The casket was empty!
It was like a conjuring trick. That the hand had been in the box
when I had taken it up from Adderley's table I could have sworn
before any jury. When and by whom it had been removed was a
puzzle beyond my powers of unravelling. I stepped toward the
telephone--and then remembered that Paul Harley was out of
London. Vaguely wondering if Adderley had played me a
particularly gruesome practical joke, I put the box on a
sideboard and again contemplated the telephone doubtfully far a
moment. It was in my mind to ring him up. Finally, taking all
things into consideration, I determined that I would have nothing
further to do with the man's unsavoury and mysterious affairs.
It was in vain, however, that I endeavoured to dismiss the matter
from my mind; and throughout the evening, which I spent at a
theatre with some American friends, I found myself constantly
thinking of Adderley and the ivory casket, of the mandarin of
Johore Bahru, and of the mystery of the shrivelled yellow hand.
I had been back in my room about half an hour, I suppose, and it
was long past midnight, when I was startled by a ringing of my
telephone bell. I took up the receiver, and:
"Knox! Knox!" came a choking cry.
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