At that moment the door opened, and Mrs. Jones came in again with a mushroom omelette. I stuffed the infernal piece of jade away in my pocket, and we sat down at the table. It was not until she had shut the door behind her that I took it out.
"And what the devil is the Nadir Bandar when it's at home?" I asked, setting the horrible thing up on the tablecloth in front of me.
Bruce laid down his fork, and, putting his hand in his pocket, pulled out a couple of sheets of dirty folded foolscap.
"You'd better read that," he said'.
I took them with no little curiosity. They were written in a very fine sloping hand, and were headed: "An Account of the Finding of the Nadir Bandar. Not to be published until after my death.—MERVYN BRUCE."
Here is the whole thing as it was written:
"I first heard of the Nadir Bandar when I was at Nikh in '73. I was told of it by the Sheikh Al-Abbas, who claimed himself to be descended from Nadir Shah.
"Al-Abbas had been wounded in the rebellion against Nasr-ed-Din, and had fled to Nikh, where I found him dying and in disguise. I took him into my house and looked after him as well as I could, for the man was a great man of noble blood, and not an accursed Turkish dog like Nasr-ed-Din.
"On the night before he died he spoke to me of the Nadir Bandar.
"'If I had it,' he said, 'I would wish to be well, and I would also wish that Nasr-ed-Din should be eaten of worms.'