The police were
palpably disappointed at the sparsity of my knowledge respecting
her. In fact, had it not chanced that Detective Sergeant Durham
was in the station, I think they would have doubted the accuracy
of my story.
As a man of some experience in such matters, I fully recognized
its improbability, but beyond relating the circumstances leading
up to my possession of the pigtail and the events which had
ensued, I could do no more in the matter. The weird relic had
not been found on the dead woman, nor in the cab.
Now the unsavoury business was finished, and I walked along Bow
Street, racking my mind for the master-key to this mystery in
which I was become enmeshed. How I longed to rush off to
Harley's rooms in Chancery Lane and to tell him the whole story!
But my friend was a thousand miles away--and I had to see the
thing out alone.
That the pigtail was some sacred relic stolen from a Chinese
temple and sought for by its fanatical custodians was a theory
which persistently intruded itself. But I could find no place in
that hypothesis for the beautiful Jewess; and that she was
intimately concerned I did not doubt. A cool survey of the facts
rendered it fairly evident that it was she and none other who had
stolen the pigtail from my rooms.
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