“It’s gone, Petrie!  It has the strength of four men even now.  Look!”

He stooped, and from the clenched left hand of the dead Burman, extracted a piece of paper and opened it.

“Hold the lantern a moment,” he said.

In the yellow light he glanced at the scrap of paper.

“As I expected—­a leaf of Burke’s notebook; it worked by scent.”  He turned to me with an odd expression in his gray eyes.  “I wonder what piece of my personal property Fu-Manchu has pilfered,” he said, “in order to enable it to sleuth me?”

He met the gaze of the man holding the lantern.

“Perhaps you had better return to the house,” he said, looking him squarely in the eyes.

The other’s face blanched.

“You don’t mean, sir—­you don’t mean . . .”

“Brace up!” said Smith, laying his hand upon his shoulder.  “Remember—­ he chose to play with fire!”

One wild look the man cast from Smith to me, then went off, staggering, toward the farm.

“Smith,” I began . . .

He turned to me with an impatient gesture.

“Weymouth has driven into Upminster,” he snapped; “and the whole district will be scoured before morning.  They probably motored here, but the sounds of the shots will have enabled whoever was with the car to make good his escape.  And exhausted from loss of blood, its capture is only a matter of time, Petrie.”

CHAPTER XVII

ONE DAY IN RANGOON

Nayland Smith returned from the telephone.  Nearly twenty-four hours had elapsed since the awful death of Burke.

“No news, Petrie,” he said, shortly.  “It must have crept into some inaccessible hole to die.”

I glanced up from my notes.  Smith settled into the white cane armchair, and began to surround himself with clouds of aromatic smoke.  I took up a half-sheet of foolscap covered with penciled writing in my friend’s cramped characters, and transcribed the following, in order to complete my account of the latest Fu-Manchu outrage: 

“The Amharun, a Semitic tribe allied to the Falashas, who have been settled for many generations in the southern province of Shoa (Abyssinia) have been regarded as unclean and outcast, apparently since the days of Menelek—­son of Suleyman and the Queen of Sheba—­from whom they claim descent.  Apart from their custom of eating meat cut from living beasts, they are accursed because of their alleged association with the Cynocephalus hamadryas (Sacred Baboon).  I, myself, was taken to a hut on the banks of the Hawash and shown a creature . . . whose predominant trait was an unreasoning malignity toward . . . and a ferocious tenderness for the society of its furry brethren.  Its powers of scent were fully equal to those of a bloodhound, whilst its abnormally long forearms possessed incredible strength . . . a Cynocephalyte such as this, contracts phthisis even in the more northern provinces of Abyssinia . . .”