“you say you have two items of news for me?” said nayland smith, looking across the breakfast table to where inspector weymouth sat sipping coffee.
“there are two points—yes,” replied the scotland yard man, whilst smith paused, egg-spoon in hand, and fixed his keen eyes upon the speaker. “the first is this: the headquarters of the yellow group is no longer in the east end.”
“how can you be sure of that?”
“for two reasons. in the first place, that district must now be too hot to hold dr. fu-manchu; in the second place, we have just completed a house-to-house inquiry which has scarcely overlooked a rathole or a rat. that place where you say fu-manchu was visited by some chinese mandarin; where you, mr. smith,” and—glancing in my direction—“you, doctor, were confined for a time—”
“yes?” snapped smith, attacking his egg.
“well,” continued the inspector, “it is all deserted, now. there is not the slightest doubt that the chinaman has fled to some other abode. i am certain of it. my second piece of news will interest you very much, i am sure. you were taken to the establishment of the chinaman, shen-yan, by a certain ex-officer of new york police—burke...”
“good god!” cried smith, looking up with a start; “i thought they had him!”
“so did i,” replied weymouth grimly; “but they haven’t! he got away in the confusion following the raid, and has been hiding ever since with a cousin, a nurseryman out upminster way...”
“hiding?” snapped smith.
“exactly—hiding. he has been afraid to stir ever since, and has scarcely shown his nose outside the door. he says he is watched night and day.”
“then how...”
“he realized that something must be done,” continued the inspector, “and made a break this morning. he is so convinced of this constant surveillance that he came away secretly, hidden under the boxes of a market-wagon. he landed at covent garden in the early hours of this morning and came straight away to the yard.”
“what is he afraid of exactly?”
inspector weymouth put down his coffee cup and bent forward slightly.
“he knows something,” he said in a low voice, “and they are aware that he knows it!”
“and what is this he knows?”
nayland smith stared eagerly at the detective.
“every man has his price,” replied weymouth with a smile, “and burke seems to think that you are a more likely market than the police authorities.”
“i see,” snapped smith. “he wants to see me?”
“he wants you to go and see him,” was the reply. “i think he anticipates that you may make a capture of the person or persons spying upon him.”
“did he give you any particulars?”
“several. he spoke of a sort of gipsy girl with whom he had a short conversation one day, over the fence which divides his cousin’s flower plantations from the lane adjoining.”
“gipsy girl!” i whispered, glancing rapidly at smith.
“i think you are right, doctor,” said weymouth with his slow smile; “it was karamaneh. she asked him the way to somewhere or other and got him to write it upon a loose page of his notebook, so that she should not forget it.”
“you hear that, petrie?” rapped smith.
“i hear it,” i replied, “but i don’t see any special significance in the fact.”
“i do!” rapped smith; “i didn’t sit up the greater part of last night thrashing my weary brains for nothing! but i am going to the british museum to-day, to confirm a certain suspicion.” he turned to weymouth. “did burke go back?” he demanded abruptly.
“he returned hidden under the empty boxes,” was the reply. “oh! you never saw a man in such a funk in all your life!”
“he may have good reasons,” i said.
“he has good reasons!” replied nayland smith grimly; “if that man really possesses information inimical to the safety of fu-manchu, he can only escape doom by means of a miracle similar to that which has hitherto protected you and me.”
“burke insists,” said weymouth at this point, “that something comes almost every night after dusk, slinking about the house—it’s an old farmhouse, i understand; and on two or three occasions he has been awakened (fortunately for him he is a light sleeper) by sounds of coughing immediately outside his window. he is a man who sleeps with a pistol under his pillow, and more than once, on running to the window, he has had a vague glimpse of some creature leaping down from the tiles of the roof, which slopes up to his room, into the flower beds below...”
“creature!” said smith, his gray eyes ablaze now—“you said creature!”
“i used the word deliberately,” replied weymouth, “because burke seems to have the idea that it goes on all fours.”
there was a short and rather strained silence. then:
“in descending a sloping roof,” i suggested, “a human being would probably employ his hands as well as his feet.”
“quite so,” agreed the inspector. “i am merely reporting the impression of burke.”
“has he heard no other sound?” rapped smith; “one like the cracking of dry branches, for instance?”
“he made no mention of it,” replied weymouth, staring.
“and what is the plan?”
“one of his cousin’s vans,” said weymouth, with his slight smile, “has remained behind at covent garden and will return late this afternoon. i propose that you and i, mr. smith, imitate burke and ride down to upminster under the empty boxes!”
nayland smith stood up, leaving his breakfast half finished, and began to wander up and down the room, reflectively tugging at his ear. then he began to fumble in the pockets of his dressing-gown and finally produced the inevitable pipe, dilapidated pouch, and box of safety matches. he began to load the much-charred agent of reflection.
“do i understand that burke is actually too afraid to go out openly even in daylight?” he asked suddenly.
“he has not hitherto left his cousin’s plantations at all,” replied weymouth. “he seems to think that openly to communicate with the authorities, or with you, would be to seal his death warrant.”
“he’s right,” snapped smith.
“therefore he came and returned secretly,” continued the inspector; “and if we are to do any good, obviously we must adopt similar precautions. the market wagon, loaded in such a way as to leave ample space in the interior for us, will be drawn up outside the office of messrs. pike and pike, in covent garden, until about five o’clock this afternoon. at, say, half past four, i propose that we meet there and embark upon the journey.”
the speaker glanced in my direction interrogatively.
“include me in the program,” i said. “will there be room in the wagon?”
“certainly,” was the reply; “it is most commodious, but i cannot guarantee its comfort.”
nayland smith promenaded the room, unceasingly, and presently he walked out altogether, only to return ere the inspector and i had had time to exchange more than a glance of surprise, carrying a brass ash-tray. he placed this on a corner of the breakfast table before weymouth.
“ever seen anything like that?” he inquired.
the inspector examined the gruesome relic with obvious curiosity, turning it over with the tip of his little finger and manifesting considerable repugnance—in touching it at all. smith and i watched him in silence, and, finally, placing the tray again upon the table, he looked up in a puzzled way.
“it’s something like the skin of a water rat,” he said.
nayland smith stared at him fixedly.
“a water rat? now that you come to mention it, i perceive a certain resemblance—yes. but”—he had been wearing a silk scarf about his throat and now he unwrapped it—“did you ever see a water rat that could make marks like these?”
weymouth started to his feet with some muttered exclamation.
“what is this?” he cried. “when did it happen, and how?”
in his own terse fashion, nayland smith related the happenings of the night. at the conclusion of the story:
“by heaven!” whispered weymouth, “the thing on the roof—the coughing thing that goes on all fours, seen by burke...”
“my own idea exactly!” cried smith...
“fu-manchu,” i said excitedly, “has brought some new, some dreadful creature, from burma...”
“no, petrie,” snapped smith, turning upon me suddenly. “not from burma—from abyssinia.”
that day was destined to be an eventful one; a day never to be forgotten by any of us concerned in those happenings which i have to record. early in the morning nayland smith set off for the british museum to pursue his mysterious investigations, and having performed my brief professional round (for, as nayland smith had remarked on one occasion, this was a beastly healthy district), i found, having made the necessary arrangements, that, with over three hours to spare, i had nothing to occupy my time until the appointment in covent garden market. my lonely lunch completed, a restless fit seized me, and i felt unable to remain longer in the house. inspired by this restlessness, i attired myself for the adventure of the evening, not neglecting to place a pistol in my pocket, and, walking to the neighboring tube station, i booked to charing cross, and presently found myself rambling aimlessly along the crowded streets. led on by what link of memory i know not, i presently drifted into new oxford street, and looked up with a start—to learn that i stood before the shop of a second-hand book-seller where once two years before i had met karamaneh.
the thoughts conjured up at that moment were almost too bitter to be borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for sale, i crossed the roadway, entered museum street, and, rather in order to distract my mind than because i contemplated any purchase, began to examine the oriental pottery, egyptian statuettes, indian armor, and other curios, displayed in the window of an antique dealer.
but, strive as i would to concentrate my mind upon the objects in the window, my memories persistently haunted me, and haunted me to the exclusion even of the actualities. the crowds thronging the pavement, the traffic in new oxford street, swept past unheeded; my eyes saw nothing of pot nor statuette, but only met, in a misty imaginative world, the glance of two other eyes—the dark and beautiful eyes of karamaneh. in the exquisite tinting of a chinese vase dimly perceptible in the background of the shop, i perceived only the blushing cheeks of karamaneh; her face rose up, a taunting phantom, from out of the darkness between a hideous, gilded idol and an indian sandalwood screen.
i strove to dispel this obsessing thought, resolutely fixing my attention upon a tall etruscan vase in the corner of the window, near to the shop door. was i losing my senses indeed? a doubt of my own sanity momentarily possessed me. for, struggle as i would to dispel the illusion—there, looking out at me over that ancient piece of pottery, was the bewitching face of the slave-girl!
probably i was glaring madly, and possibly i attracted the notice of the passers-by; but of this i cannot be certain, for all my attention was centered upon that phantasmal face, with the cloudy hair, slightly parted red lips, and the brilliant dark eyes which looked into mine out of the shadows of the shop.
it was bewildering—it was uncanny; for, delusion or verity, the glamour prevailed. i exerted a great mental effort, stepped to the door, turned the handle, and entered the shop with as great a show of composure as i could muster.
a curtain draped in a little door at the back of one counter swayed slightly, with no greater violence than may have been occasioned by the draught. but i fixed my eyes upon this swaying curtain almost fiercely... as an impassive half-caste of some kind who appeared to be a strange cross between a graeco-hebrew and a japanese, entered and quite unemotionally faced me, with a slight bow.
so wholly unexpected was this apparition that i started back.
“can i show you anything, sir?” inquired the new arrival, with a second slight inclination of the head.
i looked at him for a moment in silence. then:
“i thought i saw a lady of my acquaintance here a moment ago,” i said. “was i mistaken?”
“quite mistaken, sir,” replied the shopman, raising his black eyebrows ever so slightly; “a mistake possibly due to a reflection in the window. will you take a look around now that you are here?”
“thank you,” i replied, staring him hard in the face; “at some other time.”
i turned and quitted the shop abruptly. either i was mad, or karamaneh was concealed somewhere therein.
however, realizing my helplessness in the matter, i contented myself with making a mental note of the name which appeared above the establishment—j. salaman—and walked on, my mind in a chaotic condition and my heart beating with unusual rapidity.
