“i don’t blame you!” rapped nayland smith. “suppose we say, then, a thousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of fu-manchu, the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit by your information or not?”
abel slattin shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to the armchair which he had just quitted. he reseated himself, placing his hat and cane upon my writing-table.
“a little agreement in black and white?” he suggested smoothly.
smith raised himself up out of the white cane chair, and, bending forward over a corner of the table, scribbled busily upon a sheet of notepaper with my fountain-pen.
the while he did so, i covertly studied our visitor. he lay back in the armchair, his heavy eyelids lowered deceptively. he was a thought overdressed—a big man, dark-haired and well groomed, who toyed with a monocle most unsuitable to his type. during the preceding conversation, i had been vaguely surprised to note mr. abel slattin’s marked american accent.
sometimes, when slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon the third finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. there was a sort of bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable even in his hands but proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy face and especially under the eyes. i diagnosed a laboring valve somewhere in the heart system.
nayland smith’s pen scratched on. my glance strayed from our semitic caller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me. it was of most unusual workmanship, apparently indian, being made of some kind of dark brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked resemblance to a snake’s skin; and the top of the cane was carved in conformity, to represent the head of what i took to be a puff-adder, fragments of stone, or beads, being inserted to represent the eyes, and the whole thing being finished with an artistic realism almost startling.
when smith had tossed the written page to slattin, and he, having read it with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it neatly and placed it in his pocket, i said:
“you have a curio here?”
our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction which, by his manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the cane in his hand.
“it comes from australia, doctor,” he replied; “it’s aboriginal work, and was given to me by a client. you thought it was indian? everybody does. it’s my mascot.”
“really?”
“it is indeed. its former owner ascribed magical powers to it! in fact, i believe he thought that it was one of those staffs mentioned in biblical history—”
“aaron’s rod?” suggested smith, glancing at the cane.
“something of the sort,” said slattin, standing up and again preparing to depart.
“you will ‘phone us, then?” asked my friend.
“you will hear from me to-morrow,” was the reply.
smith returned to the cane armchair, and slattin, bowing to both of us, made his way to the door as i rang for the girl to show him out.
“considering the importance of his proposal,” i began, as the door closed, “you hardly received our visitor with cordiality.”
“i hate to have any relations with him,” answered my friend; “but we must not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing with dr. fu-manchu. slattin has a rotten reputation—even for a private inquiry agent. he is little better than a blackmailer—”
“how do you know?”
“because i called on our friend weymouth at the yard yesterday and looked up the man’s record.”
“whatever 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 typewritten address and bearing a london postmark.”
“well?”
“as nearly as i can render the message in english, it reads: ‘although, because you are a brave man, you would not betray your correspondent in china, he has been discovered. he was a mandarin, and as i cannot write the name of a traitor, i may not name him. he was executed four days ago. i salute you and pray for your speedy recovery. fu-manchu.’”
“fu-manchu! but it is almost certainly a trap.”
“on the contrary, petrie—fu-manchu would not have written in chinese unless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, i received a cable this morning reporting that the mandarin yen-sun-yat was assassinated in his own garden, in nan-yang, one day last week.”
