There was a pocket. Eagerly the sergeant’s hand investigated this, only to come in contact with what seemed a mass of pulp. He drew it forth. It slipped through his fingers and fell into the river—once it had been papers, but the immersion had reduced it to pulp, yet not quite all of it so escaped. One fragment remained, and it seemed to have been part of an extra strong envelope. This he examined eagerly. It bore a blurred and faded scrawl, most of which had entirely disappeared. By dint of the most patient and careful scrutiny Dickinson succeeded in making out—
H. Gold
Box
Jo
The rest had gone with the other fragment of the envelope—had run off to pulp.
“H. Gold—something. Box—something. Jo—hannesburg,” was how he pieced this scanty clue together. “Well, Johannesburg is all ‘gold,’ or it’s supposed to be,” and he grinned to himself at this lame joke. “But I wonder what’s the other half of the name—Goldstein or Goldschmidt, or Goldberg or Gold—what? Then, again, there must be tens of thousands of P.O. boxes there too, and it’s clearly one of these. But how the deuce one is to trace any of the thousands of children of Israel whose names begin with ‘Gold’ is another side of the joke.”
He carefully copied the fragment into his notebook, imitating as nearly as possible, and that was very nearly indeed, the character of the writing. Then he looked around in search of further fragments. There were none.
Dickinson got a couple of sticks, for he could not touch the loathly thing, and having first lighted his pipe, managed to get the head into a possible position for photographic purposes. Then he sat down—at a respectable distance—and began to study the features.
“One of the children of Israel, if ever there was one, and no mistake about it,” he decided. “Ugh, I’ve looked at the ugly thing long enough.”
Another pipe was filled and lighted. He felt hungry, and the stuff he had brought with him for lunch was in his holster on the other side. He did not care to swim the river alone, with no one to help scare potential crocodiles. He felt thirsty too, but he would have to feel a great deal more so before letting himself drink from the water that had held that dreadful thing facing him. He cut some boughs and placed them over it to keep off the flies, then returned to his seat in the demi-shade of a thorn-tree, and proceeded to elaborate theories with all his might—not that there was much to go upon as yet.
He stood a good chance for the next Sub-Inspectorship which should fall vacant; could he but work up this case successfully it would be the making of him. There was a girl over in Natal whom he wanted to marry, and to whom he was more than half engaged; but they had agreed to wait for the Sub-Inspectorship. It was hot, very hot. Would his comrade never come back? The hours wore on. The ripple and murmur of the river was soothing. Dickinson felt drowsy. Presently he slid more and more from his sitting posture and slept, and dreamed of the girl over in Natal.
He slept on and on, now hard and dreamlessly. But by that time Sergeant Dickinson, N.P., was in greater peril than he had ever been in his life.