“He said that Warren found one of them in China?” was Bartley's question, and because of the surprise in his tone we both looked at him.
“That's what he said,” retorted Ranville; “why?”
There was a slight frown on Bartley's face and, pushing aside his coffee cup, he lighted a long thin cigar. Then he turned to the Englishman.
“Why,” he said, “simply this, Ranville. There were seven reputed shrines of Buddha. Not all of them are known. But the seven shrines in which were buried a portion of his ashes were in India. There was not one in China. And—”
Ranville was always unruffled and I had failed to see him excited. Even the discovery of Warren's body had not caused any apparent show of emotion. But at Bartley's remark he gave a sudden start and I saw his lips tighten. He turned quickly to say:
“Then when he said that he lied.”
Bartley was thoughtful a moment, replying slowly:
“If he told you Warren returned from China with a box containing part of the ashes of Buddha he must have lied. At the present time the scholars almost all agree that the discovery made by digging into the shrine in India I told you of is true. That is, they accept the tradition that the ashes of Buddha were divided into seven parts and buried in seven places. They go further and say that the box they found no doubt contains the ashes of the great teacher—part of them. But so far as I know there has never been any other box of ashes discovered; and it is absurd to say that Warren found them in China, for the ashes were all buried in India. When he said that, he must have lied, or else—”
“He was too smooth an article to be mistaken,” was my comment, to which Ranville nodded his assent.
“No doubt,” was Bartley's retort. “But there is one thing sure; he did not tell you the real reason for his visit to Warren's library.”