THE DEVIL DOCTOR. Sax Rohmer

eager-eyed Burmese commissioner

      was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the mighty Chinaman

      who represented things unutterable, whose potentialities for evil were

      boundless as his genius, who personified a secret danger, the extent

      and nature of which none of us truly understood. And, learning of

      these things, with unerring Semitic instinct he had sought an opening

      in this glittering Rialto. But there were _two_ bidders!

      "You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of

      Fu-Manchu?" I asked, aghast.

      "Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve that

      master as readily as any other. His record is about as black as it

      well could be. Slattin is, of course, an assumed name; he was known as

      Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police, and he was

      kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavoury Chinatown

      case."

      "Chinatown!"

      "Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget that he

      is undeniably a clever scoundrel."

      "Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?"

      "Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait until to-morrow."

      "What!"

      "I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin

      to-night."

      "At his office?"

      "No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his object

      is to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his favourable

      progress to his employer to-night!"

      "Then we should have followed him!"

      Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old

      shooting-jacket.

      "He _has_ been followed, Petrie," he replied, with one of his rare

      smiles. "Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all night!"

      This was entirely characteristic of my friend's farseeing methods.

      "By the way," I said, "you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon be

      convalescent. Where, in Heaven's name, can he--"

      "Don't be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie," interrupted Smith. "His life

      is no longer in danger."

      I stared, stupidly.

      "No longer in danger!"

      "He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese, upon

      Chinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope, having a

      typewritten address and bearing a London postmark."

      "Well?"

      "As nearly as I can render the message in English it reads: 'Although,

      because you are a brave man, you would not betray your correspondent in

      China, he has been discovered. He was a mandarin, and as I cannot write

      the name of a traitor, I may not name him. He was executed four days

      ago. I salute you and pray for your speedy recovery.--FU-MANCHU.'"

      "Fu-Manchu! But it is almost certainly a trap."

      "On the contrary, Petrie, Fu-Manchu would not have written in Chinese

      unless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, I received a cable

      this morning reporting that the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat was assassinated

      in his own garden, in Nan-Yang, one day last week."