" he
whispered. "The events which led up to it had exhausted my nerves and
I had no reserve to call upon. If that last ..."

He broke off, the sentence uncompleted, and eagerly seized the tumbler
containing brandy and soda, which the beautiful, wicked-eyed Eurasian
passed to him. She turned, and prepared a drink for me, with the
insolent _insouciance_ which had never deserted her.

I emptied the tumbler at a draught.

Even as I set the glass down I realized, too late, that it was the
first drink I had ever permitted to pass my lips within an abode of
Dr. Fu-Manchu....

I started to my feet.

"Frazer!" I muttered--"we've been drugged! we ..."

"You sit down," came Zarmi's husky voice, and I felt her hands upon
my breast, pushing me back into my seat. "You very tired ... you go
to sleep...."

* * * * * * *

"Petrie! Dr. Petrie!"

The words broke in through the curtain of unconsciousness. I strove
to arouse myself. I felt cold and wet. I opened my eyes--and the world
seemed to be swimming dizzily about me. Then a hand grasped my arm,
roughly.

"Brace up! Brace up, Petrie--and thank God you are alive! ..."

I was sitting beside Sir Baldwin Frazer on a wooden bench, under a
leafless tree, from the ghostly limbs whereof rain trickled down upon
me! In the gray light, which, I thought, must be the light of dawn,
I discerned other trees about us and an open expanse, tree-dotted,
stretching into the misty grayness.

"Where are we?" I muttered--"where ..."

"Unless I am greatly mistaken," replied my bedraggled companion, "and
I don't think I am, for I attended a consultation in this neighborhood
less than a week ago, we somewhere on the west side of Wandsworth
Common!"

He ceased speaking; then uttered a suppressed cry. There came a
jangling of coins, and dimly I saw him to be staring at a canvas bag
of money which he held.

"Merciful heavens!" he said, "am I mad--or did I _really_ perform that
operation? And can this be my fee? ..."

I laughed loudly, wildly, plunging my wet, cold hands into the pockets
of my rain-soaked overcoat. In one of them, my fingers came in contact
with a piece of cardboard. It had an unfamiliar feel, and I pulled it
out, peering at it in the dim light.

"Well, I'm damned!" muttered Frazer--"then I'm not mad, after all!"

It was the Queen of Hearts!

CHAPTER XIX

"ZAGAZIG"

Fully two weeks elapsed ere Nayland Smith's ard