CHAPTER XXVII
THE SLIPPER
Someone was breaking in at the door of my chambers!
I aroused myself from a state of coma almost death-like and listenedto the blows. The sun was streaming in at my windows.
A splintering crash told of a panel broken. Then a moment later Iheard the grating of the lock, and a rush of footsteps along thepassage.
"Try the study!" came a voice that sounded like Bristol's, save thatit was strangely weak and shaky.
Almost simultaneously the Inspector himself threw open the bedroomdoor--and, very pale and haggard-eyed, stood there looking across atme. It was a scene unforgettable.
"Mr. Cavanagh!" he said huskily--"Mr. Cavanagh! Thank God you'realive! But"--he turned--"this way, Marden!" he cried, "Untie himquickly! I've got no strength in my arms!"
Marden, a C.I.D. man, came running, and in a minute, or less, I wassitting up gulping brandy.
"I've had the most awful experience of my life," said Bristol."You've fared badly enough, but I've been hanging by my wrists--youknow Dexter's trick!--for close upon sixteen hours! I wasn'treleased until Carter, an office boy, came on the scene this morning!"
Very feebly I nodded; I could not talk.
"The strong-room of your bank was rifled under my very eyes lastevening!" he continued, with something of his old vigour; "and fiveminutes after the Antiquarian Museum was opened to the public thismorning quite an unusual number of visitors appeared.
"I saw the bank manager the moment he arrived, and learned a pieceof news that positively took my breath away! I was at the Museumseven minutes later and got another shock! There in the case wasthe red slipper!"
"Then," I whispered-"it hadn't been stolen?"
"Wrong! It had! This was a duplicate, as Mostyn, the curator, sawat a glance! Some of the early visitors--they were Easterns--hadquite surrounded the case. They were watched, of course, but anynumber of Orientals come to see the thing; and, short of smashingthe glass, which would immediately attract attention, the authoritieswere unprepared, of course, for any attempt. Anyway, they weretricked. Somebody opened the case. The real slipper of the Prophetis gone!"
"They told you at the bank--"
"That you had withdrawn the keys! If Dexter had known that!"
"Hassan of Aleppo took them from me last night! At last theHashishin have triumphed."
Bristol sank into the armchair.
"Every port is watched," he said. "But--"