dy had been borne to the edge of the bushes and laid
where we found it.

Why his life had been spared, I cannot conjecture, but provision had
been made against his recovering consciousness and revealing the secret
of the shrubbery. The ruse of releasing the mastiff alone had
terminated the visit of the unbidden guest within Redmoat.

Denby made a very slow recovery; and, even when convalescent,
consciously added not one fact to those we already had collated; his
memory had completely deserted him!

This, in my opinion, as in those of the several specialists consulted,
was due, not to the blow on the head, but to the presence, slightly
below and to the right of the first cervical curve of the spine, of a
minute puncture--undoubtedly caused by a hypodermic syringe. Then,
unconsciously, poor Denby furnished the last link in the chain; for
undoubtedly, by means of this operation, Fu-Manchu had designed to
efface from Eltham's mind his plans of return to Ho-Nan.

The nature of the fluid which could produce such mental symptoms was a
mystery--a mystery which defied Western science: one of the many
strange secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

CHAPTER X

SINCE Nayland Smith's return from Burma I had rarely taken up a paper
without coming upon evidences of that seething which had cast up Dr.
Fu-Manchu. Whether, hitherto, such items had escaped my attention or
had seemed to demand no particular notice, or whether they now became
increasingly numerous, I was unable to determine.

One evening, some little time after our sojourn in Norfolk, in glancing
through a number of papers which I had brought in with me, I chanced
upon no fewer than four items of news bearing more or less directly
upon the grim business which engaged my friend and I.

No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional cruelty
of the Chinese. Throughout the time that Dr. Fu-Manchu remained in
England, the press preserved a uniform silence upon the subject of his
existence. This was due to Nayland Smith. But, as a result, I feel
assured that my account of the Chinaman's deeds will, in many quarters,
meet with an incredulous reception.

I had been at work, earlier in the evening, upon the opening chapters
of this chronicle, and I had realized how difficult it would be for my
reader, amid secure and cozy surroundings, to credit any human being
with a callous villainy great enough to conceive and to put into
execution such a death pest as tha