w the light shining
through a crack in the floor. I shall never forget the look John gave
us when we came upon him, as, lamp in hand, he bent over the precious
chest."

"Shall you open it now?"

"No." He glanced at me oddly. "I shall have it valued in the morning
by Messrs. Meyerstein."

He was keeping something back; I was sure of it.

"Smith," I said suddenly, "the man with the limp! I heard him in the
place where you were confined! Did you ..."

Nayland Smith clicked his teeth together sharply, looking straightly
and grimly into my eyes.

"I _saw_ him!" he replied slowly; "and unless the effects of the
anaesthetic had not wholly worn off ..."

"Well!" I cried.

"The man with the limp is _Dr. Fu-Manchu!_"

CHAPTER X

THE TULUN-NUR CHEST

"This box," said Mr. Meyerstein, bending attentively over the carven
brass coffer upon the table, "is certainly of considerable value, and
possibly almost unique."

Nayland Smith glanced across at me with a slight smile. Mr. Meyerstein
ran one fat finger tenderly across the heavily embossed figures, which,
like barnacles, encrusted the sides and lid of the weird curio which
we had summoned him to appraise.

"What do you think, Lewison?" he added, glancing over his shoulder at
the clerk who accompanied him.

Lewison, whose flaxen hair and light blue eyes almost served to mask
his Semitic origin, shrugged his shoulders in a fashion incongruous
in one of his complexion, though characteristic in one of his name.

"It is as you say, Mr. Meyerstein, an example of early Tulun-Nur
work," he said. "It may be sixteenth century or even earlier. The
Kuren treasure-chest in the Hague Collection has points of
similarity, but the workmanship of this specimen is infinitely finer."

"In a word, gentlemen," snapped Nayland Smith, rising from the
arm-chair in which he had been sitting, and beginning restlessly to
pace the room, "in a word, you would be prepared to make me a
substantial offer for this box?"

Mr. Meyerstein, his shrewd eyes twinkling behind the pebbles of his
pince-nez, straightened himself slowly, turned in the ponderous manner
of a fat man, and readjusted the pince-nez upon his nose. He cleared
his throat.

"I have not yet seen the interior of the box, Mr. Smith," he said.

Smith paused in his perambulation of the carpet and stared hard at
the celebrated art dealer.

"Unfortunately," he replied, "the key is missing."

"Ah!" cried the assistant, Lewiso