t of my hurried return from
Cairo--from Cairo where I had left behind me many a fondly cherished
hope. I addressed myself again to the task of unpacking my
steamer-trunk and was so engaged when again a sound in the corridor
outside brought me upright with a jerk.

A quick footstep approached the door, and there came a muffled rapping
upon the panel.

This time I asked no question, but leapt across the room and threw the
door open. Nayland Smith stood before me, muffled up in a heavy
traveling coat, and with his hat pulled down over his brows.

"At last!" I cried, as my friend stepped in and quickly reclosed the
door.

Smith threw his hat upon the settee, stripped off the great-coat, and
pulling out his pipe began to load it in feverish haste.

"Well," I said, standing amid the litter cast out from the trunk, and
watching him eagerly, "what's afoot?"

Nayland Smith lighted his pipe, carelessly dropping the match-end upon
the floor at his feet.

"God knows what _is_ afoot this time, Petrie!" he replied. "You and I
have lived no commonplace lives; Dr. Fu-Manchu has seen to that; but
if I am to believe what the Chief has told me to-day, even stranger
things are ahead of us!"

I stared at him wonder-stricken.

"That is almost incredible," I said; "terror can have no darker
meaning than that which Dr. Fu-Manchu gave to it. Fu-Manchu is dead,
so what have we to fear?"

"We have to fear," replied Smith, throwing himself into a corner of
the settee, "the Si-Fan!"

I continued to stare, uncomprehendingly.

"The Si-Fan----"

"I always knew and you always knew," interrupted Smith in his short,
decisive manner, "that Fu-Manchu, genius that he was, remained
nevertheless the servant of another or others. He was not the head of
that organization which dealt in wholesale murder, which aimed at
upsetting the balance of the world. I even knew the name of one, a
certain mandarin, and member of the Sublime Order of the White Peacock,
who was his immediate superior. I had never dared to guess at the
identity of what I may term the Head Center."

He ceased speaking, and sat gripping his pipe grimly between his teeth,
whilst I stood staring at him almost fatuously. Then--

"Evidently you have much to tell me," I said, with forced calm.

I drew up a chair beside the settee and was about to sit down.

"Suppose you bolt the door," jerked my friend.

I nodded, entirely comprehending, crossed the room and shot the little
ni