We went into the superintendent's room, and sat down by a
smoldering fire of coals in the gate. I handed Marquis the roll
of vellum. It was in one of the Shan dialects. He read it
aloud. With the addition of certain formal expressions, it
contained precisely the Oriental's testimony before the court,
and no more.

"Ah!" he said in his curiously inflected Oxford voice.

And he held the scroll out to the heat of the fire. The vellum
baked slowly, and as it baked, the black Chinese characters faded
out and faint blue ones began to appear.

Marquis read the secret message in his emotionless drawl:

"`The American is destroyed, and his accursed work is destroyed
with him. Send the news to Bangkok and west to Burma. The
treasures of India are saved."'

I cried out in astonishment.

"An assassin! The creature was an assassin! He killed Rodman
simply by crushing him in his arms!"

Sir Henry's drawl lengthened.

"It's Lal Gupta," he said, "the cleverest Oriental in the whole of
Asia. The jewel-traders sent him to watch Rodman, and to kill
him if he was ever able to get his formulae worked out. They