his, then?"

"Very! Have you any suggestion to offer respecting it?"

Moving from my seat I, also, bent over the paper and read, in growing
astonishment, the following:--

ZAGAZIG-Z,-a-g-a;-z:-_I_-g,a,-a,ag-_a_,z;-
I;-g:z-a-g-A-z;i-:g;-Z,,-a;-gg-_-z-i;-
G;-z-,a-g-:a-Z__I_;-g:-z-a-g;-a-:Z-,i-g:
z,a-g,-a:z,i-g.

"This is utterly incomprehensible! It can be nothing but some foolish
practical joke! It consists merely of the word 'Zagazig' repeated six
or seven times--which can have no possible significance!"

"Can't it!" snapped Smith.

"Well," I said, "what has Zagazig to do with Fu-Manchu, or to do with
us?"

"Zagazig, my dear Petrie, is a very unsavory Arab town in Lower Egypt,
as you know!"

He returned the paper to the pocket of his over-coat, and, noting my
bewildered glance, burst into one of his sudden laughs.

"You think I am talking nonsense," he said; "but, as a matter of fact,
that message in the paper has been puzzling me since it appeared--
yesterday morning--and at last I think I see the light."

He pulled out his pipe and began rapidly to load it.

"I have been growing careless of late, Petrie," he continued; and no
hint of merriment remained in his voice. His gaunt face was drawn
grimly, and his eyes glittered like steel. "In future I must avoid
going out alone at night as much as possible."

Inspector Weymouth was staring at Smith in a puzzled way; and certainly
I was every whit as mystified as he.

"I am disposed to believe," said my friend, in his rapid, incisive way,
"that the dacoit met his end at the hands of a tall man, possibly dark
and almost certainly clean-shaven. If this missing personage wears, on
chilly nights, a long tweed traveling coat and affects soft gray hats
of the Stetson pattern, I shall not be surprised."

Weymouth stared at me in frank bewilderment.

"By the way, Inspector," added Smith, a sudden gleam of inspiration
entering his keen eyes--"did I not see that the s.s._Andaman_ arrived
recently?"

"The Oriental Navigation Company's boat?" inquired Weymouth in a
hopeless tone. "Yes. She docked yesterday evening."

"If Jack Forsyth is still chief officer, I shall look him up,"
declared Smith. "You recall his brother, Petrie?"

"Naturally; since he was done to death in my presence," I replied;
for the words awoke memories of one of Dr. Fu-Manchu's most ghastly
crimes, always associated in my mind with the cry of a night-hawk.

"The divi