The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Page B

was your shot, as you
fell through the trap, broke the oil-lamp."
    "Is everybody out?"
    "So far as we know."
    "Fu-Manchu?"
    Smith shrugged his shoulders.
    "No one has seen him. There was some door at the back-"
    "Do you think he may-"
    "No," he said tensely. "Not until I see him lying dead before me
shall I believe it."
    Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet.
    "Smith, where is she?" I cried. "Where is she?"
    "I don't know," he answered.
    "She's given us the slip, Doctor," said Inspector Weymouth, as a
fire-engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane. "So
has Mr. Singapore Charlie-and, I'm afraid, somebody else. We've got
six or eight all-sorts, some awake and some asleep, but I suppose
we shall have to let 'em go again. Mr. Smith tells me that the girl
was disguised as a Chinaman. I expect that's why she managed to
slip away."
    I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false
queue, how the strange discovery which had brought death to poor
Cadby had brought life to me, and I seemed to remember, too, that
Smith had dropped it as he threw his arm about me on the ladder.
Her mask the girl might have retained, but her wig, I felt certain,
had been dropped into the water.
    It was later that night, when the brigade still were playing
upon the blackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop,
and Smith and I were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God
knows how many crimes, that I had an idea.
    "Smith," I said, "did you bring the pigtail with you that was
found on Cadby?"
    "Yes. I had hoped to meet the owner."
    "Have you got it now?"
    "No. I met the owner."
    I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big pea-jacket
lent to me by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner.
    "We shall never really excel at this business," continued
Nayland Smith. "We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to
us, Petrie, what it meant to the world, but I hadn't the heart. I
owed her your life-I had to square the account."
     

Chapter 7
     
    Night fell on Redmoat. I glanced from the window at the nocturne
in silver and green which lay beneath me. To the west of the
shrubbery, with its broken canopy of elms and beyond the copper
beech which marked the center of its mazes, a gap offered a glimpse
of the Waverney where it swept into a broad. Faint bird-calls
floated over the water. These, with the whisper of leaves, alone
claimed the ear.
    Ideal rural peace, and the music of an English summer evening;
but to my eyes, every shadow holding fantastic terrors; to my ears,
every sound a signal of dread. For the deathful hand of Fu-Manchu
was stretched over Redmoat, at any hour to loose strange, Oriental
horrors upon its inmates.
    "Well," said Nayland Smith, joining me at the window, "we had
dared to hope him dead, but we know now that he lives!"
    The Rev. J. D. Eltham coughed nervously, and I turned, leaning
my elbow upon the table, and studied the play of expression upon
the refined, sensitive face of the clergyman.
    "You think I acted rightly in sending for you, Mr. Smith?"
    Nayland Smith smoked furiously.
    "Mr. Eltham," he replied, "you see in me a man groping in the
dark. I am to-day no nearer to the conclusion of my mission than
upon the day when I left Mandalay. You offer me a clew; I am here.
Your affair, I believe, stands thus: A series of attempted
burglaries, or something of the kind, has alarmed your household.
Yesterday, returning from London with your daughter, you were both
drugged in some way and, occupying a compartment to yourselves, you
both slept. Your daughter awoke, and saw someone else in the
carriage-a yellow-faced man who held a case of instruments in his
hands."
    "Yes; I was, of course, unable to enter into particulars over
the telephone. The man was standing by one of the windows. Directly
he observed that my daughter was awake, he stepped towards
her."
    "What did he do with the case in his hands?"
    "She did not notice-or did not mention having noticed. In fact,
as was