bloody knife from the floor and cut Eltham's
lashings. He sank into my arms.

"Praise God," he murmured weakly. "He is more merciful to me than
perhaps I deserve. Unscrew ... the jacket, Petrie ... I think ... I was
very near to ... weakening. Praise the good God, who ... gave me ...
fortitude...."

I got the screw of the accursed thing loosened, but the act of
removing the jacket was too agonizing for Eltham--man of iron though
he was. I laid him swooning on the floor.

"Where is Fu-Manchu?"

Nayland Smith, from just within the door, threw out the query in a
tone of stark amaze. I stood up--I could do nothing more for the poor
victim at the moment--and looked about me.

The room was innocent of furniture, save for heaps of rubbish on the
floor, and a tin oil-lamp hung on the wall. The dead Chinaman lay
close beside Smith. There was no second door, the one window was
barred and from this room we had heard the voice, the unmistakable,
unforgettable voice, of Fu-Manchu.

_But Dr. Fu-Manchu was not there!_

Neither of us could accept the fact for a moment; we stood there,
looking from the dead man to the tortured man who had only swooned,
in a state of helpless incredulity.

Then the explanation flashed upon us both, simultaneously, and with a
cry of baffled rage Smith leapt along the passage to the second door.
It was wide open. I stood at his elbow when he swept its emptiness
with the ray of his pocket-lamp.

There was a speaking-tube fixed between the two rooms!

Smith literally ground his teeth.

"Yet, Petrie," he said, "we have learnt something. Fu-Manchu had
evidently promised Eltham his life if he would divulge the name of his
correspondent. He meant to keep his word; it is a sidelight on his
character."

"How so?"

"Eltham has never seen Dr. Fu-Manchu, but Eltham knows certain parts
of China better than you know the Strand. Probably, if he saw
Fu-Manchu, he would recognize him for whom he really is, and this, it
seems, the Doctor is anxious to avoid."

We ran back to where we had left Karamaneh.

The room was empty!

"Defeated, Petrie!" said Smith bitterly. "The Yellow Devil is loosed
on London again!"

He leant from the window and the skirl of a police whistle split the
stillness of the night.

CHAPTER IV

THE CRY OF A NIGHTHAWK

Such were the episodes that marked the coming of Dr. Fu-Manchu to
London, that awakened fears long dormant and reopened old wounds--nay,
poured poiso