er for?"

"I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the case.
Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication with the
Chinese group; I am only wondering--"

"You don't mean--"

"Yes--I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop even
to that."

No doubt, Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese commissioner
was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the mighty Chinaman
who represented things unutterable, whose potentialities for evil were
boundless as his genius, who personified a secret danger, the extent
and nature of which none of us truly understood. And, learning of these
things, with unerring Semitic instinct he had sought an opening in this
glittering Rialto. But there were two bidders!

"You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of
Fu-Manchu?" I asked, aghast.

"Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve that
master as readily as any other. His record is about as black as it
well could be. Slattin is of course an assumed name; he was known as
Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police, and he was
kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavory Chinatown case."

"Chinatown!"

"Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget that he is
undeniably a clever scoundrel."

"Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?"

"Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait until tomorrow."

"What!"

"I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin,
to-night."

"At his office?"

"No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his object
is to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his favorable
progress to his employer to-night!"

"Then we should have followed him!"

Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old shooting-jacket.

"He has been followed, Petrie," he replied, with one of his rare smiles.
"Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all night!"

This was entirely characteristic of my friend's farseeing methods.

"By the way," I said, "you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon be
convalescent. Where, in heaven's name, can he--"

"Don't be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie," interrupted Smith. "His life
is no longer in danger."

I stared, stupidly.

"No longer in danger!"

"He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese, upon
Chinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope, having a
typewritte