ently. "You are
playing, not only with a pretty girl who is the favorite of a Chinese
Nero, but with my life! And I object, Petrie, on purely personal
grounds!"

I felt my anger oozing from me; for this was strictly just. I had
nothing to say, and Smith continued:

"You know that she is utterly false, yet a glance or two from those dark
eyes of hers can make a fool of you! A woman made a fool of me, once;
but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn yours. If you are
determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke up Adam, do so! But
don't involve me in the wreck, Petrie--for that might mean a yellow
emperor of the world, and you know it!"

"Your words are unnecessarily brutal, Smith," I said, feeling very
crestfallen, "but there--perhaps I fully deserve them all."

"You do!" he assured me, but he relaxed immediately. "A murderous
attempt is made upon my life, resulting in the death of a perfectly
innocent man in no way concerned. Along you come and let an accomplice,
perhaps a participant, escape, merely, because she has a red mouth, or
black lashes, or whatever it is that fascinates you so hopelessly!"

He opened the wicker basket, sniffing at the contents.

"Ah!" he snapped, "do you recognize this odor?"

"Certainly."

"Then you have some idea respecting Karamaneh's quarry?"

"Nothing of the kind!"

Smith shrugged his shoulders.

"Come along, Petrie," he said, linking his arm in mine.

We proceeded. Many questions there were that I wanted to put to him, but
one above all.

"Smith," I said, "what, in Heaven's name, were you doing on the mound?
Digging something up?"

"No," he replied, smiling dryly; "burying something!"

CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE ELMS

Dusk found Nayland Smith and me at the top bedroom window. We knew, now
that poor Forsyth's body had been properly examined, that he had died
from poisoning. Smith, declaring that I did not deserve his confidence,
had refused to confide in me his theory of the origin of the peculiar
marks upon the body.

"On the soft ground under the trees," he said, "I found his tracks right
up to the point where something happened. There were no other fresh
tracks for several yards around. He was attacked as he stood close to
the trunk of one of the elms. Six or seven feet away I found some other
tracks, very much like this."

He marked a series of dots upon the blotting pad at his elbow.

"Claws!" I cried. "That eerie call! like the call of a nighthawk