“He said that Warren found one of them in China?” was Bartley's question, and because of the surprise in his tone we both looked at him. “That's what he said,” retorted Ranville; “why?” There was a slight frown on Bartley's face and, pushing aside his coffee cup, he lighted a long thin cigar. Then he turned to the Englishman. “Why,” he said, “simply this, Ranville. There were seven reputed shrines of Buddha. Not all of them are known. But the seven shrines in which were buried a portion of his ashes were in India. There was not one in China. And—” Ranville was always unruffled and I had failed to see him excited. Even the discovery of Warren's body had not caused any apparent show of emotion. But at Bartley's remark he gave a sudden start and I saw his lips tighten. He turned quickly to say: “Then when he said that he lied.” Bartley was thoughtful a moment, replying slowly: “If he told you Warren returned from China with a box containing part of the ashes of Buddha he must have lied. At the present time the scholars almost all agree that the discovery made by digging into the shrine in India I told you of is true. That is, they accept the tradition that the ashes of Buddha were divided into seven parts and buried in seven places. They go further and say that the box they found no doubt contains the ashes of the great teacher—part of them. But so far as I know there has never been any other box of ashes discovered; and it is absurd to say that Warren found them in China, for the ashes were all buried in India. When he said that, he must have lied, or else—” “He was too smooth an article to be mistaken,” was my comment, to which Ranville nodded his assent. “No doubt,” was Bartley's retort. “But there is one thing sure; he did not tell you the real reason for his visit to Warren's library.” “I doubt if he told the truth regarding finding the body,” was my contribution. “You know,” broke in Ranville, “we people at Scotland Yard are often accused of being slow. But there is one thing sure. We would have locked that Chinaman up and kept him for a while. His story sounded good. But at the same time he was the last person who went to the library around the time of the murder. And thinking it over now, there is another thing I want to know. He said the door was open and he walked in. If that's true, who closed it afterward? And what's more, who took the knife from the body? That was a silly thing to do after the murderer went away.” Bartley gave him a long look and slowly repeated the word, silly, then became silent. Ranville and I entered into an argument as to whether the man had gone to the chief of police, as we suggested, and told him the story. Ranville had just said he would wager the chief had not seen him when the word “chief” made me give a quick look at my watch and remember that I was to meet him at Warren's library at seven-thirty. One glance told me it was now fifteen minutes past the hour. I arose with a sudden exclamation.