"Something in my line?" asked Stuart, a keen professional look coming
momentarily into his eyes.

"It's supposed to be a poison case, although I can't see it myself,"
answered the detective--to whom Keppel Stuart's unusual knowledge of
poisons had been of service in the past; "but if what I suspect is
true, it's a very big case all the same."

Laying down his pipe, which he had filled but not lighted, Inspector
Dunbar pulled out from the inside pocket of his tweed coat a bulging
note-book and extracted therefrom some small object wrapped up in
tissue paper. Unwrapping this object, he laid it upon the table.

"Tell me what that is, doctor," he said, "and I shall be obliged."

Stuart peered closely at that which lay before him. It was a piece of
curiously shaped gold, cunningly engraved in a most unusual way.
Rather less than an inch in length, it formed a crescent made up of
six oval segments joined one to another, the sixth terminating in a
curled point. The first and largest segment ended jaggedly where it
had evidently been snapped off from the rest of the ornament--if the
thing had formed part of an ornament. Stuart looked up, frowning in
a puzzled way.

"It is a most curious fragment of jewellery--possibly of Indian
origin," he said.

Inspector Dunbar lighted his pipe and tossed the match-end into the
fire. "But what does it represent?" he asked.