overdressed--a big man, dark-haired and well groomed, who toyed with a
monocle most unsuitable to his type. During the preceding
conversation, I had been vaguely surprised to note Mr. Abel Slattin's
marked American accent.

Sometimes, when Slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon the
third finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. There was a
sort of bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable even in his
hands but proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy face and
especially under the eyes. I diagnosed a laboring valve somewhere in
the heart system.

Nayland Smith's pen scratched on. My glance strayed from our Semitic
caller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me. It was of
most unusual workmanship, apparently Indian, being made of some kind
of dark brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked resemblance to a snake's
skin; and the top of the cane was carved in conformity, to represent
the head of what I took to be a puff-adder, fragments of stone, or
beads, being inserted to represent the eyes, and the whole thing being
finished with an artistic realism almost startling.

When Smith had tossed the written page to Slattin, and he, having read
it with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it neatly and placed
it in his pocket, I said:

"You have a curio here?"

Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction which, by
his manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the cane in his
hand.