call you The Stetson Man, yo