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spoken out in the square?
    I ordered coffee and when it came I was too restless to sit down. I walked about the room carrying the cup in my hand. Then I heard the doorbell and heard Mrs Merton, my daily help, going down. Two minutes later Nayland Smith came in, his lean features wearing that expression of eagerness which characterised him when he was hot on a trail, his grey eyes very bright. He nodded, and before I could speak:
    “Thanks! A cup of coffee would be just the thing,” he said. Peeling off his damp raincoat and dropping it on the floor, he threw his hat on top of it, stepped to my desk and began to read through my manuscript. Mrs Merton bringing another cup, I poured his coffee out and set it on the desk. He looked up.
    “Perhaps a little undue emphasis on amethyst eyes,” he said slyly.
    I felt myself flushing.
    “You may be right, Smith,” I admitted. “In fact I thought the same myself. But you see, you haven’t met her—I have. I may as well be honest. Yes! She did make a deep impression upon me.”
    “I am only joking, Kerrigan. I have even known the symptoms.” He spoke those words rather wistfully. “But this is very sudden!”
    “I agree!” and I laughed. “I know what you think, but truly, there was some irresistible appeal about her.”
    “If, as I suspect, she is a servant of Doctor Fu-Manchu, therewould be. He rarely makes mistakes.”
    I crossed to the window.
    “Somehow I can’t believe it.”
    “You mean you don’t want to?” As I turned he dropped the manuscript on the desk. “Well, Kerrigan, one thing life has taught me—never to interfere in such matters. You must deal with it in your own way.”
    “Is there any news?”
    He snapped his fingers irritably.
    “None. The man who came to Sir Malcolm Locke’s house to adjust the telephone did not come from the post office, but unfortunately he can’t be traced. The fellow who came to my flat to fix the television set did not come from the firm who supplied it—but he also cannot be traced! And so, you see—”
    He paused suddenly as my phone bell began to ring. I took up the receiver.
    “Hello—yes?… He is here.” I turned to Smith. “Inspector Gallaho wants you.”
    He stepped eagerly forward.
    “Hello! Gallaho? Yes—I told Fey to tell you I was coming on here. What’s that!—What?” His voice rose on a high note of excitement. “Good God! What do you say? Yes—details when I see you. What time does the train leave? Good! Coming now.”
    He replaced the receiver and turned. His face had grown very stern. Here was a sudden change of mood.
    “What is it?”
    “Fu-Manchu has struck again. We have just twenty minutes to catch the train. Come on!”
    “But where are we going?”
    “To a remote corner of the Essex marshes.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN THE ESSEX MARSHES
    A depressing drizzle was still falling, when amid semi-gloom I found myself stepping out of a train at a station on one of those branch lines which intersect the map of Essex. A densely wooded slope arose on the north. It seemed in some way to bear down oppressively on the little station, as though at any moment it might slip forward and crush it.
    “Gallaho is a good man to have in charge,” said Nayland Smith. “A stoat on a scent and every whit as tenacious.”
    The chief detective inspector was there awaiting us—a thick-set, clean-shaven man of florid colouring and truculent expression, buttoned up in a blue overcoat and having a rather wide-brimmed bowler hat, very wet, jammed tightly upon his head. With him was a uniformed officer who was introduced as Inspector Derbyshire of the Essex Constabulary. Greetings over:
    “This is an ugly business,” said Gallaho, speaking through clenched teeth.
    “So I gather,” said Nayland Smith rapidly. “We can talk on the way. I’m afraid you’ll have to ride in front with the driver, Kerrigan.”
    Gallaho nodded and presently, in a police car which stood outside the station, we were on our way. It