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Page 35
"He"--Weymouth glanced at that which lay upon the floor--"must be
moved; but otherwise we can leave the place untouched, clear out the
servants, and lock the house up."
"I have already given orders to that effect," answered Smith. He spoke
wearily and with a note of conscious defeat in his voice. "Nothing has
been disturbed;"--he swept his arm around comprehensively--"papers and
so forth you can examine at leisure."
Presently we quitted that house upon which the fateful Chinaman had
set his seal, as the suburb was awakening to a new day. The clank of
milk-cans was my final impression of the avenue to which a dreadful
minister of death had come at the bidding of the death lord. We left
Inspector Weymouth in charge and returned to my rooms, scarcely
exchanging a word upon the way.
Nayland Smith, ignoring my entreaties, composed himself for slumber in
the white cane chair in my study. About noon he retired to the
bathroom, and returning, made a pretense of breakfast; then resumed
his seat in the cane armchair. Carter reported in the afternoon, but
his report was merely formal. Returning from my round of professional
visits at half past five, I found Nayland Smith in the same position;
and so the day waned into evening, and dusk fell uneventfully.
In the corner of the big room by the empty fireplace, Nayland Smith
lay, with his long, lean frame extended in the white cane chair. A
tumbler, from which two straws protruded, stood by his right elbow,
and a perfect continent of tobacco smoke lay between us, wafted toward
the door by the draught from an open window. He had littered the
hearth with matches and tobacco ash, being the most untidy smoker I
have ever met; and save for his frequent rapping-out of his pipe bowl
and perpetual striking of matches, he had shown no sign of activity
for the past hour. Collarless and wearing an old tweed jacket, he had
spent the evening, as he had spent the day, in the cane chair, only
quitting it for some ten minutes, or less, to toy with dinner.
My several attempts at conversation had elicited nothing but growls;
therefore, as dusk descended, having dismissed my few patients, I
busied myself collating my notes upon the renewed activity of the
Yellow Doctor, and was thus engaged when the 'phone bell disturbed me.
It was Smith who was wanted, however; and he went out eagerly, leaving
me to my task.
At the end of a lengthy conversation, he returned from the 'phone and
began, restlessly, to pace the room. I made a pretense of continuing
my labors, but covertly I was watching him. He was twitching at the
lobe of his left ear, and his face was a study in perplexity. Abruptly
he burst out:
"I shall throw the thing up, Petrie! Either I am growing too old to
cope with such an adversary as Fu-Manchu, or else my intellect has
become dull. I cannot seem to think clearly or consistently. For the
Doctor, this crime, this removal of Slattin, is clumsy--unfinished.
There are two explanations. Either he, too, is losing his old cunning
or he has been interrupted!"
"Interrupted!"
"Take the facts, Petrie,"--Smith clapped his hands upon my table and
bent down, peering into my eyes--"is it characteristic of Fu-Manchu to
kill a man by the direct agency of a snake and to implicate one of his
own damnable servants in this way?"
"But we have found no snake!"
"Karamaneh introduced one in some way. Do you doubt it?"
"Certainly Karamaneh visited him on the evening of his death, but you
must be perfectly well aware that even if she had been arrested, no
jury could convict her."
Smith resumed his restless pacings up and down.
"You are very useful to me, Petrie," he replied; "as a counsel for
the defense you constantly rectify my errors of prejudice. Yet I am
convinced that our presence at Slattin's house last night prevented
Fu-Manchu from finishing off this little matter as he had designed to
do."
"What has given you this idea?"
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