perfectly sure that the baronet carried the long-desired gem about on
his body; but now at last he knows beyond all doubt. To obtain it,
there are several courses open to him: he may rush there and then on
the weak old man and tear the stone from him; he may ply him with
narcotics, and extract it from the pocket during sleep. But in these
there is a small chance of failure; there is a certainty of near or
ultimate detection, pursuit--and this is a land of Law, swift and
fairly sure. No, the old man must die: only thus--thus surely, and thus
secretly--can the outraged dignity of Hasn-us-Sabah be appeased. On the
very next day he leaves the house--no more shall the mistrustful
baronet, who is "hiding something from him," see his face. He carries
with him a small parcel. Let me tell you what was in that parcel: it
contained the baronet's fur cap, one of his "brown gowns," and a
snow-white beard and wig. Of the cap we can be sure; for from the fact
that, on leaving his room at midnight to follow the Persian through the
_house_, he put it on his head, I gather that he wore it habitually
during all his waking hours; yet after Ul-Jabal has left him he wanders
_far and wide_ "with uncovered head." Can you not picture the
distracted old man seeking ever and anon with absent mind for his
long-accustomed head-gear, and seeking in vain? Of the gown, too, we
may be equally certain: for it was the procuring of this that led
Ul-Jabal to the baronet's trunk; we now know that he did not go there
to _hide_ the stone, for he had it not to hide; nor to _seek_ it, for
he would be unable to believe the baronet childish enough to deposit it
in so obvious a place. As for the wig and beard, they had been
previously seen in his room. But before he leaves the house Ul-Jabal
has one more work to do: once more the two eat and drink together as in
"the old days of love"; once more the baronet is drunken with a deep
sleep, and when he wakes, his skin is "brown as the leaves of autumn."
That is the evidence of which I spake in the beginning as giving us a