The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 147: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE THING THAT WAS CA‘SAR’S. “Why, of course. Do you think we'd let you go without a Godspeed? By-by till sailing time.” The two men shook hands warmly and Oakes went to the reading-room till it should be time to join Marjorie for breakfast. While he waited he wrote a letter to the office of the express company and sent it by.a messenger to claim the package that he had sent from Hong-Kong. He was very clear indeed in his own mind as to what he meant todo. He meant to take those jewels out of the the box, place them in the hotel safe, and take the box to the museum as soon as he and Marjorie should have had their breakfast. lt had caused enough trouble—if, indeed, the box had caused it. So when the messenger returned he took out the jewels, wrapped the empty box in heavy brown-manila paper, tied and sealed it, and carried it to the office where he gave the jewels, tied in a heavy canvas sack, to the clerk for the safe. He took the box with him to the breakfast-room when Marjorie’s voice over the telephone summoned him to meet her. Breakfast over, he called a cab. She wondered a little when she heard him give the order: “‘ To the British Mu- seum.” “What are you going there for, Jim?” she finally asked, unable to re- strain herself any longer. ‘We are going to get rid of this silver box, my dear, if I never cock another gun. The blamed thing is an incubus to me, and I confess to a most uncomfortable feeling as long as it is in our possession. Yes—I said Pro- fessor Errol,” he said to an obsequious attendant. “It is important that we see him on a matter of some urgency.” They were led down dark alleys, through rooms filled with the accu- mulated wealth of centuries that made them pause frequently to look at the contents of those wonderful cases, till finally they came out into a sunlit court on the far side of which stood a little 617 brick office opening from a long brick building that was covered with ivy in which a thousand sparrows nested noisily. The interior of the office was lit- tered with empty packing-cases, and at a long table two gentlemen were seat- ed working industriously at copying papers; one from a great manuscript book that lay open before him, the other busily engaged in tracing a map from a huge atlas that stood open upon a low stand by the table. As they entered a gray-bearded man came in from the study in the rear of the building. He carried in his hand the card that Oakes had sent in and he scrutinized it frequently as he slowly crossed the room. He shook hands somewhat warmly as he said: “T am informed, sir, that you wish to see me upon an important matter.” Tentatively he looked his question. “Yes, sir, I have a bequest that my wife and I wish to make to the mu- seum. It is a little silver box that we were given under rather curious cir- cumstances during a sea trip in the Orient. It sounds like a ridictilous thing to say it, but there is apparently a superstition connected with the box. “They say that bad luck follows its owner wherever it goes, or some such folly. I really do not even know the superstition. Certainly, we have found the thing unfortunate—to say the least. Frankly, sir, we wish to get rid of it, and I thought this museum was pre- eminently the proper place for it. Did you know a Dr. Emlen, who was cura- tor of the museum in Shanghai? ” “Very well indeed. I have for years maintained a _ correspondence, more or less desultory, with him. I understand that he lately met with a serious accident that; most unfortu- nately, terminated fatally. In his death we lost our very best correspond- ing member.” “T know all the details of that acci- dent, sir. JI was present a few mo- ments after it happened,’ and Oakes told him a part of what had occurred. COMicdoo S CO@