“But, good heavens, Gatton,” I cried, “whatever explanation can you offer of a series of crimes which were palpably directed against the members of the Coverly family?”

“I don’t say,” continued Gatton, “that there wasn’t a sort of feud or vendetta at the bottom of the business.  I merely mention that we have no evidence to show that the person responsible for it was any other than this Eurasian doctor.”

“But what could have been his object?”

“I could suggest several; but my point at the moment is this:  although I am prepared to grant that he had a woman associate of some kind, I can’t see that there is any evidence to prove that she was otherwise than an ordinary human being, except that I am disposed to think she was demented.”

“You are probably right there, Gatton,” I agreed; “and Dr. Damar Greefe was by no means normal; in fact I think he was a dangerous and very brilliant maniac.”

“At any rate,” added Gatton, “no trace of this Nahemah has been found—­which, at the least, is very significant.”

“Significant, if you like,” I replied; “but for my own part I have no ambition whatever to see again those dreadful green eyes.”

“I never did see them,” said Gatton musingly; “therefore I can’t speak upon the matter; but when we got Dr. Damar Greefe I think we had the head of the conspiracy.  How much of his ‘statement’ is true and how much the product of a diseased mind is something we are never likely to know.”

“Nor am I curious to know it,” I assured him.  “I only desire to forget the tragedies associated with the green eyes of Bast and to leave the darkness of the past behind—­”

“And,” said Gatton, with a smile less grim than usual, “you have my best wishes for the future.”

THE END

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