opera house? Because of heart failure? No! Because his last
speech had shown that he held the key to the secret of Tongking. What
became of the Grand Duke Stanislaus? Elopement? Suicide? Nothing of
the kind. He alone was fully alive to Russia's growing peril. He
alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir Crichton Davey
murdered? Because, had the work he was engaged upon ever seen the
light it would have shown him to be the only living Englishman who
understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers. I say to you
solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few. Is there a man who would
arouse the West to a sense of the awakening of the East, who would
teach the deaf to hear, the blind to see, that the millions only await
their leader? He will die. And this is only one phase of the devilish
campaign. The others I can merely surmise."

"But, Smith, this is almost incredible! What perverted genius controls
this awful secret movement?"

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow
like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long,
magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel
cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect,
with all the resources of science past and present, with all the
resources, if you will, of a wealthy government--which, however,
already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful
being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril
incarnate in one man."

CHAPTER III

I SANK into an arm-chair in my rooms and gulped down a strong peg of
brandy.

"We have been followed here," I said. "Why did you make no attempt to
throw the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted?"

Smith laughed.

"Useless, in the first place. Wherever we went, HE would find us. And
of what use to arrest his creatures? We could prove nothing against
them. Further, it is evident that an attempt is to be made upon my
life to-night--and by the same means that proved so successful in the
case of poor Sir Crichton."

His square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to his
feet, shaking his clenched fists towards the window.

"The villain!" he cried. "The fiendishly clever villain! I suspected
that Sir Crichton was next, and I was right. But I came too late,
Petrie! That hits me hard, old man. To think that I knew and yet
failed to save him!"