Lionel like?"

"A madman, Petrie. A tall, massive man, wearing a dirty dressing-gown
of neutral color; a man with untidy gray hair and a bristling mustache,
keen blue eyes, and a brown skin; who wears a short beard or rarely
shaves--I don't know which. I left him striding about among the
thousand and one curiosities of that incredible room, picking his way
through his antique furniture, works of reference, manuscripts,
mummies, spears, pottery and what not--sometimes kicking a book from
his course, or stumbling over a stuffed crocodile or a Mexican
mask--alternately dictating and conversing. Phew!"

For some time we were silent.

"Smith" I said, "we are making no headway in this business. With all
the forces arrayed against him, Fu-Manchu still eludes us, still
pursues his devilish, inscrutable way."

Nayland Smith nodded.

"And we don't know all," he said. "We mark such and such a man as one
alive to the Yellow Peril, and we warn him--if we have time. Perhaps
he escapes; perhaps he does not. But what do we know, Petrie, of those
others who may die every week by his murderous agency? We cannot know
EVERYONE who has read the riddle of China. I never see a report of
someone found drowned, of an apparent suicide, of a sudden, though
seemingly natural death, without wondering. I tell you, Fu-Manchu is
omnipresent; his tentacles embrace everything. I said that Sir Lionel
must bear a charmed life. The fact that WE are alive is a miracle."

He glanced at his watch.

"Nearly eleven," he said. "But sleep seems a waste of time--apart from
its dangers."

We heard a bell ring. A few moments later followed a knock at the room
door.

"Come in!" I cried.

A girl entered with a telegram addressed to Smith. His jaw looked very
square in the lamplight, and his eyes shone like steel as he took it
from her and opened the envelope. He glanced at the form, stood up and
passed it to me, reaching for his hat, which lay upon my writing-table.

"God help us, Petrie!" he said.

This was the message:

"Sir Lionel Barton murdered. Meet me at his house at once.--WEYMOUTH,
INSPECTOR."

CHAPTER XI

ALTHOUGH we avoided all unnecessary delay, it was close upon midnight
when our cab swung round into a darkly shadowed avenue, at the farther
end of which, as seen through a tunnel, the moonlight glittered upon
the windows of Rowan House, Sir Lionel Barton's home.

Stepping out before the porch of the long, squ