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Page 81
"Doubtless," I replied, "he could be revived if one but knew
what drug he had taken."
My friend began his restless pacing again, and suddenly pounced upon
a little phial of tabloids which had been hidden behind some books
on a shelf near the bed. He uttered a triumphant exclamation.
"See what we have here, Petrie!" he directed, handing the phial to me.
"It bears no label."
I crushed one of the tabloids in my palm and applied my tongue
to the powder.
"Some preparation of chloral hydrate," I pronounced.
"A sleeping draught?" suggested Smith eagerly.
"We might try," I said, and scribbled a formula upon a leaf of my notebook.
I asked Weymouth to send the man who accompanied him to call up the nearest
chemist and procure the antidote.
During the man's absence Smith stood contemplating the unconscious inventor,
a peculiar expression upon his bronzed face.
"ANDAMAN--SECOND," he muttered. "Shall we find the key
to the riddle here, I wonder?"
Inspector Weymouth, who had concluded, I think, that the mysterious
telephone call was due to mental aberration on the part of Norris West,
was gnawing at his mustache impatiently when his assistant returned.
I administered the powerful restorative, and although,
as later transpired, chloral was not responsible for West's condition,
the antidote operated successfully.
Norris West struggled into a sitting position, and looked about him
with haggard eyes.
"The Chinamen! The Chinamen!" he muttered.
He sprang to his feet, glaring wildly at Smith and me, reeled,
and almost fell.
"It is all right," I said, supporting him. "I'm a doctor.
You have been unwell."
"Have the police come?" he burst out. "The safe--try the safe!"
"It's all right," said Inspector Weymouth. "The safe is locked--
unless someone else knows the combination, there's nothing
to worry about."
"No one else knows it," said West, and staggered unsteadily to the safe.
Clearly his mind was in a dazed condition, but, setting his jaw with
a curious expression of grim determination, he collected his thoughts
and opened the safe.
He bent down, looking in.
In some way the knowledge came to me that the curtain was about to rise
on a new and surprising act in the Fu-Manchu drama.
"God!" he whispered--we could scarcely hear him--"the plans are gone!"
CHAPTER XIX
I HAVE never seen a man quite so surprised as Inspector Weymouth.
"This is absolutely incredible!" he said. "There's only one door
to your chambers. We found it bolted from the inside."
"Yes," groaned West, pressing his hand to his forehead.
"I bolted it myself at eleven o'clock, when I came in."
"No human being could climb up or down to your windows.
The plans of the aero-torpedo were inside a safe."
"I put them there myself," said West, "on returning from the War Office,
and I had occasion to consult them after I had come in and bolted the door.
I returned them to the safe and locked it. That it was still locked you
saw for yourselves, and no one else in the world knows the combination."
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