of safety
matches. He began to load the much-charred agent of reflection.

"Do I understand that Burke is actually too afraid to go out openly
even in daylight?" he asked suddenly.

"He has not hitherto left his cousin's plantations at all," replied
Weymouth. "He seems to think that openly to communicate with the
authorities, or with you, would be to seal his death warrant."

"He's right," snapped Smith.

"Therefore he came and returned secretly," continued the inspector;
"and if we are to do any good, obviously we must adopt similar
precautions. The market wagon, loaded in such a way as to leave ample
space in the interior for us, will be drawn up outside the office of
Messrs. Pike and Pike, in Covent Garden, until about five o'clock this
afternoon. At say, half-past four, I propose that we meet there and
embark upon the journey."

The speaker glanced in my direction interrogatively.

"Include me in the programme," I said. "Will there be room in the
wagon?"

"Certainly," was the reply; "it is most commodious, but I cannot
guarantee its comfort."

Nayland Smith promenaded the room unceasingly, and presently he walked
out altogether, only to return ere the Inspector and I had had time to
exchange more than a glance of surprise, carrying a brass ash-tray. He
placed this on a corner of the breakfast table before Weymouth.

"Ever seen anything like that?" he inquired.

The Inspector examined the gruesome relic with obvious curiosity,
turning it over with the tip of his little finger and manifesting
considerable repugnance in touching it at all. Smith and I watched him
in silence, and, finally, placing the tray again upon the table, he
looked up in a puzzled way.

"It's something like the skin of a water-rat," he said.

Nayland Smith stared at him fixedly.

"A water-rat? Now that you come to mention it, I perceive a certain
resemblance--yes. But"--he had been wearing a silk scarf about his
throat and now he unwrapped it--"did you ever see a water-rat that
could make marks like these?"

Weymouth started to his feet with some muttered exclamation.

"What is this?" he cried. "When did it happen, and how?"

In his own terse fashion, Nayland Smith related the happenings of the
night. At the conclusion of the story:

"By heaven!" whispered Weymouth, "the thing on the roof--the coughing
thing that goes on all fours, seen by Burke...."

"My own idea exactly!" cried Smith.

"Fu-Manchu," I said excitedly, "has