The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Page A

type. During the
preceding conversation, I had been vaguely surprised to note Mr.
Abel Slattin's marked American accent.
    Sometimes, when Slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon
the third finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. There
was a sort of bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable
even in his hands but proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy
face and especially under the eyes. I diagnosed a laboring valve
somewhere in the heart system.
    Nayland Smith's pen scratched on. My glance strayed from our
Semitic caller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me.
It was of most unusual workmanship, apparently Indian, being made
of some kind of dark brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked
resemblance to a snake's skin; and the top of the cane was carved
in conformity, to represent the head of what I took to be a
puff-adder, fragments of stone, or beads, being inserted to
represent the eyes, and the whole thing being finished with an
artistic realism almost startling.
    When Smith had tossed the written page to Slattin, and he,
having read it with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it
neatly and placed it in his pocket, I said:
    "You have a curio here?"
    Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction
which, by his manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the
cane in his hand.
    "It comes from Australia, Doctor," he replied; "it's aboriginal
work, and was given to me by a client. You thought it was Indian?
Everybody does. It's my mascot."
    "Really?"
    "It is indeed. Its former owner ascribed magical powers to it!
In fact, I believe he thought that it was one of those staffs
mentioned in biblical history—"
    "Aaron's rod?" suggested Smith, glancing at the cane.
    "Something of the sort," said Slattin, standing up and again
preparing to depart.
    "You will 'phone us, then?" asked my friend.
    "You will hear from me to-morrow," was the reply.
    Smith returned to the cane armchair, and Slattin, bowing to both
of us, made his way to the door as I rang for the girl to show him
out.
    "Considering the importance of his proposal," I began, as the
door closed, "you hardly received our visitor with cordiality."
    "I hate to have any relations with him," answered my friend;
"but we must not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing
with Dr. Fu-Manchu. Slattin has a rotten reputation—even for a
private inquiry agent. He is little better than a blackmailer—"
    "How do you know?"
    "Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday
and looked up the man's record."
    "Whatever for?"
    "I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the
case. Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication
with the Chinese group; I am only wondering—"
    "You don't mean—"
    "Yes—I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop
even to that."
    No doubt, Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese
commissioner was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the
mighty Chinaman who represented things unutterable, whose
potentialities for evil were boundless as his genius, who
personified a secret danger, the extent and nature of which none of
us truly understood. And, learning of these things, with unerring
Semitic instinct he had sought an opening in this glittering
Rialto. But there were two bidders!
    "You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of
Fu-Manchu?" I asked, aghast.
    "Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve
that master as readily as any other. His record is about as black
as it well could be. Slattin is of course an assumed name; he was
known as Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police,
and he was kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavory
Chinatown case."
    "Chinatown!"
    "Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget
that he is undeniably a clever scoundrel."
    "Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?"
    "Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait