and highly colored, and glanced up with a start. Truly my methods were
amateurish; I had learnt nothing; I was unlikely to learn anything. I
wondered how Nayland Smith would have conducted such an inquiry, and I
racked my brains for some means of penetrating into the recesses of the
establishment. Indeed, I had been seeking such a plan for the past half
an hour, but my mind had proved incapable of suggesting one.

Why I did not admit failure I cannot imagine, but, instead, I began to
tax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time; and, as
I looked about the place, the shopman very patiently awaiting my
departure, I observed an open case at the back of the counter. The three
lower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth shelf squatted a silver
Buddha.

"I should like to examine the silver image yonder," I said; "what price
are you asking for it?"

"It is not for sale, sir," replied the man, with a greater show of
animation than he had yet exhibited.

"Not for sale!" I said, my eyes ever seeking the curtained doorway;
"how's that?"

"It is sold."

"Well, even so, there can be no objection to my examining it?"

"It is not for sale, sir."

Such a rebuff from a tradesman would have been more than sufficient
to call for a sharp retort at any other time, but now it excited the
strangest suspicions. The street outside looked comparatively deserted,
and prompted, primarily, by an emotion which I did not pause to analyze,
I adopted a singular measure; without doubt I relied upon the unusual
powers vested in Nayland Smith to absolve me in the event of error.
I made as if to go out into the street, then turned, leaped past the
shopman, ran behind the counter, and grasped at the silver Buddha!

That I was likely to be arrested for attempted larceny I cared not;
the idea that Karamaneh was concealed somewhere in the building
ruled absolutely, and a theory respecting this silver image had taken
possession of my mind. Exactly what I expected to happen at that moment
I cannot say, but what actually happened was far more startling than
anything I could have imagined.

At the instant that I grasped the figure I realized that it was attached
to the woodwork; in the next I knew that it was a handle ... as I tried
to pull it toward me I became aware that this handle was the handle of a
door. For that door swung open before me, and I found myself at the foot
of a flight of heavily carpeted stairs.

Anxious as I had