the Brixton
Police Station. There's no family, fortunately; he was quite alone in
the world. His case-book isn't in the American desk, which you'll find
in his sitting-room; it's in the cupboard in the corner--top shelf.
Here are his keys, all intact. I think this is the cupboard key."

Smith nodded.

"Come on, Petrie," he said. "We haven't a second to waste."

Our cab was waiting, and in a few seconds we were speeding along
Wapping High Street. We had gone no more than a few hundred yards, I
think, when Smith suddenly slapped his open hand down on his knee.

"That pigtail!" he cried. "I have left it behind! We must have it,
Petrie! Stop! Stop!"

The cab was pulled up, and Smith alighted.

"Don't wait for me," he directed hurriedly. "Here, take Weymouth's
card. Remember where he said the book was? It's all we want. Come
straight on to Scotland Yard and meet me there."

"But Smith," I protested, "a few minutes can make no difference!"

"Can't it!" he snapped. "Do you suppose Fu-Manchu is going to leave
evidence like that lying about? It's a thousand to one he has it
already, but there is just a bare chance."

It was a new aspect of the situation and one that afforded no room for
comment; and so lost in thought did I become that the cab was outside
the house for which I was bound ere I realized that we had quitted the
purlieus of Wapping. Yet I had had leisure to review the whole troop
of events which had crowded my life since the return of Nayland Smith
from Burma. Mentally, I had looked again upon the dead Sir Crichton
Davey, and with Smith had waited in the dark for the dreadful thing
that had killed him. Now, with those remorseless memories jostling in
my mind, I was entering the house of Fu-Manchu's last victim, and the
shadow of that giant evil seemed to be upon it like a palpable cloud.

Cadby's old landlady greeted me with a queer mixture of fear and
embarrassment in her manner.

"I am Dr. Petrie," I said, "and I regret that I bring bad news
respecting Mr. Cadby."

"Oh, sir!" she cried. "Don't tell me that anything has happened to
him!" And divining something of the mission on which I was come, for
such sad duty often falls to the lot of the medical man: "Oh, the poor,
brave lad!"

Indeed, I respected the dead man's memory more than ever from that
hour, since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite pathetic, and
spoke eloquently for the unhappy cause of it.

"There was a te