"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 labouring 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."