i sank into an arm-chair in my rooms and gulped down a strong peg of brandy.
"we have been followed here," i said. "why did you make no attempt to throw the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted?"
smith laughed.
"useless, in the first place. wherever we went, he would find us. and of what use to arrest his creatures? we could prove nothing against them. further, it is evident that an attempt is to be made upon my life to-night—and by the same means that proved so successful in the case of poor sir crichton."
his square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to his feet, shaking his clenched fists towards the window.
"the villain!" he cried. "the fiendishly clever villain! i suspected that sir crichton was next, and i was right. but i came too late, petrie! that hits me hard, old man. to think that i knew and yet failed to save him!"
he resumed his seat, smoking hard.
"fu-manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius," he said. "he has underrated his adversary. he has not given me credit for perceiving the meaning of the scented messages. he has thrown away one powerful weapon—to get such a message into my hands—and he thinks that once safe within doors, i shall sleep, unsuspecting, and die as sir crichton died. but without the indiscretion of your charming friend, i should have known what to expect when i receive her 'information'—which by the way, consists of a blank sheet of paper."
"smith," i broke in, "who is she?"
"she is either fu-manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave. i am inclined to believe the last, for she has no will but his will, except"—with a quizzical glance—"in a certain instance."
"how can you jest with some awful thing—heaven knows what—hanging over your head? what is the meaning of these perfumed envelopes? how did sir crichton die?"
"he died of the zayat kiss. ask me what that is and i reply 'i do not know.' the zayats are the burmese caravanserais, or rest-houses. along a certain route—upon which i set eyes, for the first and only time, upon dr. fu-manchu—travelers who use them sometimes die as sir crichton died, with nothing to show the cause of death but a little mark upon the neck, face, or limb, which has earned, in those parts, the title of the 'zayat kiss.' the rest-houses along that route are shunned now. i have my theory and i hope to prove it to-night, if i live. it will be one more broken weapon in his fiendish armory, and it is thus, and thus only, that i can hope to crush him. this was my principal reason for not enlightening dr. cleeve. even walls have ears where fu-manchu is concerned, so i feigned ignorance of the meaning of the mark, knowing that he would be almost certain to employ the same methods upon some other victim. i wanted an opportunity to study the zayat kiss in operation, and i shall have one."
"but the scented envelopes?"
"in the swampy forests of the district i have referred to a rare species of orchid, almost green, and with a peculiar scent, is sometimes met with. i recognized the heavy perfume at once. i take it that the thing which kills the traveler is attracted by this orchid. you will notice that the perfume clings to whatever it touches. i doubt if it can be washed off in the ordinary way. after at least one unsuccessful attempt to kill sir crichton—you recall that he thought there was something concealed in his study on a previous occasion?—fu-manchu hit upon the perfumed envelopes. he may have a supply of these green orchids in his possession—possibly to feed the creature."
"what creature? how could any kind of creature have got into sir crichton's room tonight?"
"you no doubt observed that i examined the grate of the study. i found a fair quantity of fallen soot. i at once assumed, since it appeared to be the only means of entrance, that something has been dropped down; and i took it for granted that the thing, whatever it was, must still be concealed either in the study or in the library. but when i had obtained the evidence of the groom, wills, i perceived that the cry from the lane or from the park was a signal. i noted that the movements of anyone seated at the study table were visible, in shadow, on the blind, and that the study occupied the corner of a two-storied wing and, therefore, had a short chimney. what did the signal mean? that sir crichton had leaped up from his chair, and either had received the zayat kiss or had seen the thing which someone on the roof had lowered down the straight chimney. it was the signal to withdraw that deadly thing. by means of the iron stairway at the rear of major-general platt-houston's, i quite easily, gained access to the roof above sir crichton's study—and i found this."
out from his pocket nayland smith drew a tangled piece of silk, mixed up with which were a brass ring and a number of unusually large-sized split-shot, nipped on in the manner usual on a fishing-line.
"my theory proven," he resumed. "not anticipating a search on the roof, they had been careless. this was to weight the line and to prevent the creature clinging to the walls of the chimney. directly it had dropped in the grate, however, by means of this ring i assume that the weighted line was withdrawn, and the thing was only held by one slender thread, which sufficed, though, to draw it back again when it had done its work. it might have got tangled, of course, but they reckoned on its making straight up the carved leg of the writing-table for the prepared envelope. from there to the hand of sir crichton—which, from having touched the envelope, would also be scented with the perfume—was a certain move."
