"The old 'Crown Inn' I expect. I told young Montelet I would wait there for him if I could get hold of the right man to take up the case. So if you don't mind jumping out.... And as to disguise--Lord, what a miracle you are! If I hadn't actually known it was you, I should declare it was another man." "It is," responded Cleek, blandly. "For the next few hours you will have the pleasure of the company of Mr. George Headland." The car drew up with a little jerk before the inn door, and two minutes later Cleek was listening to the story of the case as told by Mr. Hubert Montelet, a fair-faced, boyish, impulsive, and altogether lovable young fellow of two-and-twenty. CHAPTER XXIII A DIVIDED LEGACY Brought down to mere essentials, it differed very little from what Mr. Narkom had already told him. It was the tale of a man who had incurred the wrath of native priests for what was in reality nothing less than looting their temple of its greatest treasure, a Fire Opal, which was known historically as the Eye of Ashtaroth, the Assyrian goddess of beauty. In the fight at the temple Sir Thomas had only saved his own life and those of his few followers by shooting the head priest with his revolver. Dying, the man had cursed him in one of the fearful curses of the East, and vowed that his spirit would follow the Sacred Eye to the uttermost ends of the earth, and that every human being that touched the stone should die "in the darkness that walketh by night, by fire that knows no heat, and by a death that leaves no sign, but passes through walls of stone and bars of steel." "Splendid!" commented Cleek, with a little nod of approval. "By the way, Mr. Montelet, who told you the history of this ill-fated stone and its fearful curse of a wandering spirit that slays in the dark?" "Why, my father himself, Mr. Headland. I remember when he brought the wretched stone back and fixed it up in a steel-lined case, of which the top was glass. He had a kind of mimic altar made--you shall see it for yourself--on which the case was put. No one but my dear stepmother knew how the stone was put into its pedestal. No one but my father had ever touched it, and after the priest died I don't believe even he did so with his bare hands." "H'm. I see! And did Lady Montelet believe in the priest's curse or not?" "Not at first--not, in fact, till after that poor maid of ours died last year. She accidentally let her broomhandle fall through the glass top of the case and whether she did touch the stone or not, or whether it was, as our doctor said, that she died of fright, her heart having been known to be weak, one can't say. But she was found dead. Then, six months later, a young orphaned French girl from a Russian convent, Celestine Merode---- Why, what's the matter?" "Celestine! A convent!" Cleek ejaculated. "The two things are so utterly incongruous!" "Why, did you know her?" asked the young man in natural bewilderment.