"That confirms my impression that Fu-Manchu was imposing upon the others!" he snapped. "I cannot conceive of a woman recluse from some Lamaserie, surrounded by silent attendants and trained for her exalted destiny in the way that the legendary veiled woman of Tibet is said to be trained, traveling alone in an English railway carriage! Did you observe, Petrie, if her eyes were _oblique_ at all?" "They did not strike me as being oblique. Why do you ask?" "Because I strongly suspect that we have to do with none other than Fu-Manchu's daughter! But go on." "By heavens, