I gave him a brief, well-organized description of what had transpired. “He had on his person a card on which was written the word ‘Judas,’” I explained.

Russell’s well-disciplined features reacted to this admittedly bizarre statement with only a few twitches. “May I see the card?” he asked.

“Certainly. Oh—I believe Emerson was so agitated that he took it with him. I assure you there can be no doubt about the name. I assume you found the other cardboard rectangles, one with our room number. The thug was headed to this room when he was stabbed in the back. The shock caused him to open the adjoining door. The second card had the curious inscription ‘Octavius Buddle.’”

“And you have no idea what it means?”

I had a number of ideas as to what it might mean, but I saw no advantage in troubling Russell’s rigidly logical mind with them. “Not really,” I said. “I am sorry I cannot be of more help.”

“But you have been of help.” Russell rose. “Based on your analysis of his accent, he was British. We will telegraph the fellow’s description to Scotland Yard. Please give the Professor my regards and tell him I am sorry to have missed him.”

Emerson’s comings and goings are generally impetuous, and he seldom looks to see where he is going. He assumes that any persons in his path will get out of his way and that he can brush aside any impediment. When he flung the door of the sitting room open, he stumbled over an object lying on the threshold. Fortunately he did look down this time, and I was treated to the sight of agitated dance steps as Emerson tried to avoid treading on the object. He had, with his usual acuity, realized at once that it was of some value.

“Where the devil did this come from?” he demanded, carrying the object in question to me.

It was a small wooden head, approximately three inches in height, carefully carved and painted. A fresh break just below the shoulders indicated that it had been part of a larger statuette of an ushebti, one of the figurines placed in the tomb to assist the deceased in the afterlife. The head was that of a pharaoh with slanting eyes, pronounced cheekbones, full lips, and an elongated chin; it wore the Blue Battle Crown with a uraeus on the brow. I had no difficulty identifying its subject. At only one period of Egyptian history had this particular artistic style prevailed. This was Akhenaton, the so-called Heretic Pharaoh, who had abandoned the multitudinous gods of Egypt in favor of one deity, the Aton, and had left Thebes for a new capital at a place now called Tell el-Amarna.

“Amarna,” I said.

“Obviously.” Emerson rubbed his chin, a habit of his when perplexed or deep in thought. “What I ought to have asked was who brought it here and why. This remarkable object must have been removed from the site without the knowledge or permission of the excavators. All artifacts discovered are to be kept until the end of the season, at which time the Service des Antiquités inspects them and decides which—”