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Page 9
"Eltham is in that car!" he gasped. "Just God! are we to stand here
and see him taken away to--"
He beat his fist upon the tree, in a sort of tragic despair. The
nearest cab-rank was no great distance away, but, excluding the
possibility of no cab being there, it might, for all practical
purposes, as well have been a mile off.
The beat of the retreating motor was scarcely audible; the lights
might but just be distinguished. Then, coming in an opposite
direction, appeared the headlamp of another car, of a car that raced
nearer and nearer to us, so that, within a few seconds of its first
appearance, we found ourselves bathed in the beam of its headlights.
Smith bounded out into the road, and stood, a weird silhouette, with
upraised arms, fully in its course!
The brakes were applied hurriedly. It was a big limousine, and its
driver swerved perilously in avoiding Smith and nearly ran into me.
But, the breathless moment past, the car was pulled up, head on to the
railings; and a man in evening clothes was demanding excitedly what
had happened. Smith, a hatless, disheveled figure, stepped up to the
door.
"My name is Nayland Smith," he said rapidly--"Burmese Commissioner." He
snatched a letter from his pocket and thrust it into the hands of the
bewildered man. "Read that. It is signed by another Commissioner--the
Commissioner of Police."
With amazement written all over him, the other obeyed.
"You see," continued my friend, tersely--"it is carte blanche. I wish
to commandeer your car, sir, on a matter of life and death!".
The other returned the letter.
"Allow me to offer it!" he said, descending. "My man will take your
orders. I can finish my journey by cab. I am--"
But Smith did not wait to learn whom he might be.
"Quick!" he cried to the stupefied chauffeur--"You passed a car a
minute ago--yonder. Can you overtake it?"
"I can try, sir, if I don't lose her track."
Smith leaped in, pulling me after him.
"Do it!" he snapped. "There are no speed limits for me. Thanks!
Goodnight, sir!"
We were off! The car swung around and the chase commenced.
One last glimpse I had of the man we had dispossessed, standing alone
by the roadside, and at ever increasing speed, we leaped away in the
track of Eltham's captors.
Smith was too highly excited for ordinary conversation, but he threw
out short, staccato remarks.
"I have followed Fu-Manchu from Hongkong," he jerked. "Lost him at
Suez. He got here a boat ahead of me. Eltham has been corresponding
with some mandarin up-country. Knew that. Came straight to you. Only
got in this evening. He--Fu-Manchu--has been sent here to get Eltham.
My God! and he has him! He will question him! The interior of China--a
seething pot, Petrie! They had to stop the leakage of information. He
is here for that."
The car pulled up with a jerk that pitched me out of my seat, and the
chauffeur leaped to the road and ran ahead. Smith was out in a trice,
as the man, who had run up to a constable, came racing back.
"Jump in, sir--jump in!" he cried, his eyes bright with the lust of
the chase; "they are making for Battersea!"
And we were off again.
Through the empty streets we roared on. A place of gasometers and
desolate waste lots slipped behind and we were in a narrow way where
gates of yards and a few lowly houses faced upon a prospect of high
blank wall.
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