Indian?'

'From Ul-Jabal, yes; but by no means Indian--Persian.'

Profoundly impressed by this knowledge of detail derived from sources
which had brought me no intelligence, I handed the note to the negro,
telling him how to proceed, and instructing him before starting from
the station to search all the procurable papers of the last few days,
and to return in case he found in any of them a notice of the death of
Sir Jocelin Saul. Then I resumed my seat by the side of Zaleski.

'As I have told you,' he said, 'I am fully convinced that our messenger
has gone on a bootless errand. I believe you will find that what has
really occurred is this: either yesterday, or the day before, Sir
Jocelin was found by his servant--I imagine he had a servant, though no
mention is made of any--lying on the marble floor of his chamber, dead.
Near him, probably by his side, will be found a gem--an oval stone,
white in colour--the same in fact which Ul-Jabal last placed in the
Edmundsbury chalice. There will be no marks of violence--no trace of
poison--the death will be found to be a perfectly natural one. Yet, in
this case, a particularly wicked murder has been committed. There are,
I assure you, to my positive knowledge forty-three--and in one island
in the South Seas, forty-four--different methods of doing murder, any
one of which would be entirely beyond the scope of the introspective
agencies at the ordinary disposal of society.

'But let us bend our minds to the details of this matter. Let us ask
first, _who_ is this Ul-Jabal? I have said that he is a Persian, and of
this there is abundant evidence in the narrative other than his mere
name. Fragmentary as the document is, and not intended by the writer to