ashion, but heavily
made-up. Our captive was younger than I had hitherto supposed; a
blonde; her hair artificially reduced to the so-called Titian tint.
But, despite her youth, her eyes, with the blackened lashes, were full
of a world weariness. Now she smiled cynically.

"Are you satisfied," she said, speaking unemotionally, "or," holding
up her wrists, "would you like to handcuff me?"

Nayland Smith, glancing from the open grip and the appliance beside it
to the face of the speaker, began clicking his teeth together, whereby
I knew him to be perplexed. Then he stared across at me.

"You appear bemused, Petrie," he said, with a certain irritation. "Is
this what mystifies you?"

Stooping, he picked up the metal contrivance, and almost savagely
jerked open the top section. It was a telescopic ladder, and more
ingeniously designed than anything of the kind I had seen before.
There was a sort of clamp attached to the base, and two sharply pointed
hooks at the top.

"For reaching windows on an upper floor," snapped my friend, dropping
the thing with a clatter upon the carpet. "An American device which
forms part of the equipment of the modern hotel thief!"

He seemed to be disappointed--fiercely disappointed; and I found his
attitude inexplicable. He turned to the woman--who sat regarding him
with that fixed cynical smile.

"Who are you?" he demanded; "and what business have you with the Si-Fan?"

The woman's eyes opened more widely, and the smile disappeared from
her face.

"The Si-Fan!" she repeated slowly. "I don't know what you mean,
Inspector."

"I am not an Inspector," snapped Smith, "and you know it well enough.
You have one chance--your last. To whom were you to deliver the box?
when and where?"

But the blue eyes remained upraised to the grim tanned face with a
look of wonder in them, which, if assumed, marked the woman a
consummate actress.

"Who are you?" she asked in a low voice, "and what are you talking
about?"

Inactive, I stood by the door watching my friend, and his face was a
fruitful study in perplexity. He seemed upon the point of an angry
outburst, then, staring intently into the questioning eyes upraised
to his, he checked the words he would have uttered and began to click
his teeth together again.

"You are some servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu!" he said.

The girl frowned with a bewilderment which I could have sworn was not
assumed. Then--

"You said I had one chance a moment ago," she