"Yes. Why? Do you see anything promising in that fact, Cleek? It seems to excite you." "Never mind about that. Stick to the subject. Was that report found to be correct, then?" "In a measure, yes. Only, of course, one had to take the tramp's assertion that the man had been calling out 'Sapphires' upon faith, for when discovered and conveyed to the hospital, he was in a comatose condition and beyond making any sound at all. He died, without recovering consciousness, about twenty minutes after Petrie's arrival; and, although the doctors performed a post-mortem immediately after the breath had left his body, there was not a trace of anything to be found that differed in the slightest from the other cases. Heart, brain, liver, lungs--all were in a healthy condition, and beyond the reddened throat and the signs of recent enteric there was nothing abnormal." "But his lips--his lips, Mr. Narkom? Was there a smear of earth upon them? Was he lying on his face when found? Were his fingers clenched in the grass? Did it look as if he had been biting the soil?" "Yes," replied Narkom. "As a matter of fact there was both earth and grass in the mouth. The doctors removed it carefully, examined it under the microscope, even subjected it to chemical test in the hope of discovering some foreign substance mixed with the mass, but failed utterly to discover a single trace." "Of course, of course! It would be gone like a breath, gone like a passing cloud if it were that." "If it were what? Cleek, my dear fellow! Good Lord! you don't mean to tell me you've got a clue?" "Perhaps--perhaps--don't worry me!" he made answer testily; then rose and walked over to the window and stood there alone, pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger and staring fixedly at things beyond. After a time, however: "Yes, it could be that--assuredly it could be that," he said in a low-sunk voice, as if answering a query. "But in England--in this far land. In Malay, yes; in Ceylon, certainly. And sapphires, too--sapphires! Hum-m-m! They mine them there. One man had travelled in foreign parts and been tattooed by natives. So that the selfsame country----Just so! Of course! Of course! But who? But how? And in England?" His voice dropped off. He stood for a minute or so in absolute silence, drumming noiselessly with his finger tips upon the window-sill, then turned abruptly and spoke to Mr. Narkom. "Go on with the story, please," he said. "There was a fifth man, I believe. When and how did his end come?" "Like the others, for the most part, but with one startling difference: instead of being undressed, nothing had been removed but his collar and boots. He was killed on the night I started with Dollops for the Continent in quest of you; and his was the second body that was not actually found _on_ the heath. Like the first man, he was found under the wall which surrounds Lemmingham House." "Lemmingham House? What's that--a hotel or a private residence?"