It would have been quite possible that you would have found one or two of these strange inscriptions in this very house." He smiled in the detective's face.

"Mr.
Lyne was very fond of distributing the curios he brought from the East to his friends," he went on.

"He gave me that dagger you see hanging on the wall, which he bought at some outlandish place in his travels.

He may have given me a sample of these slips.

I remember his telling me a story about them, which I cannot for the moment recall." He would have continued retailing reminiscences of his late employer, but Tarling cut him short, and with a curt good night withdrew.