We passed it from hand to hand with growing wonder and admiration. But how came it into Nyoda's coat pocket? Was this also a part of the witchcraft that had sent Gladys's trunk to us so mysteriously?
"Curiouser and Curiouser," said Sahwah.
"Are you sure you didn't pick it up somewhere without knowing it?" I asked. "People sometimes do those things absent-mindedly, you know. I came home from down-town once with a gold-handled umbrella and I hadn't the slightest notion of where I got it. And the next day there was a notice in the paper, 'Will the young lady who took the gold-handled umbrella from the wash-room of Levy & Strauss's yesterday afternoon please return same to the office? She was recognized and followed.' And I couldn't remember being in the wash-room of Levy & Strauss's at all!"
Nyoda racked her brain. "It's impossible," she said. "I haven't been anywhere since noon but up to that restaurant and Sahwah and I sat alone at a table. There wasn't anything belonging to anyone else near us."
"You didn't get it this morning when we were looking through the stores?" I asked.
"No," said Nyoda, "I didn't. It wasn't there when I started up to dinner. Besides," she added, "that scarab never came from a store in this town. Things like that are handled by dealers in curios in large cities, and by private collectors." Her brow was puckered into a bewildered frown.
"However it got there," she said, "it doesn't belong there and I have no right to keep it. I'm going to turn it over to the police, and if anybody reports the loss to them they will find it intact."
As we stood there looking at the curious scarab in Nyoda's hands a motorcycle putt-putted past in a cloud of dust and we recognized our light-haired friend apparently leaving town.
"We'll never get a chance to thank him for that address!" I said, half regretfully. Little did we think that the only decent thing fate did for us on that trip was to withhold that chance!
Nyoda and I went in search of the police station, leaving Sahwah and Nakwisi sitting and watching for the Striped Beetle. It was only Sahwah who was doing any watching out, however, for Nakwisi was looking through her spy-glass at the clouds. After some inquiry we found the police station. When Nyoda told her story about finding the scarab in her pocket, the policeman in charge looked at her with a peculiar expression and a wise grin. But when she wanted to leave it there he waved her away.