The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer

morning, but I fear I
was in a bad temper, Petrie. It's very simple: a length of tape
soaked in spirit or something of the kind, and sheltered from the
view of any one watching from your windows, behind the trunk of the
tree; then, the end ignited, lowered, still behind the tree, to the
ground. The operator swinging it around, the flame ascended, of
course. I found the unburned fragment of the tape last night, a few
yards from here."
    I was peering down at Fu-Manchu's servant, the hideous yellow
man who lay dead in a bower of elm leaves.
    "He has some kind of leather bag beside him," I began—
    "Exactly!" rapped Smith. "In that he carried his dangerous
instrument of death; from that he released it!"
    "Released what?"
    "What your fascinating friend came to recapture this
morning."
    "Don't taunt me, Smith!" I said bitterly. "Is it some species of
bird?"
    "You saw the marks on Forsyth's body, and I told you of those
which I had traced upon the ground here. They were caused by claws,
Petrie!"
    "Claws! I thought so! But what claws?"
    "The claws of a poisonous thing. I recaptured the one used last
night, killed it—against my will—and buried it on the mound. I was
afraid to throw it in the pond, lest some juvenile fisherman should
pull it out and sustain a scratch. I don't know how long the claws
would remain venomous."
    "You are treating me like a child, Smith," I said slowly. "No
doubt I am hopelessly obtuse, but perhaps you will tell me what
this Chinaman carried in a leather bag and released upon Forsyth.
It was something which you recaptured, apparently with the aid of a
plate of cold turbot and a jug of milk! It was something, also,
which Karamaneh had been sent to recapture with the aid—"
    I stopped.
    "Go on," said Nayland Smith, turning the ray to the left, "what
did she have in the basket?"
    "Valerian," I replied mechanically.
    The ray rested upon the lithe creature that I had shot down.
    It was a black cat!
    "A cat will go through fire and water for valerian," said Smith;
"but I got first innings this morning with fish and milk! I had
recognized the imprints under the trees for those of a cat, and I
knew, that if a cat had been released here it would still be hiding
in the neighborhood, probably in the bushes. I finally located a
cat, sure enough, and came for bait! I laid my trap, for the animal
was too frightened to be approachable, and then shot it; I had to.
That yellow fiend used the light as a decoy. The branch which
killed him jutted out over the path at a spot where an opening in
the foliage above allowed some moon rays to penetrate. Directly the
victim stood beneath, the Chinaman uttered his bird cry; the one
below looked up, and the cat, previously held silent and helpless
in the leather sack, was dropped accurately upon his head!"
    "But"—I was growing confused.
    Smith stooped lower.
    "The cat's claws are sheathed now," he said; "but if you could
examine them you would find that they are coated with a shining
black substance. Only Fu-Manchu knows what that substance is,
Petrie, but you and I know what it can do!"

Chapter 7 ENTER MR. ABEL SLATTIN
    "I don't blame you!" rapped Nayland Smith. "Suppose we say,
then, a thousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of
Fu-Manchu, the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit
by your information or not?"
    Abel Slattin shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to
the armchair which he had just quitted. He reseated himself,
placing his hat and cane upon my writing-table.
    "A little agreement in black and white?" he suggested
smoothly.
    Smith raised himself up out of the white cane chair, and,
bending forward over a corner of the table, scribbled busily upon a
sheet of notepaper with my fountain-pen.
    The while he did so, I covertly studied our visitor. He lay back
in the armchair, his heavy eyelids lowered deceptively. He was a
thought overdressed—a big man, dark-haired and well groomed, who
toyed with a monocle most unsuitable to his