Unknown by Braven Page A

the figure would hop down from the chair, but primitive
curiosity took over and the blade was drawn from the scabbard and
tested on the tongue of the creature. Then the dagger was returned to
its sheath and the figure did descend to the floor as the front door
swung open and the beam of a bull's-eye lantern fixed the native in
its light. There was a high-pitched, tinny sound from the small
throat and, dropping the Egyptian dagger, the creature shot across
the room and without pause dove through the bay window!
    I was in the room myself
now, and as I ignited one of the lamps I heard the sound of a horse
suddenly in the outer darkness. There was the lash of a whip and the
hoof sounds accelerated and there was the rumble of wheels.
    Holmes, by the window,
was peering out, but in a moment his face turned to me with a
woebegone expression.
    "I've been had,
Watson. Outwitted, and by a pigmy, no less."
    "But Holmes,"
I sputtered, "what happened?"
    "I should have
known when the little devil opened the window. We had him cornered,
but he sailed out of the window and into a wagonload of hay, which is
how he intended to leave our quarters even had he not been
discovered. The hay wagon is four blocks away by now, and we shall
never find it. Our little friend has made a clean getaway, but he
didn't take what he was after. We can console ourselves with
that."
    "He was after the
dagger, of course. Why?"
    "Possibly that
cartouche reveals something of its point of origin. Evidently, Chu
San Fu doesn't want the ancient blade in our possession."
    "Ah, then this
pigmy was sent by the Chinaman?"
    "You know Chu's
methods, Watson. He employs dacoits, Lascars, and other unusual
types with strange aptitudes. I'll give him credit for a most
ingenious scheme of gaining entry here."
    Holmes was closing the
bay window as he spoke. "Fortunately, there was not enough
sound to rouse the household. Best we not mention a barefooted pigmy
to Mrs. Hudson, for she might not sleep soundly for a week."
    His remark brought an
alarming thought into focus in my mind.
    "If the pigmy is
one of Chu San Fu's bizarre entourage, then the Oriental must know of
your involvement."
    "It would seem so,
Watson. I'll have the golden box taken to Mycroft tomorrow. Possibly
it will be informative to him, though I doubt it. Just a device to
get the little devil in here." Locking the front door, he made
for the bedroom stairs again. "I'll also have the house watched
during our absence."
    "Then tomorrow it
is off to Surrey?"
    "Why not? We may
pick up the trail of the insidious Chu San Fu quicker there than here
in London."
    "A moment, Holmes.
This chap, Deets—or Spaulding—"
    "For the time, let
us refer to him by his assumed name, Deets."
    "Very good. But I
don't recall his giving you directions."
    "Mayswood, the name
of his residence, was enough, my good Watson."
    And on this puzzling
note, Holmes retired to his bedroom.
    With my lights
extinguished for the night, a myriad of thoughts tried to march down
the corridors of my mind. Long experience with the affairs of
Sherlock Holmes allowed me to erect roadblocks, and sleep was
not long in coming. However, it was invaded by filmy figures spawned
from the imagination. Wild horsemen thundered over an endless sea of
sand with pyramid shapes in the background sharply defined by a
blazing sun. Each nomad had sharply filed teeth and was swinging a
huge, curved, scimitar-shaped weapon. Heads will roll, I thought
before sinking into total oblivion.

    Chapter
Five
    Surrey
Interlude
    Mid-morning on the
following day found Holmes and myself at Waterloo Station where the
sleuth purchased two tickets to Litchfield.
    Our train journey to
Surrey was uneventful. During most of it my friend leaned back in his
seat with his hat pulled over his eyes, his chin sunk on his chest
and his long legs stretched out before him. He might have been
catnapping, or his brain could just as easily have been churning. I
guessed that neither was the case and