“Your words are unnecessarily brutal, Smith,” I said, feeling very crestfallen, “but there—perhaps I fully deserve them all.”
“You do!” he assured me, but he relaxed immediately. “A murderous attempt is made upon my life, resulting in the death of a perfectly innocent man in no way concerned. Along you come and let an accomplice, perhaps a participant, escape, merely, because she has a red mouth, or black lashes, or whatever it is that fascinates you so hopelessly!”
He opened the wicker basket, sniffing at the contents.
“Ah!” he snapped, “do you recognize this odor?”
“Certainly.”
“Then you have some idea respecting Karamaneh’s quarry?”
“Nothing of the kind!”
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
“Come along, Petrie,” he said, linking his arm in mine.
We proceeded. Many questions there were that I wanted to put to him, but one above all.
“Smith,” I said, “what, in Heaven’s name, were you doing on the mound? Digging something up?”
“No,” he replied, smiling dryly; “burying something!”
CHAPTER VI
UNDER THE ELMS
Dusk found Nayland Smith and me at the top bedroom window. We knew, now that poor Forsyth’s body had been properly examined, that he had died from poisoning. Smith, declaring that I did not deserve his confidence, had refused to confide in me his theory of the origin of the peculiar marks upon the body.
“On the soft ground under the trees,” he said, “I found his tracks right up to the point where something happened. There were no other fresh tracks for several yards around. He was attacked as he stood close to the trunk of one of the elms. Six or seven feet away I found some other tracks, very much like this.”
He marked a series of dots upon the blotting pad at his elbow.
“Claws!” I cried. “That eerie call! like the call of a nighthawk—is it some unknown species of—flying thing?”
“We shall see, shortly; possibly tonight,” was his reply. “Since, probably owing to the absence of any moon, a mistake was made,” his jaw hardened at the thoughts of poor Forsyth—“another attempt along the same lines will almost certainly follow—you know Fu-Manchu’s system?”
So in the darkness, expectant, we sat watching the group of nine elms. Tonight the moon was come, raising her Aladdin’s lamp up to the star world and summoning magic shadows into being. By midnight the highroad showed deserted, the common was a place of mystery; and save for the periodical passage of an electric car, in blazing modernity, this was a fit enough stage for an eerie drama.
No notice of the tragedy had appeared in print; Nayland Smith was vested with powers to silence the press. No detectives, no special constables, were posted. My friend was of opinion that the publicity which had been given to the deeds of Dr. Fu-Manchu in the past, together with the sometimes clumsy co-operation of the police, had contributed not a little to the Chinaman’s success.
“There is only one thing to fear,” he jerked suddenly; “he may not be ready for another attempt tonight.”
“Why?”
“Since he has only been in England for a short time, his menagerie of venomous things may be a limited one at present.”
Earlier in the evening there had been a brief but violent thunderstorm, with a tropical downpour of rain, and now clouds were scudding across the blue of the sky. Through a temporary rift in the veiling the crescent of the moon looked down upon us. It had a greenish tint, and it set me thinking of the filmed, green eyes of Fu-Manchu.
The cloud passed and a lake of silver spread out to the edge of the coppice, where it terminated at a shadow bank.
“There it is, Petrie!” hissed Nayland Smith.
A lambent light was born in the darkness; it rose slowly, unsteadily, to a great height, and died.
“It’s under the trees, Smith!”
But he was already making for the door. Over his shoulder:
“Bring the pistol, Petrie!” he cried; “I have another. Give me at least twenty yards’ start or no attempt may be made. But the instant I’m under the trees, join me.”
Out of the house we ran, and over onto the common, which latterly had been a pageant ground for phantom warring. The light did not appear again; and as Smith plunged off toward the trees, I wondered if he knew what uncanny thing was hidden there. I more than suspected that he had solved the mystery.
His instructions to keep well in the rear I understood. Fu-Manchu, or the creature of Fu-Manchu, would attempt nothing in the presence of a witness. But we knew full well that the instrument of death which was hidden in the elm coppice could do its ghastly work and leave no clue, could slay and vanish. For had not Forsyth come to a dreadful end while Smith and I were within twenty yards of him?
Not a breeze stirred, as Smith, ahead of me—for I had slowed my pace—came up level with the first tree. The moon sailed clear of the straggling cloud wisps which alone told of the recent storm; and I noted that an irregular patch of light lay silvern on the moist ground under the elms where otherwise lay shadow.
He passed on, slowly. I began to run again. Black against the silvern patch, I saw him emerge—and look up.
“Be careful, Smith!” I cried—and I was racing under the trees to join him.
Uttering a loud cry, he leaped—away from the pool of light.
“Stand back, Petrie!” he screamed—“Back! further!”
He charged into me, shoulder lowered, and sent me reeling!
Mixed up with his excited cry I had heard a loud splintering and sweeping of branches overhead; and now as we staggered into the shadows it seemed that one of the elms was reaching down to touch us! So, at least, the phenomenon presented itself to my mind in that fleeting moment while Smith, uttering his warning cry, was hurling me back.
Then the truth became apparent.
With an appalling crash, a huge bough fell from above. One piercing, awful shriek there was, a crackling of broken branches, and a choking groan…
The crack of Smith’s pistol close beside me completed my confusion of mind.
“Missed!” he yelled. “Shoot it, Petrie! On your left! For God’s sake don’t miss it!”
I turned. A lithe black shape was streaking past me. I fired—once—twice. Another frightful cry made yet more hideous the nocturne.
Nayland Smith was directing the ray of a pocket torch upon the fallen bough.
“Have you killed it, Petrie?” he cried.
“Yes, yes!”
I stood beside him, looking down. From the tangle of leaves and twigs an evil yellow face looked up at us. The features were contorted with agony, but the malignant eyes, wherein light was dying, regarded us with inflexible hatred. The man was pinned beneath the heavy bough; his back was broken; and as we watched, he expired, frothing slightly at the mouth, and quitted his tenement of clay, leaving those glassy eyes set hideously upon us.
“The pagan gods fight upon our side,” said Smith strangely. “Elms have a dangerous habit of shedding boughs in still weather—particularly after a storm. Pan, god of the woods, with this one has performed Justice’s work of retribution.”
“I don’t understand. Where was this man—”