Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/271

 Kathleen was in Lichfield for the afternoon, at a card party; and thus it was brought about that Kennaston found, lying in the corner of her bathroom press, and hidden by a bottle of Harrowby's No. 7 Dental Delight, the missing half of the sigil of Scoteia—the half which Ettarre had retained. There was no doubt about it. He held it in his hand.

"Now, that," said Felix Kennaston, aloud, "is rather curious."

He went into the library, and lifted the little pile of unused bookplates; and presently the two pieces of metal lay united upon his wife's dressing-table, between the manicure-set and the pin-*cushion, forming a circle not quite three inches in diameter, just such as he had seen once upon the brow of Mother Isis, and again in the Didascalion when Ptolemy of the Fat Paunch was master of Egypt.

"So, Kathleen somehow found the other half. She has had it from the first But naturally I never spoke of Felix Kennaston; it was forbidden, and besides, the sigil's crowning grace was that it enabled me to forget his existence.