The longer I knock about this old world of ours, and I have wandered far and wide over the face of the globe, the more convinced I become that nothing is wholly left to chance; for only a preordained fate could have willed that I should see the beginning and the end of a mystery which involved three continents and taxed the ingenuity of one of the best minds in the United States. Nor do I regret my share in the game that was played (your archaeologist is well infected with the virus of adventure), since I was not only afforded the opportunity of renewing acquaintance with a city more fascinating than a beautiful woman to a man of my temperament, but also because I returned to America richer by a memory and the gift of a rare curiosity, the smallest and most perfect human skull ever carved from a piece of ivory.