there
is something here in Redmoat--something that comes and goes in spite of
father's 'fortifications'? Caesar knows there is. Listen to him. He
drags at his chain so that I wonder he does not break it."

As we passed downstairs the howling of the mastiff sounded eerily
through the house, as did the clank-clank of the tightening chain as he
threw the weight of his big body upon it.

I sat in Smith's room that night for some time, he pacing the floor
smoking and talking.

"Eltham has influential Chinese friends," he said; "but they dare not
have him in Nan-Yang at present. He knows the country as he knows
Norfolk; he would see things!

"His precautions here have baffled the enemy, I think. The attempt in
the train points to an anxiety to waste no opportunity. But whilst
Eltham was absent (he was getting his outfit in London, by the way)
they have been fixing some second string to their fiddle here. In case
no opportunity offered before he returned, they provided for getting at
him here!"

"But how, Smith?"

"That's the mystery. But the dead dog in the shrubbery is significant."

"Do you think some emissary of Fu-Manchu is actually inside the moat?"

"It's impossible, Petrie. You are thinking of secret passages, and so
forth. There are none. Eltham has measured up every foot of the
place. There isn't a rathole left unaccounted for; and as for a tunnel
under the moat, the house stands on a solid mass of Roman masonry, a
former camp of Hadrian's time. I have seen a very old plan of the
Round Moat Priory as it was called. There is no entrance and no exit
save by the steps. So how was the dog killed?"

I knocked out my pipe on a bar of the grate.

"We are in the thick of it here," I said.

"We are always in the thick of it," replied Smith. "Our danger is no
greater in Norfolk than in London. But what do they want to do? That
man in the train with the case of instruments--WHAT instruments? Then
the apparition of the green eyes to-night. Can they have been the eyes
of Fu-Manchu? Is some peculiarly unique outrage contemplated--something
calling for the presence of the master?"

"He may have to prevent Eltham's leaving England without killing him."

"Quite so. He probably has instructions to be merciful. But God help
the victim of Chinese mercy!"

I went to my own room then. But I did not even undress, refilling my
pipe and seating myself at the open window. Having looked upon the
awful