Evening star., 1917-09-23
The Enigma of the Yellow Dwarf.

are already homeward bound with the
slipper of the prophet"
With all my heart I hoped that he
might be right. but an intuition was
with me crying that he was wrong;
that many bloody deeds would be COM
mitted ere the sacred slipper should
return to the east
The manner in which we next heard
of the whereabouts of the prophets
slipper was utterly unforeseen, wildly
dramatic.
One evening as I sat at work in my
chambers, with the throb of busy Fleet
street and its thousand familiar sounds
floating IN to me through the open win
dows. my telephone rang. 1t was Bris-
tol who had rung me up. and upon very
"A development at last" he said: "but
at present I don't know what to make
of it. Can you come down now?'
Where are you speaking fromE
full neighborhood. shall be glad IL you
can meet me at the entrace to Wyatt's
Buildings in half an hour"
What is It? Have you found Dexter?"
NO unfortunately; but it's murder!
Wyatts Buildings. Waterloo road. are
a gloomy. forb.dding block of dwell
ings, which seem to frown sullenly
upon the highroad. from which they
are divided by a dark and dirty court
yard. Passing an iron gateway, you
enter. by way Of an arch, into this sinis-
ter place of uncleanness.
had had some difficulty in forcing
way through the crowd which thronged
the entrance, but finally I found myself
standing beside Inspector Bristol and
looking down upon that which had
brought US both to Wyatts Buildings.
There was no moon that night and
only the light of the lamp on the arch
the stairways surrounding the court,
reached the dirty paving. Bristol di-
rected the light of pocketlamp upon
the hunched-up figure which lay In the
dust and I saw 1t to be that OF a
dwarflsh creature, yellow skinned and
wearing only a dark loin cloth. He had
a malformed and disproportionate heao.
a head that would have been too large
even for a big man. I knew after my
first glance that this was one OF the
horrible dwarfs employed by the hashi-
shin in their murderous business
"It happened less than an hour ago.
you see it now. and from what can
gather there came the sound of shot
and several people saw the dwarf fall
through the air and drop where he
lies"
TT is a bit like an Indian conjuring
trick" 1 said, looking up to the sky
above US: 'who fred the shot?"
$50 far" replied Bristol. II have failed
to find out. but there's a bullet in the
dwarfs head. He was dead before he
reached the pavement.
Did no one see the flash of the pis
tol?"
NO one that have got hold Of yet.
Of course this kind of evidence Is very
unreliable; these people regularly go out
of their way to mislead the police
You think the body may have been
carried here from somewhere else?"
"Oh. no: this is where 1t fell, right
enough. You see where his head struck
the stones"
',He has not been moved at all?'
mo: / shall not move him until I've
worked out where in the heavens name
he can have fallen from, You and I have
seen some mysterious things happen, Mr.
Cavanagh. since the slipper Of the prophet
came to England and brought these peo-
ple"-he needed toward the thing at our
feet-'in its train: but this Is the most
inexplicable incident to date. 1 don't
know what to make Of it all. Quite apart
from the question Of where the dwarf
fell from. who shot at him and why?"
Have you no theory" I asked. ''The
incident to my mind points directly to
one thing. We know that this uncanny
creature belonged to the organization of
san implacably pursues one object-the
slipper; then the dwarf came here. Bris-
toll laid my hand upon his arm. glanc-
ing about me with a very real apprehen-
sion-"the slipper must be somewhere
near"
Bristol turned to the constable standing
hard by.
Remain here" he ordered Then, to
me: Il should like you to come up on the
root. From there we can survey the
ground and perhaps arrive at some ex-
PLANTATION Of how the dwarf came to fall
upon that spot
Passing the constable on duty at one