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. . ."

Dr. Fu-Manchu! Fu-Manchu as Smith had described him to me on that
night which now seemed so remotely distant--the night upon which I had
learned of the existence of the wonderful and evil being born of that
secret quickening which stirred in the womb of the yellow races.

As Smith, for the ninth or tenth time, knocked out his pipe on a bar of
the grate, the cuckoo clock in the kitchen proclaimed the hour.

"Two," said James Weymouth.

I abandoned my task, replacing notes and writing-block in the bag that
I had with me. Weymouth adjusted the lamp which had begun to smoke.

I tiptoed to the stairs and, stepping softly, ascended to the sick
room. All was quiet, and Mrs. Weymouth whispered to me that the
patient still slept soundly. I returned to find Nayland Smith pacing
about the room in that state of suppressed excitement habitual with him
in the approach of any crisis. At a quarter past two the breeze
dropped entirely, and such a stillness reigned all about us as I could
not have supposed possible so near to the ever-throbbing heart of the
great metropolis. Plainly I could hear Weymouth's heavy breathing. He
sat at the window and looked out into the black shadows under the
cedars. Smith ceased his pacing and stood again on the rug very still.
He was listening! I doubt not we were all listening.

Some faint sound broke the impressive stillness, coming from the
direction of the village street. It was a vague, indefinite
disturbance, brief, and upon it ensued a silence more marked than ever.
Some minutes before, Smith had extinguished the lamp. In the darkness
I heard his teeth snap sharply together.

The call of an owl sounded very clearly three times.

I knew that to mean that a messenger had come; but from whence or
bearing what tidings I knew not. My friend's plans were
incomprehensible to me, nor had I pressed him for any explanation of
their nature, knowing him to be in that high-strung and somewhat
irritable mood which claimed him at times of uncertainty--when he
doubted the wisdom of his actions, the accuracy of his surmises. He
gave no sign.

Very faintly I heard a clock strike the half-hour. A soft breeze stole
again through the branches above. The wind I thought m