of the wall?" asked Smith.

"Behind the mortuary."

"That's where they were waiting!" I cried excitedly. "The building
used as a mortuary is quite isolated, and it would not be a difficult
matter for some one hiding in the lane outside to throw one of those
ladders of silk and bamboo across the top of the wall."

"But, my good sir," interrupted the Governor irascibly, "whilst I
admit the possibility to which you allude, I do not admit that a dead
man, and a heavy one at that, can be carried up a ladder of silk and
bamboo! Yet, on the evidence of my own eyes, the body of the prisoner,
Samarkan, was removed from the mortuary last night!"

Smith signaled to me to pursue the subject no further; and indeed I
realized that it would have been no easy matter to render the amazing
truth evident to a man of the Colonel's type of mind. But to me the
facts of the case were now clear enough.

That Fu-Manchu possessed a preparation for producing artificial
catalepsy, of a sort indistinguishable from death, I was well aware.
A dose of this unknown drug had doubtless been contained in the cognac
(if, indeed, the decanter had held cognac) that the prisoner had drunk
at the time of his arrest. The "yellow stuff" spoken of by Morrison I
recognized as the antidote (another secret of the brilliant Chinese
doctor), a portion of which I had once, some years before, actually
had in my possession. The "dead man" had not been carried up the
ladder; he had climbed up!

"Now, Morrison," snapped Nayland Smith, "you have acted wisely thus
far. Make a clean breast of it. How much were you paid for the job?"

"Twenty pounds, sir" answered the man promptly, "and I'd have done it
for less, because I could see no harm in it, the prisoner being dead,
and this his last request."

"And who paid you?"

Now we were come to the nub of the matter, as the change in the man's
face revealed. He hesitated momentarily, and Colonel Warrington
brought his fist down on the table with a bang. Morrison made a sort
of gesture of resignation at that, and--

"When I was in the Army, sir, stationed at Cairo," he said slowly, "I
regret to confess that I formed a drug habit."

"Opium?" snapped Smith.

"No, sir, hashish."

"Good God! Go on."

"There's a place in Soho, just off Frith Street, where hashish is
supplied, and I go there sometimes. Mr. Samarkan used to come, and
bring people with him--from the New Louvre Hotel, I believe. That's
where I met him."