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

until tomorrow."
    "What!"
    "I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin,
to-night."
    "At his office?"
    "No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his
object is to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his
favorable progress to his employer to-night!"
    "Then we should have followed him!"
    Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old
shooting-jacket.
    "He has been followed, Petrie," he replied, with one of his rare
smiles. "Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all
night!"
    This was entirely characteristic of my friend's farseeing
methods.
    "By the way," I said, "you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon
be convalescent. Where, in heaven's name, can he—"
    "Don't be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie," interrupted Smith.
"His life is no longer in danger."
    I stared, stupidly.
    "No longer in danger!"
    "He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese,
upon Chinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope,
having a typewritten address and bearing a London postmark."
    "Well?"
    "As nearly as I can render the message in English, it reads:
'Although, because you are a brave man, you would not betray your
correspondent in China, he has been discovered. He was a mandarin,
and as I cannot write the name of a traitor, I may not name him. He
was executed four days ago. I salute you and pray for your speedy
recovery. Fu-Manchu.'"
    "Fu-Manchu! But it is almost certainly a trap."
    "On the contrary, Petrie—Fu-Manchu would not have written in
Chinese unless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, I received
a cable this morning reporting that the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat was
assassinated in his own garden, in Nan-Yang, one day last
week."

Chapter 8 DR. FU-MANCHU STRIKES
    Together we marched down the slope of the quiet, suburban
avenue; to take pause before a small, detached house displaying the
hatchet boards of the Estate Agent. Here we found unkempt laurel
bushes and acacias run riot, from which arboreal tangle protruded
the notice—"To be Let or Sold."
    Smith, with an alert glance to right and left, pushed open the
wooden gate and drew me in upon the gravel path. Darkness mantled
all; for the nearest street lamp was fully twenty yards beyond.
    From the miniature jungle bordering the path, a soft whistle
sounded.
    "Is that Carter?" called Smith, sharply.
    A shadowy figure uprose, and vaguely I made it out for that of a
man in the unobtrusive blue serge which is the undress uniform of
the Force.
    "Well?" rapped my companion.
    "Mr. Slattin returned ten minutes ago, sir," reported the
constable. "He came in a cab which he dismissed—"
    "He has not left again?"
    "A few minutes after his return," the man continued, "another
cab came up, and a lady alighted."
    "A lady!"
    "The same, sir, that has called upon him before."
    "Smith!" I whispered, plucking at his arm—"is it—"
    He half turned, nodding his head; and my heart began to throb
foolishly. For now the manner of Slattin's campaign suddenly was
revealed to me. In our operations against the Chinese murder-group
two years before, we had had an ally in the enemy's camp—Karamaneh
the beautiful slave, whose presence in those happenings of the past
had colored the sometimes sordid drama with the opulence of old
Arabia; who had seemed a fitting figure for the romances of Bagdad
during the Caliphate—Karamaneh, whom I had thought sincere, whose
inscrutable Eastern soul I had presumed, fatuously, to have laid
bare and analyzed.
    Now, once again she was plying her old trade of go-between;
professing to reveal the secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu, and all the
time—I could not doubt it—inveigling men into the net of this awful
fisher.
    Yesterday, I had been her dupe; yesterday, I had rejoiced in my
captivity. To-day, I was not the favored one; to-day I had not been
selected recipient of her confidences—confidences sweet, seductive,
deadly: but Abel Slattin, a plausible rogue, who, in justice,
should be immured in Sing