es; we find them occasionally, these uninhabitable places, where
there is _something_, something malignant and harmful to human life,
but something that you cannot arrest, that you cannot hope to bring
into court."

"Ah," replied Smith slowly; "I suppose you are right. There are
historic instances, of course: Glamys Castle and Spedlins Tower in
Scotland, Peel Castle, Isle of Man, with its _Maudhe Dhug_, the grey
lady of Rainham Hall, the headless horses of Caistor, the Wesley ghost
of Epworth Rectory and others. But I have never come in personal
contact with such a case, and if I did I should feel very humiliated
to have to confess that there was _any_ agency which could produce a
_physical_ result--death,--but which was immune from physical
retaliation."

Weymouth nodded his head again.

"_I_ might feel a bit sour about it, too," he replied, "if it were not
that I haven't much pride left in these days, considering the show of
physical retaliation I have made against Dr. Fu-Manchu."

"A home-thrust, Weymouth!" snapped Nayland Smith, with one of those
rare boyish laughs of his. "We're children to that Chinese doctor,
Inspector, to that weird product of a weird people who are as old in
evil as the Pyramids are old in mystery. But about The Gables?"

"Well, it's an uncanny place. You mentioned Glamys Castle a moment
ago, and it's possible to understand an old stronghold like that being
haunted, but The Gables was only built about 1870; it's quite a modern
house. It was built for a wealthy Quaker family, and they occupied it,
uninterruptedly and apparently without anything unusual occurring for
over forty years. Then it was sold to a Mr. Maddison--and Mr. Maddison
died there six months ago."

"Maddison?" said Smith sharply, staring across at Weymouth. "What was
he? Where did he come from?"

"He was a retired tea-planter from Colombo," replied the Inspector.

"Colombo?"

"There was a link with the East, certainly, if that's what you are
thinking; and it was this fact which interested me at the time, and
which led me to waste precious days and nights on the case. But there
was no mortal connection between this liverish individual and the
schemes of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I'm certain of that."

"And how did he die?" I asked interestedly.

"He just died in his chair one evening, in the room which he used as a
library. It was his custom to sit there every night, when there were
no visitors, reading, until twelve o'clock or