ation, in fact,
I will boldly declare, since science is admittedly a callous mistress,
that it had led me to _hope_ for this manifestation, however
unpleasant it might prove for those intimately concerned. Accordingly,
having made suitable preparation I accompanied Sir Burnham's servant
back to the residence of the baronet...."

I heard the door-bell ring, and I heard Coates's regular tread as he
proceeded along the passage. There was a brief, muttered colloquy, a
rap on the study-door, and Coates entered.

"A sergeant of police and a constable, sir, to see Inspector Gatton!"

Damar Greefe raised his thin, yellow hand. His voice, when next he
spoke, exhibited no trace of emotion.

"Let them be told to wait," he said. "I have not finished."

It was wildly bizarre, that scene in my study, with the dignified
white-haired Eurasian doctor, palpably laboring against some deathly
sickness, sitting there unperturbed, his brilliant, perverted
intellect holding him aloof from the ordinary things of life--whilst
those who came to hale him to a felon's cell waited in the ante-room!

I glanced swiftly at Gatton, and he nodded impatiently.

"Let them stay in the dining-room, Coates," I said. "Make them
comfortable."

"Very good, sir."

Unmoved, Coates withdrew--and I saw Gatton glance at his watch.
Throughout the latter part of his strange narrative, neither Gatton
nor I interrupted the narrator, therefore I give his story, so far as
I remember it, in his own words. He no longer addressed either of us
directly; he seemed, indeed, to be thinking aloud.

CHAPTER XXVI

STATEMENT OF DR. DAMAR GREEFE (CONTINUED)

As I walked along through the deserted native streets, for the hour
was late, I reviewed mentally the circumstances of that affair,
already several months old, to which I have referred. Since it proved
to have a very important bearing upon my own life and unfortunately
the lives of many others, I will briefly recount it here.

Sir Burnham and Lady Coverly, having arrived at Port Said, were
proceeding by rail to Cairo when an accident farther up the line
necessitated their breaking their journey at Zagazig.

Now, for a time in the spring of the previous year, I had devoted much
labor to an inquiry in this place, which stands of course roughly upon
the site of the ancient Egyptian city of _Bubastis_. In those myths,
or so-called myths, of the Ancient Egyptian religion which represented
the various attribut