President Fu Manchu

of the fact that he had had only six hours’ sleep in the past forty-eight. He wore a very old tweed suit, and what looked like a striped shirt with an attached collar, but which closer scrutiny would have revealed to be a pyjama jacket. As Fey went out:

“Miss Lakin,” he continued, and his manner was that of a man feverishly anxious, “you have brought me the letter to which you referred?”

Sarah Lakin took an envelope out of her handbag and handed it to Nayland Smith, watching him with her steady, grave eyes. He took it, glanced at the hand-written address, then crossed to the writing-table.

“I have also,” she said, “a note of the place at which we were to communicate with the very unpleasant person who called upon me yesterday.”

Nayland Smith turned; his expression was grim.

“I fear,” he said rapidly, “that we cannot hope for much help from that quarter.” He turned again to the littered table. “Here are three letters written by Orwin Prescott at Weaver’s Farm immediately prior to his disappearance. You know why I detained them and what I have discovered?”

Miss Lakin nodded.

“Copies have been sent to the persons to whom the letters were addressed, but I should judge, although I am not a specialist in the subject, that this is in Dr. Prescott’s hand-writing?”

“I can assure you that it is, Sir Denis. Intellectually my cousin and I are too closely akin for any deception to be possible. That letter was written by Orwin. Please read it.”

A subdued clatter of teacups became audible from the kitchenette to which Fey had retired, as Nayland Smith extracted the letter from the envelope. Sarah Lakin watched Sir Denis intently. He fascinated her. Brief though her acquaintance with him had been, her own fine nature had recognized and welcomed the keen, indomitable spirit of this man, who in an emergency personal and national, had thrown the weight of his trained powers into the scale.

He studied the letter silently, reading it once, twice. He then read it aloud:

“dear sarah,

This is to relieve your anxiety. By this time you will know that I am the victim of a plot; but I have compromised with the enemy, pax in hello, and I congratulate you and those associated with you upon the manner in which you have succeeded in restraining the newspapers from reference to the subject of my temporary disappearance. I have instructed Norbert, who will communicate with you. The experience has been unpleasant and even now I am not wholly my own master. Please conduct yourself as though you were ignorant of this misadventure, but have no fears respecting my appearance at Carnegie Hall. I shall be there. I dislike seeming to mystify, but it would be to my best interests if you make no attempt to communicate with me until the night of the debate. It is unnecessary that I should tell you to have courage.

Always affectionately yours,

orwin.”

“No date,” Nayland Smith commented. “No address. A sheet torn from a common type of writing-block. The envelope, also, is of a very ordinary kind, bearing a New York postmark. H’m . . . !”

He dropped letter and envelope upon the desk and, taking up a tobacco pouch, began to load his pipe. Fey entered with a tea tray which he placed upon a small table before Miss Lakin.

“Cream or milk?”

“Milk, and one piece of sugar, thank you.”

Except for a certain haggardness visible on the face of Nayland Smith and the strangeness of his attire in one obviously trained to conform to social custom, there was little in the atmosphere of this room high above the turmoil of New York to suggest that remorseless warfare raged about the pair who faced one another across the tea-table.

“I am entirely at a loss what to do, Sir Denis.”

As Fey withdrew, the deep voice of Miss Lakin broke the silence; her steady eyes were fixed upon Nayland Smith. He lighted his pipe, paused, looked down at her, and:

“A very foul briar is unusual at tea-time,” he snapped, and dropped his pipe in an ash tray. “Please forgive me. I am up against the greatest and perhaps the last problem of my life.”

“Sir Denis . . .” Miss Lakin bent forward, took up the charred pipe from the tray and extended it towards him. “Surely you know that I understand. I have lived in a wider world than Connecticut, and I want your advice badly. Please concentrate upon the problem in your own way. What should I do? What do you advise me to do?”

Nayland Smith stared hard at those grave eyes of the speaker; then, pipe in hand, began to walk up and down the room, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. They were forty floors above the streets of New York, and yet the ceaseless bombila-tion of those amazing thoroughfares reached them through such windows as were open: the hooting of lorry horns, the roar often thousand engines, the boom of a distant train rumbling along the rails, the warning siren of a tug-boat on East River. The city was around them, throbbing, living, an entity, a demi-god, claiming them—and as it seemed in this hour, demanding their destruction.

“Is the phrasing characteristic of your cousin’s style?” Nayland Smith demanded.

“Yes, broadly”

“I understand. It struck me as somewhat pedantic.”

“He has a very scholarly manner, Sir Denis, but as a rule it is not so marked in his intimate letters.” “Ah. . . . Who is Norbert?” “Maurice Norbert is Orwin’s private secretary.” “I see. May I take it, Miss Lakin, that in this fight for domination of the United States your cousin did not actually aim at the Presidency?”

“He did not even desire it, Sir Denis. He is what our newspapers term a hundred-per-cent American, but in the best sense of the phrase. He hoped to break the back of Harvey Bragg’s campaign. His aims were identical with those of the Abbot Donegal. His disappearance from the scene at this time would be fatal.”

“I agree! But it seems that he is not going to disappear.” “Then do you believe that what he says is true?” “I