me curiously.

"Can you doubt it? The presence of a concealed Chinaman surely is
sufficient. Kwee, I feel assured, was one of the murder group, though
probably he had only recently entered that mysterious service. He is
unarmed, or I should feel disposed to think that his part was to
assassinate Sir Lionel whilst, unsuspecting the presence of a hidden
enemy, he was at work here. Strozza's opening the sarcophagus clearly
spoiled the scheme."

"And led to the death--"

"Of a servant of Fu-Manchu. Yes. I am at a loss to account for that."

"Do you think that the sarcophagus entered into the scheme, Smith?"

My friend looked at me in evident perplexity.

"You mean that its arrival at the time when a creature of the
Doctor--Kwee--was concealed here, may have been a coincidence?"

I nodded; and Smith bent over the sarcophagus, curiously examining the
garish paintings with which it was decorated inside and out. It lay
sideways upon the floor, and seizing it by its edge, he turned it over.

"Heavy," he muttered; "but Strozza must have capsized it as he fell.
He would not have laid it on its side to remove the lid. Hallo!"

He bent farther forward, catching at a piece of twine, and out of the
mummy case pulled a rubber stopper or "cork."

"This was stuck in a hole level with the floor of the thing," he said.
"Ugh! it has a disgusting smell."

I took it from his hands, and was about to examine it, when a loud
voice sounded outside in the hall. The door was thrown open, and a big
man, who, despite the warmth of the weather, wore a fur-lined overcoat,
rushed impetuously into the room.

"Sir Lionel!" cried Smith eagerly. "I warned you! And see, you have
had a very narrow escape."

Sir Lionel Barton glanced at what lay upon the floor, then from Smith
to myself, and from me to Inspector Weymouth. He dropped into one of
the few chairs unstacked with books.

"Mr. Smith," he said, with emotion, "what does this mean? Tell
me--quickly."

In brief terms Smith detailed the happenings of the night--or so much
as he knew of them. Sir Lionel Barton listened, sitting quite still
the while--an unusual repose in a man of such evidently tremendous
nervous activity.

"He came for the jewels," he said slowly, when Smith was finished; and
his eyes turned to the body of the dead Italian. "I was wrong to
submit him to the temptation. God knows what Kwee was doing in hiding.
Perhaps he had come to murder me, as you su