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Page 55
"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."
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