"Not at all, Inspector," Stuart assured him.
"Make yourself comfortable in the armchair and fill your pipe."
"Thanks," said Dunbar. "I will." He took out his pipe and reached out a long arm for the tobacco jar. "I came to see if you could give me a tip on a matter that has cropped up."
"Something in my line?" asked Stuart, a keen professional look coming momentarily into his eyes.
"It's supposed to be a poison case, although I can't see it myself," answered the detective—to whom Keppel Stuart's unusual knowledge of poisons had been of service in the past; "but if what I suspect is true, it's a very big case all the same."
Laying down his pipe, which he had filled but not lighted, Inspector Dunbar pulled out from the inside pocket of his tweed coat a bulging note-book and extracted therefrom some small object wrapped up in tissue paper. Unwrapping this object, he laid it upon the table.
"Tell me what that is, doctor," he said, "and I shall be obliged."
Stuart peered closely at that which lay before him. It was a piece of curiously shaped gold, cunningly engraved in a most unusual way. Rather less than an inch in length, it formed a crescent made up of six oval segments joined one to another, the sixth terminating in a curled point. The first and largest segment ended jaggedly where it had evidently been snapped off from the rest of the ornament—if the thing had formed part of an ornament. Stuart looked up, frowning in a puzzled way.
"It is a most curious fragment of jewellery—possibly of Indian origin," he said.
Inspector Dunbar lighted his pipe and tossed the match-end into the fire. "But what does it represent?" he asked.