“Look at this!” I cried.
“I am looking,” snapped Smith.
He suddenly stood up, and entering the room beyond,
turned on the light there. I saw him staring
at the Tulun-Nur box, and I knew what had been in
his mind. But the box, undisturbed, stood upon
the table as we had left it. I saw Smith tugging
irritably at the lobe of his ear, and staring from
the box towards the man beside whom I knelt.
“For God’s sake, what does it man?”
said Inspector Weymouth in a voice hushed with wonder.
“How did he get in? What did he come for?—and
what has happened to him?”
“As to what has happened to him,” I replied,
“unfortunately I cannot tell you. I only
know that unless something can be done his end is not
far off.”
“Shall we lay him on the bed?”
I nodded, and together we raised the slight figure
and placed it upon the bed where so recently I had
lain.
As we did so, the man suddenly opened his eyes, which
were glazed with delirium. He tore himself from
our grip, sat bolt upright, and holding his hands,
fingers outstretched, before his face, stared at them
frenziedly.
“The golden pomegranates!” he shrieked,
and a slight froth appeared on his blanched lips.
“The golden pomegranates!”
He laughed madly, and fell back inert.
“He’s dead!” whispered Weymouth;
“he’s dead!”
Hard upon his words came a cry from Smith:
“Quick! Petrie!—Weymouth!”
THE ROOM BELOW
I ran into the sitting-room, to discover Nayland Smith
craning out of the now widely opened window.
The blind had been drawn up, I did not know by whom;
and, leaning out beside my friend, I was in time to
perceive some bright object moving down the gray stone
wall. Almost instantly it disappeared from sight
in the yellow banks below.
Smith leapt around in a whirl of excitement.
“Come in, Petrie!” he cried, seizing my
arm. “You remain here, Weymouth; don’t
leave these rooms whatever happens!”
We ran out into the corridor. For my own part
I had not the vaguest idea what we were about.
My mind was not yet fully recovered from the frightful
shock which it had sustained; and the strange words
of the dying man—“the golden pomegranates”—had
increased my mental confusion. Smith apparently
had not heard them, for he remained grimly silent,
as side by side we raced down the marble stairs to
the corridor immediately below our own.
Although, amid the hideous turmoil to which I had
awakened, I had noted nothing of the hour, evidently
the night was far advanced. Not a soul was to
be seen from end to end of the vast corridor in which
we stood ... until on the right-hand side and about
half-way along, a door opened and a woman came out
hurriedly, carrying a small hand-bag.
She wore a veil, so that her features were but vaguely
distinguished, but her every movement was agitated;
and this agitation perceptibly increased when, turning,
she perceived the two of us bearing down upon her.
