"Do you think he may--"

"No," he said tensely. "Not until I see him lying dead before me shall
I believe it."

Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet.

"Smith, where is she?" I cried. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," he answered.

"She's given us the slip, Doctor," said Inspector Weymouth, as a
fire-engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane. "So has
Mr. Singapore Charlie--and, I'm afraid, somebody else. We've got six
or eight all-sorts, some awake and some asleep, but I suppose we shall
have to let 'em go again. Mr. Smith tells me that the girl was
disguised as a Chinaman. I expect that's why she managed to slip away."

I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false queue, how
the strange discovery which had brought death to poor Cadby had brought
life to me, and I seemed to remember, too, that Smith had dropped it as
he threw his arm about me on the ladder. Her mask the girl might have
retained, but her wig, I felt certain, had been dropped into the water.

It was later that night, when the brigade still were playing upon the
blackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop, and Smith and I
were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God knows how many
crimes, that I had an idea.

"Smith," I said, "did you bring the pigtail with you that was found on
Cadby?"

"Yes. I had hoped to meet the owner."

"Have you got it now?"

"No. I met the owner."

I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big pea-jacket lent to
me by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner.

"We shall never really excel at this business," continued Nayland
Smith. "We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to us,
Petrie, what it meant to the world, but I hadn't the heart. I owed her
your life--I had to square the account."

CHAPTER VII

NIGHT fell on Redmoat. I glanced from the window at the nocturne in
silver and green which lay beneath me. To the west of the shrubbery,
with its broken canopy of elms and beyond the copper beech which marked
the center of its mazes, a gap offered a glimpse of the Waverney where
it swept into a broad. Faint bird-calls floated over the water.
These, with the whisper of leaves, alone claimed the ear.

Ideal rural peace, and the music of an English summer evening; but to
my eyes, every shadow holding fantastic terrors; to my ears, every
sound a signal of dread. For the deathful hand of Fu-Manchu was
stretched over Red