"my god! how horrible!" i exclaimed, and glanced apprehensively into the dusky shadows of the room. "what is your theory respecting this creature—what shape, what color—?"
"it is something that moves rapidly and silently. i will venture no more at present, but i think it works in the dark. the study was dark, remember, save for the bright patch beneath the reading-lamp. i have observed that the rear of this house is ivy-covered right up to and above your bedroom. let us make ostentatious preparations to retire, and i think we may rely upon fu-manchu's servants to attempt my removal, at any rate—if not yours."
"but, my dear fellow, it is a climb of thirty-five feet at the very least."
"you remember the cry in the back lane? it suggested something to me, and i tested my idea—successfully. it was the cry of a dacoit. oh, dacoity, though quiescent, is by no means extinct. fu-manchu has dacoits in his train, and probably it is one who operates the zayat kiss, since it was a dacoit who watched the window of the study this evening. to such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase."
the horrible events that followed are punctuated, in my mind, by the striking of a distant clock. it is singular how trivialities thus assert themselves in moments of high tension. i will proceed, then, by these punctuations, to the coming of the horror that it was written we should encounter.
the clock across the common struck two.
having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our hands with a solution of ammonia smith and i had followed the programme laid down. it was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house, by simply climbing a fence, and we did not doubt that seeing the light go out in the front, our unseen watcher would proceed to the back.
the room was a large one, and we had made up my camp-bed at one end, stuffing odds and ends under the clothes to lend the appearance of a sleeper, which device we also had adopted in the case of the larger bed. the perfumed envelope lay upon a little coffee table in the center of the floor, and smith, with an electric pocket lamp, a revolver, and a brassey beside him, sat on cushions in the shadow of the wardrobe. i occupied a post between the windows.
no unusual sound, so far, had disturbed the stillness of the night. save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing the front of the house, our vigil had been a silent one. the full moon had painted about the floor weird shadows of the clustering ivy, spreading the design gradually from the door, across the room, past the little table where the envelope lay, and finally to the foot of the bed.
the distant clock struck a quarter-past two.
a slight breeze stirred the ivy, and a new shadow added itself to the extreme edge of the moon's design.
something rose, inch by inch, above the sill of the westerly window. i could see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from smith told me that he, from his post, could see the cause of the shadow.
every nerve in my body seemed to be strung tensely. i was icy cold, expectant, and prepared for whatever horror was upon us.
the shadow became stationary. the dacoit was studying the interior of the room.
then it suddenly lengthened, and, craning my head to the left, i saw a lithe, black-clad form, surmounted by a yellow face, sketchy in the moonlight, pressed against the window-panes!
one thin, brown hand appeared over the edge of the lowered sash, which it grasped—and then another. the man made absolutely no sound whatever. the second hand disappeared—and reappeared. it held a small, square box. there was a very faint click.
the dacoit swung himself below the window with the agility of an ape, as, with a dull, muffled thud, something dropped upon the carpet!
"stand still, for your life!" came smith's voice, high-pitched.
a beam of white leaped out across the room and played full upon the coffee-table in the center.
prepared as i was for something horrible, i know that i paled at sight of the thing that was running round the edge of the envelope.
it was an insect, full six inches long, and of a vivid, venomous, red color! it had something of the appearance of a great ant, with its long, quivering antennae and its febrile, horrible vitality; but it was proportionately longer of body and smaller of head, and had numberless rapidly moving legs. in short, it was a giant centipede, apparently of the scolopendra group, but of a form quite new to me.
these things i realized in one breathless instant; in the next—smith had dashed the thing's poisonous life out with one straight, true blow of the golf club!
i leaped to the window and threw it widely open, feeling a silk thread brush my hand as i did so. a black shape was dropping, with incredible agility from branch to branch of the ivy, and, without once offering a mark for a revolver-shot, it merged into the shadows beneath the trees of the garden. as i turned and switched on the light nayland smith dropped limply into a chair, leaning his head upon his hands. even that grim courage had been tried sorely.
"never mind the dacoit, petrie," he said. "nemesis will know where to find him. we know now what causes the mark of the zayat kiss. therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, and the enemy is poorer—unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. i understand now something that has been puzzling me since i heard of it—sir crichton's stifled cry. when we remember that he was almost past speech, it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not 'the red hand!' but 'the red ant!' petrie, to think that i failed, by less than an hour, to save him from such an end!"
