"Yes! Oh, my God, yes!" he cried out as he clutched at it. "A wonder of the heavens, sure, that the child wasn't disfigured for life or perhaps kilt forever. A half grain of it--a half grain of radium, ladies and gentlemen--enough to burn a hole through the divvle himself, if he lay long enough agin it." "Radium!" The word was voiced on every side, and the two women and two men crowded close to look at the thing. "Radium in the doll? Radium? I say, Deland--I mean to say, Mr. Cleek--in God's name, who could have put the cursed thing there?" "Your magpie, Mr. Essington," replied Cleek, and with that brief preface told of Martha, the nurse, and of the torn doll and of the magpie that flew into the room while the girl was away. "The wretched thing must have picked it up when the doctor fell and lost consciousness and the open bag lay unguarded," he said. "And with its propensity for stealing and hiding things it flew with it into the nursery and hid it in the torn doll. Martha did not see it, of course, when she sewed the doll up, but the scratch she received from the magpie presented a raw surface to the action of the mineral and its effect was instant and most violent. What's that? No, Mr. Carruthers--no one is guilty; no one has even tried to injure his lordship. Chance only is to blame--and Chance cannot be punished. As for the rest, do me a favour, dear friend, in place of any other kind of reward. Look to it that this young chap here gets enough out of the income of the estate to continue his course at Oxford and--that's all." It was not, however; for while he was still speaking a strange and even startling interruption occurred. A liveried servant, pushing the door open gently, stepped into the room bearing a small silver salver upon which a letter lay. "Well, upon my word, Johnston, this is rather an original sort of performance, isn't it?" exclaimed Carruthers, indignant over the intrusion. "I beg your pardon, sir, but I did knock," he apologized. "I knocked twice, in fact, but no one seemed to hear; and as I had been told it was a matter of more than life and death, I presumed. Letter for Lieutenant Deland, sir. A gentleman of the name of Narkom--in a motor, sir--at the door--asked me to deliver it at once and under any and all circumstances." Cleek looked at the letter, saw that it was enclosed in a plain unaddressed envelope, asked to be excused, and stepped out into the passage with it. That Narkom should have come for him like this--should have risked the upsetting of a case by appearing before he knew if it was settled or, indeed, likely to be--could mean but one thing: that his errand was one of overwhelming importance, of more moment than anything else in the world. He tore off the envelope with hands that shook, and spread open the sheet of paper it contained. There was but one single line upon it; but that line, penned in that hand, would have called him from the world's end.