I wondered how long ago it had been, and what the place had been like, when these bones were last inside a warm and lighted room.
No matter what the explanation, I felt certain that these were the pieces of Madeline and of no one else. Had not the spirit voice named the precise spot on the whole earth where her remains would be found? It certainly had! More—it had said the bullet was still in her head. No more now, though; it was in an envelope now, in my pocket, over my heart. I felt jumpy and sought for a cigarette; I found one in Colt's favourite humidor, made of agallochum, the fragrant wood of the laurel family; the aloes wood of the Bible, and I felt there was something religious and therefore comforting about that. I wondered that Colt—under the surface, a highly imaginative and se
