ed,
fatuously, to have laid bare and analyzed.

Now, once again she was plying her old trade of go-between; professing
to reveal the secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu, and all the time--I could not
doubt it--inveigling men into the net of this awful fisher.

Yesterday, I had been her dupe; yesterday, I had rejoiced in my
captivity. To-day, I was not the favored one; to-day I had not been
selected recipient of her confidences--confidences sweet, seductive,
deadly: but Abel Slattin, a plausible rogue, who, in justice, should
be immured in Sing Sing, was chosen out, was enslaved by those lovely
mysterious eyes, was taking to his soul the lies which fell from those
perfect lips, triumphant in a conquest that must end in his undoing;
deeming, poor fool, that for love of him this pearl of the Orient was
about to betray her master, to resign herself a prize to the victor!

Companioned by these bitter reflections, I had lost the remainder of the
conversation between Nayland Smith and the police officer; now, casting
off the succubus memory which threatened to obsess me, I put forth a
giant mental effort to purge my mind of this uncleanness, and became
again an active participant in the campaign against the Master--the
director of all things noxious.

Our plans being evidently complete, Smith seized my arm, and I found
myself again out upon the avenue. He led me across the road and into the
gate of a house almost opposite. From the fact that two upper windows
were illuminated, I adduced that the servants were retiring; the other
windows were in darkness, except for one on the ground floor to the
extreme left of the building, through the lowered venetian blinds
whereof streaks of light shone out.

"Slattin's study!" whispered Smith. "He does not anticipate
surveillance, and you will note that the window is wide open!"

With that my friend crossed the strip of lawn, and careless of the fact
that his silhouette must have been visible to any one passing the gate,
climbed carefully up the artificial rockery intervening, and crouched
upon the window-ledge peering into the room.

A moment I hesitated, fearful that if I followed, I should stumble or
dislodge some of the larva blocks of which the rockery was composed.

Then I heard that which summoned me to the attempt, whatever the cost.

Through the open window came the sound of a musical voice--a voice
possessing a haunting accent, possessing a quality which struck upon my
heart and