With an appalling crash, a huge bough fell from above. One piercing
awful shriek there was, a crackling of broken branches, and a choking
groan....

The crack of Smith's pistol close beside me completed my confusion of
mind.

"Missed!" he yelled. "Shoot it, Petrie! On your left! For God's sake
don't miss it!"

I turned. A lithe black shape was streaking past me. I
fired--once--twice. Another frightful cry made yet more hideous the
nocturne.

Nayland Smith was directing the ray of a pocket torch upon the fallen
bough.

"Have you killed it, Petrie?" he cried.

"Yes, yes!"

I stood beside him, looking down. From the tangle of leaves and twigs
an evil yellow face looked up at us. The features were contorted with
agony, but the malignant eyes, wherein light was dying, regarded us
with inflexible hatred. The man was pinned beneath the heavy bough;
his back was broken; and, as we watched, he expired, frothing slightly
at the mouth, and quitted his tenement of clay leaving those glassy
eyes set hideously upon us.

"The pagan gods fight upon our side," said Smith strangely. "Elms have
a dangerous habit of shedding boughs in still weather--particularly
after a storm. Pan, god of the woods, with this one has performed
Justice's work of retribution."

"I don't understand. Where was this man--?"

"Up the tree, lying along the bough which fell, Petrie! That is why he
left no footmarks. Last night no doubt he made his escape by swinging
from bough to bough, ape-fashion, and descending to the ground
somewhere at the other side of the coppice."

He glanced at me.

"You are wondering, perhaps," he suggested, "what caused the
mysterious light? I could have told you this morning, but I fear I was
in a bad temper, Petrie. It's very simple; a length of tape soaked in
spirit or something of the kind, and sheltered from the view of any
one watching from your windows, behind the trunk of the tree; then,
the end ignited, lowered, still behind the tree, to the ground. The
operator swinging it around, the flame ascended, of course. I found
the unburned fragment of the tape used last night, a few yards from
here."

I was peering down at Fu-Manchu's servant, the hideous yellow man who
lay dead in a bower of elm leaves.

"He has some kind of leather bag beside him," I began.

"Exactly!" rapped Smith. "In that he carried his dangerous instrument
of death; from that he released it!"

"Released what?"

"What your fascinating friend came to recapture this morning."

"Don't taunt me, Smith!" I said bitterly. "Is it some species of
bird?"

"You saw the marks on Forsyth's body, and I told you of those which I
had traced upon the ground here. They were caused by _claws_, Petrie!"

"Claws! I thought so! But _what_ claws?"

"The claws of a poisonous thing. I recaptured the one used last night,
killed it--against my will--and buried it on the mound. I was afraid
to throw it in the pond, lest some juvenile fisherman should pull it
out and sustain a scratch. I don't know how long the claws would
remain venomous."

"You are treating me like a child, Smith," I said, slowly. "No doubt I
am hopelessly obtuse, but perhaps you will tell me what this Chinaman
carried in a leather bag and released upon Forsyth. It was something
which you recaptured, apparently with the aid of a plate of cold
turbot and a jug of milk. It was something, also, which Kâramanèh had
been sent to recapture with the aid--"

I stopped.

"Go on," said Nayland Smith, turning the ray to the left; "what did
she have in the basket?"

"Valerian," I replied mechanically.

The ray rested upon the lithe creature that I had shot down.

It was a black cat!

"A cat will go through fire and water for valerian," said Smith; "but
I got first innings this morning with fish and milk! I had recognized
the imprints under the trees for those of a cat, and I knew that if a
cat had been released here it would still be hiding in the
neighbourhood, probably in the bushes. I finally located a cat, sure
enough, and came for bait! I laid my trap, for the animal was too
frightened to be approachable, and then shot it; I had to. That yellow
fiend used the light as a decoy. The branch which killed him jutted
out over the path at a spot where an opening in the foliage above
allowed some moon rays to penetrate. Directly the victim stood
beneath, the Chinaman uttered his bird-cry; the one below looked up,
and the cat, previously held silent and helpless in the leather sack,
was dropped accurately upon his head!"

"But--" I was growing confused.

Smith stooped lower.

"The cat's claws are sheathed now," he said; "but if you could examine
them you would find that they are coated with a shining black
substance. Only Fu-Manchu knows what that substance is, Petrie; but
you and I know what it can do!"