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there
that day. I determined, at any rate, to make the attempt; reentering
the call-box, I asked for the bank's number.
    There proved to be a resident messenger, who, after a time, replied to
my call. He knew Nayland Smith very well by sight, and as he had been
on duty in the public office of the bank at the time that Smith should
have arrived, he assured me that my friend had not been there that day!
    "Besides, sir," he said, "you say he came to deposit valuables of some
kind here?"
    "Yes, yes!" I cried eagerly.
    "I take all such things down on the lift to the vaults at night, sir,
under the supervision of the assistant manager—and I can assure you
that nothing of the kind has been left with us to-day."
    I stepped out of the call-box unsteadily. Indeed, I clutched at the
door for support.
    "What is the meaning of Si-Fan?" Detective-sergeant Fletcher had asked
that morning. None of us could answer him; none of us knew. With a
haze seeming to dance between my eyes and the active life in the lobby
before me, I realized that the Si-Fan—that unseen, sinister power—
had reached out and plucked my friend from the very midst of this
noisy life about me, into its own mysterious, deathly silence.

Chapter VII - Chinatown
*
    "It's no easy matter," said Inspector Weymouth, "to patrol the vicinity
of John Ki's Joy-Shop without their getting wind of it. The entrance,
as you'll see, is a long, narrow rat-hole of a street running at right
angles to the Thames. There's no point, so far as I know, from which
the yard can be overlooked; and the back is on a narrow cutting
belonging to a disused mill."
    I paid little attention to his words. Disguised beyond all chance of
recognition even by one intimate with my appearance, I was all
impatience to set out. I had taken Smith's place in the night's
program; for, every possible source of information having been tapped
in vain, I now hoped against hope that some clue to the fate of my poor
friend might be obtained at the Chinese den which he had designed to
visit with Fletcher.
    The latter, who presented a strange picture in his make-up as a sort
of half-caste sailor, stared doubtfully at the Inspector; then—
    "The River Police cutter," he said, "can drop down on the tide and lie
off under the Surrey bank. There's a vacant wharf facing the end of
the street and we can slip through and show a light there, to let you
know we've arrived. You reply in the same way. If there's any
trouble, I shall blaze away with this"—he showed the butt of a
Service revolver protruding from his hip pocket—"and you can be
ashore in no time."
    The plan had one thing to commend it, viz., that no one could devise
another. Therefore it was adopted, and five minutes later a taxi-cab
swung out of the Yard containing Inspector Weymouth and two ruffianly
looking companions—myself and Fletcher.
    Any zest with which, at another time, I might have entered upon such
an expedition, was absent now. I bore with me a gnawing anxiety and
sorrow that precluded all conversation on my part, save monosyllabic
replies, to questions that I comprehended but vaguely.
    At the River Police Depot we found Inspector Ryman, an old acquaintance,
awaiting us. Weymouth had telephoned from Scotland Yard.
    "I've got a motor-boat at the breakwater," said Ryman, nodding to
Fletcher, and staring hard at me.
    Weymouth laughed shortly.
    "Evidently you don't recognize Dr. Petrie!" he said.
    "Eh!" cried Ryman—"Dr. Petrie! why, good heavens, Doctor, I should
never have known you in a month of Bank holidays! What's afoot,
then?"—and he turned to Weymouth, eyebrows raised interrogatively.
    "It's the Fu-Manchu business again, Ryman."
    "Fu-Manchu! But I thought the Fu-Manchu case was off the books long
ago? It was always a mystery to me; never a word in the papers; and
we as much in the dark as everybody else—but didn't I hear that the
Chinaman, Fu-Manchu, was dead?"
    Weymouth nodded.
    "Some of his friends seem to be very much alive, though" he