The professor suddenly faced us, holding up the pajamas with a gesture of inquiry.
"From a friend of Mr. Lightnut's in China," Billings explained.
Aside, he whispered hurriedly: "Don't say a word about the rubies! You heard him—murder, grand larceny or arson—it's all one to the old gazabe! Anybody can see that. He doesn't let little things like those stand in the way of getting what he wants!" He frowned warningly.
"H'm! In the neck, Professor—I mean inside the collar," he said, approaching the table—"there's some kind of freak lettering. Looks foolish to me."
The professor looked perplexed.
"I mean, looks like it was done by some one who was batty—had wheels, you know; probably some chink whose biscuit was drifty," floundered Billings. "You understand!"
The professor didn't. I knew that jolly well by the way he cocked his head on one side, standing like a puzzled crow, don't you know.
"Ha! I fear I do not as I should," he said with an apologetic cough. "Perhaps I do not intelligently and logically follow your deductions because your premises are inscrutable until I have seen the lettering. Ah!"
Out came glasses and lens again and he bent over the collar eagerly.
"H'm! The Hwuyi, or ideographic characters, rather than the ideophonetic!" He looked up at Billings and myself inquiringly. "Ha! I trust we start together in accord upon that conclusion, eh, gentlemen?"