Shortly afterward Bristol and I left the office, and, his duties
taking him to Scotland Yard, I returned to my chambers to survey
the position in which I now found myself. Indeed, it was a strange
one enough, showing how great things have small beginnings; for,
as a result of a steamer acquaintance I found myself involved in a
dark business worthy of the Middle Ages. That Professor Deeping
should have stolen one of the holy slippers of Mohammed was no
affair of mine, and that an awful being known as Hassan of Aleppo
should have pursued it did not properly enter into my concerns; yet
now, with a group of Eastern fanatics at large in England, I was
become, in a sense, the custodian of the relic. Moreover, I
perceived that I had been chosen that I might safeguard myself.
What I knew of the matter might imperil me, but whilst I held the
key to the reliquary, and held it fast, I might hope to remain
immune though I must expect to be subjected to attempts. It would
be my affair to come to terms.

Contemplating these things I sat, in a world of dark dreams,
unconscious of the comings and goings in the court below,
unconscious of the hum which told of busy Fleet Street so near to
me. The weather, as is its uncomfortable habit in England, had
suddenly grown tropically hot, plunging London into the vapours of
an African spring, and the sun was streaming through my open window
fully upon the table.

I mopped my clammy forehead, glancing with distaste at the pile of
work which lay before me. Then my eyes turned to an open quarto
book. It was the late Professor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology,"
and embodied the result of his researches into the history of the