I do; but I quite understand the girl's position. She
fears the English authorities, but would submit to capture by you! If
you would only seize her by the hair, drag her to some cellar, hurl her
down and stand over her with a whip, she would tell you everything she
knows, and salve her strange Eastern conscience with the reflection
that speech was forced from her. I am not joking; it is so, I assure
you. And she would adore you for your savagery, deeming you forceful
and strong!"

"Smith," I said, "be serious. You know what her warning meant before."

"I can guess what it means now," he rapped. "Hallo!"

Someone was furiously ringing the bell.

"No one at home?" said my friend. "I will go. I think I know what it
is."

A few minutes later he returned, carrying a large square package.

"From Weymouth," he explained, "by district messenger. I left him
behind at the docks, and he arranged to forward any evidence which
subsequently he found. This will be fragments of the mummy."

"What! You think the mummy was abstracted?"

"Yes, at the docks. I am sure of it; and somebody else was in the
sarcophagus when it reached Rowan House. A sarcophagus, I find, is
practically airtight, so that the use of the rubber stopper becomes
evident--ventilation. How this person killed Strozza I have yet to
learn."

"Also, how he escaped from a locked room. And what about the green
mist?"

Nayland Smith spread his hands in a characteristic gesture.

"The green mist, Petrie, can be explained in several ways. Remember,
we have only one man's word that it existed. It is at best a confusing
datum to which we must not attach a factitious importance."

He threw the wrappings on the floor and tugged at a twine loop in the
lid of the square box, which now stood upon the table. Suddenly the
lid came away, bringing with it a lead lining, such as is usual in
tea-chests. This lining was partially attached to one side of the box,
so that the action of removing the lid at once raised and tilted it.

Then happened a singular thing.

Out over the table billowed a sort of yellowish-green cloud--an oily
vapor--and an inspiration, it was nothing less, born of a memory and of
some words of my beautiful visitor, came to me.

"RUN, SMITH!" I screamed. "The door! the door, for your life!
Fu-Manchu sent that box!" I threw my arms round him. As he bent
forward the moving vapor rose almost to his nostrils. I dragged him
back and