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be here in three minutes. But tomorrow? What can we do? We must know!”
    “I agree,” said Sir Denis quietly. “Don’t worry any more about it. I think you are about to win a great victory. I hope, as I have told you, to recover a copy of the formula for ‘654’—and as Dr. Petrie’s safety is of such vital importance, you have no objections to offer to my plan?”
    “But none!” Cartier replied. “Except that this seems unnecessary.”
    “I never take needless risks,” said Sir Denis drily. But when Cartier was gone:
    “I am going into Nice,” Sir Denis said, “now, to put a phone call through to London.”
    “What!”
    “There’s a definite connection, Sterling, between the appearance in Petrie’s laboratory of a new species of tropical fly at the same time as an unfamiliar tropical plant—the latter bloodstained!”
    “So much is obvious.”
    “The connecting link is the Burmese Dacoit whom I heard, and you and Mme Dubonnet saw. He was the servant of a dreadful master.”
    A question burned on my tongue, but:
    “Sister Therese is all that Cartier claims for her—I have interviewed the sister. She will attend to the patient from time to time. But I’m going to ask you to do something, Sterling, for me and for Petrie.”
    “Anything you like. Just say the word.”
    “You see, Sterling, since Petrie left London and came here, he had kept in close touch with Sir Manston Rorke, of the School of Tropical Medicine—one of the three big names, although I doubt if he knows more than Petrie. Some days ago, Sir Manston called me up. He had formed a remarkable opinion.”
    “What about?”
    “About the French epidemic. Two cases, showing identical symptoms, occurred in the London dock area, and he had had news of several in New York and of one in Sydney, Australia. Having personally examined the London cases (both of which terminated fatally) he had come to the conclusion that this disease was not an ordinary plague. Briefly, he believed that it was being induced artificially!”
    “Good heavens, Sir Denis! I begin to believe he was right.”
    Nayland Smith nodded.
    “I invited him to suggest a motive, and he wavered between a mad scientist and a Red plot to decimate unfriendly nations! In my opinion, he wasn’t far short of the truth; but here’s the big point: I have reason to believe that Petrie submitted to Sir Manston the formula for ‘654’—and I’m going to Nice to call him up.”
    “God grant he has it,” I said, glancing at the bed where the sick man lay.
    “Amen to that. But in the meantime, Sterling—I may be away two hours or more—it’s vitally important that Petrie should not be alone for one moment.”
    “I quite follow.”
    “So I want you to stand by here until I get back. What I mean is this—I want you to sit tight beside his bed.”
    “I understand. You may count on me.”
    He stared at me fixedly. There was something almost hypnotic in that penetrating look.
    “Sterling,” he said, “you are dealing with an enemy more cunning and more brilliant than any man you have ever met East or West. Until I return you are not to allow a soul to touch Petrie—except Sister Therese or Cartier.”
    I was startled by his vehemence.
    “It may be difficult,” I suggested.
    “I agree that it may be difficult; but it has to be done. Can I rely upon you?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I’m going to dash away now, to put a call through to Manston Rorke. I only pray that he is in London and that I can locate him.”
    He raised his hand in a sort of salute to the insensible man, turned, and went out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IVORY FINGERS
    I thought of many things during the long vigil that followed. The isolation ward harboured six patients, but Petrie had been given accommodation in a tiny private room at one end. The corresponding room at the other end was the sanctum of Sister Therese.
    It was a lonely spot, and very silent. I heard the sister moving about in the adjoining ward, and