MYSTERY NO. IX
SHIN SHIRA AND THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
It was many months after this last adventure before I saw my friend Shin Shira again.
The summer was past, and it was the time of fires and warm drawn curtains. One evening, after dinner, I was sitting alone in my study, puzzling over a chess problem, when the servant brought me a card on which I read—
"Dr. Shin Shira Scaramanga Manousa Yama Hawa."
"Oh!" I laughed, "show him in at once, please." For I had been longing for an opportunity of thanking the gallant little fellow for the bravery he had shown in the matter of the mad bull—a bravery to which some of us, at all events, probably owed our lives.
"Come in, come in! Delighted to see you!" I cried, getting up and making him comfortable in "the Toad," the chair which I know he likes best. I got out the tobacco jar, and we were soon chatting comfortably over our pipes.
"By the way," I said, picking up his card again and looking at it, when we had exhausted most of the topics of conversation which came to our minds, "I didn't know before that you were a doctor."