aid it was something to do with Scotland
Yard."

"So it is, doctor. I had Mr. Narkom send for you to perform a very
trifling but most important operation upon his little lordship here."

"Upon Cedric!" exclaimed Lady Chepstow, rising in a panic of alarm. "An
operation to be performed upon my baby boy? Oh, Mr. Cleek, in the name
of Heaven--"

"No, your ladyship, in the name of Buddha. Don't be alarmed. It is only
to be a trifling cut--a mere re-opening of that little wound in the
thigh which you dressed and healed so successfully at Trincomalee. You
made a mistake, all of you, that night when the boy was shot. The native
poor Ferralt saw skulking along with the gun was not a mere tribesman
and had not the very faintest thought of discharging that weapon at your
little son, or, indeed, at anybody else in the world. He was the High
Priest Seydama, guardian of the Holy Tooth--the one living being who
dared by right to touch it or to lay hands upon the shrine that
contained it. Fearful, when the false rumour of that intended loot was
circulated, that infidel eyes should look upon it, infidel hands profane
the sacred relic, he determined to remove it from Dambool to the
rock-hewn temple of Galwihara and to enshrine it there. For the purpose
of giving no clue to his movements, he chose to abandon his priestly
vestments, to disguise himself as a common tribesman, and, the better to
defeat the designs of any who might penetrate that disguise and
endeavour to take the sacred relic from him and hold it for ransom, he
hid the Holy Tooth in the barrel of a gun. That gun was in his hands,
your ladyship, when Ferralt rushed out and brained him."

"In his hands? Oh, Mr. Cleek, then--then--" Her voice all but failed her
as a sudden realization came. "That relic, that fetish! If it was in
that gun at that time, then it is now--"

"Embedded in the fleshy part of the boy's thigh," said Cleek, finishing
the sentence for her. "Inclosed, doubtless, in a sac or cyst which
Mother Nature has wrapped round it, the tooth is there--in your little
son's body; and for five whole years he has been the living shrine that
held it!"

It was quite true--as events rapidly and completely proved.

Ten minutes later, the trifling operation was concluded; the boy lay
whimpering in his mother's arms and the long-lost relic was on the
surgeon's palm.

"Take it, Captain Hawksley," said Cleek, lifting it between his thumb
and forefinger and carrying it t