As I write, there lies before me a soiled and creased sheet of vellum.  It bears some lines traced in a cramped, peculiar, and all but illegible hand.  This fragment was found by Inspector Weymouth (to this day a man mentally sound) in a pocket of his ragged garments.

When it was written I leave you to judge.  How it came to be where Weymouth found it calls for no explanation: 

“To Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie—­

“Greeting!  I am recalled home by One who may not be denied. 
In much that I came to do I have failed.  Much that I
have done I would undo; some little I have undone. 
Out of fire I came—­the smoldering fire of a thing one day
to be a consuming flame; in fire I go.  Seek not my ashes. 
I am the lord of the fires!  Farewell.

“Fu-Manchu.”

Who has been with me in my several meetings with the man who penned that message I leave to adjudge if it be the letter of a madman bent upon self-destruction by strange means, or the gibe of a preternaturally clever scientist and the most elusive being ever born of the land of mystery—­China.

For the present, I can aid you no more in the forming of your verdict.  A day may come though I pray it do not—­when I shall be able to throw new light upon much that is dark in this matter.  That day, so far as I can judge, could only dawn in the event of the Chinaman’s survival; therefore I pray that the veil be never lifted.

But, as I have said, there is another sequel to this story which I can contemplate with a different countenance.  How, then, shall I conclude this very unsatisfactory account?

Shall I tell you, finally, of my parting with lovely, dark-eyed Karamaneh, on board the liner which was to bear her to Egypt?

No, let me, instead, conclude with the words of Nayland Smith: 

“I sail for Burma in a fortnight, Petrie.  I have leave to break my journey at the Ditch.  How would a run up the Nile fit your programme?  Bit early for the season, but you might find something to amuse you!”