"What is it? For God's sake, what has happened?" reached my ears
dimly--and the man Burke showed behind his master. White-faced I saw
him to be; for now Smith and I were racing up the steps.

Ere we could reach him, Slattin, uttering another choking cry, pitched
forward and lay half across the threshold.

We burst into the hall, where Burke stood with both his hands raised
dazedly to his head. I could hear the sound of running feet upon the
gravel, and knew that Carter was coming to join us.

Burke, a heavy man with a lowering, bull-dog type of face, collapsed
on to his knees beside Slattin, and began softly to laugh in little
rising peals.

"Drop that!" snapped Smith, and grasping him by the shoulders, he sent
him spinning along the hall-way, where he sank upon the bottom step of
the stairs, to sit with his outstretched fingers extended before his
face, and peering at us grotesquely through the crevices.

There were rustlings and subdued cries from the upper part of the
house. Carter came in out of the darkness, carefully stepping over the
recumbent figure; and the three of us stood there in the lighted hall
looking down at Slattin.

"Help me to move him back," directed Smith tensely; "far enough to
close the door."

Between us we accomplished this, and Carter fastened the door. We were
alone with the shadow of Fu-Manchu's vengeance; for as I knelt beside
the body on the floor, a look and a touch sufficed to tell me that
this was but clay from which the spirit had fled!

Smith met my glance as I raised my head, and his teeth came together
with a loud snap; the jaw muscles stood out prominently beneath the
dark skin; and his face was grimly set in that old, half-despairful
expression which I knew so well but which boded so ill for whomsoever
occasioned it.

"Dead, Petrie--already?"

"Lightning could have done the work no better. Can I turn him over?"

Smith nodded.

Together we stooped and rolled the heavy body on its back. A flood of
whispers came sibilantly from the stairway. Smith spun around rapidly,
and glared upon the group of half-dressed servants.

"Return to your rooms!" he rapped imperiously: "let no one come into
the hall without my orders."

The masterful voice had its usual result; there was a hurried retreat
to the upper landing. Burke, shaking like a man with an ague, sat on
the lower step, pathetically drumming his palms upon his uplifted
knees.

"I warned him, I warned him!" he mumbled monotonously, "I warned him,
oh, I warned him!"

"Stand up!" shouted Smith, "stand up and come here!"

The man, with his frightened eyes turning to right and left, and
seeming to search for something in the shadows about him, advanced
obediently.

"Have you a flask?" demanded Smith of Carter.

The detective silently administered to Burke a stiff restorative.

"Now," continued Smith, "you, Petrie, will want to examine him, I
suppose?" He pointed to the body. "And in the meantime I have some
questions to put to you, my man."

He clapped his hand upon Burke's shoulder.

"My God!" Burke broke out, "I was ten yards from him when it
happened!"

"No one is accusing you," said Smith less harshly; "but since you were
the only witness, it is by your aid that we hope to clear the matter
up."

Exerting a gigantic effort to regain control of himself, Burke nodded,
watching my friend with a childlike eagerness. During the ensuing
conversation, I examined Slattin for marks of violence; and of what I
found, more anon.

"In the first place," said Smith, "you say that you warned him. When
did you warn him, and of what?"

"I warned him, sir, that it would come to this--"

"That _what_ would come to this?"

"His dealings with the Chinamen!"

"He had dealings with Chinamen?"

"He accidentally met a Chinaman at an East End gaming-house, a man he
had known in 'Frisco--a man called Singapore Charlie--"

"What! Singapore Charlie!"

"Yes, sir, the same man that had a dope-shop, two years ago, down
Ratcliffe way--"

"There was a fire--"

"But Singapore Charlie escaped, sir."

"And he is one of the gang?"

"He is one of what we used to call, in New York, the Seven Group."

Smith began to tug at the lobe of his left ear, reflectively, as I saw
out of the corner of my eye.

"The Seven Group!" he mused. "That is significant. I always suspected
that Dr. Fu-Manchu and the notorious Seven Group were one and the
same. Go on, Burke."

"Well, sir," the man continued more calmly, "the lieutenant--"

"The lieutenant!" began Smith; then: "Oh! of course; Slattin used to
be a police lieutenant!"

"Well, sir, he--Mr. Slattin--had a sort of hold on this Singapore
Charlie, and two years ago, when he first met him, he thought that
with his aid he was going to pull off the biggest thing of his life--"

"Forestall _me_, in fact?"

"Yes, sir; but you got in first with the big raid--and spoiled it."

Smith nodded grimly, glancing at the Scotland Yard man, who returned
his nod with equal grimness.

"A couple of months ago," resumed Burke, "he met Charlie again down
East, and the Chinaman introduced him to a girl--some sort of an
Egyptian girl."

"Go on!" snapped Smith. "I know her."

"He saw her a good many times--and she came here once or twice. She
made out that she and Singapore Charlie were prepared to give away the
boss of the Yellow gang--"

"For a price, of course?"

"I suppose so," said Burke; "but I don't know. I only know that I
warned him."

"H'm!" muttered Smith. "And now, what took place to-night?"

"He had an appointment here with the girl," began Burke.

"I know all that," interrupted Smith. "I merely want to know what
took place after the telephone call."

"Well, he told me to wait up, and I was dozing in the next room to the
study--the dining-room--when the 'phone bell aroused me. I heard the
lieutenant--Mr. Slattin--coming out, and I ran out too, but only in
time to see him taking his hat from the rack--"

"But he wears no hat!"

"He never got it off the peg! Just as he reached up to take it, he
gave a most frightful scream, and turned around like lightning as
though some one had attacked him from behind!"

"There was no one else in the hall?"

"No one at all. I was standing down there outside the dining-room just
by the stairs, but he didn't turn in my direction, he turned and
looked right behind him--where there was no one--nothing. His cries
were frightful." Burke's voice broke, and he shuddered feverishly.
"Then he made a rush for the front door. It seemed as though he had
not seen me. He stood there screaming; but, before I could reach him,
he fell...."

Nayland Smith fixed a piercing gaze upon Burke.

"Is that all you know?" he demanded slowly.

"As God is my judge, sir, that's all I know, and all I saw. There was
no living thing near him when he met his death."

"We shall see," muttered Smith. He turned to me. "What killed him,
Petrie?" he asked shortly.

"Apparently something which occasioned a minute wound on the left
wrist," I replied, and, stooping, I raised the already cold hand in
mine.

A tiny, inflamed wound showed on the wrist; and a certain puffiness
was becoming observable in the injured hand and arm. Smith bent down
and drew a quick, sibilant breath.

"You know what this is, Petrie?" he cried.

"Certainly. It was too late to employ a ligature and useless to
inject ammonia. Death was practically instantaneous. His heart...."

There came a loud knocking and ringing.

"Carter!" cried Smith, turning to the detective, "open that door to no
one--no one. Explain who I am--"

"But if it is the inspector--?"

"I said, open the door to _no one_!" snapped Smith. "Burke, stand
exactly where you are! Carter, you can speak to whoever knocks through
the letter-box. Petrie, don't move for your life! It may be here, in
the hall way!..."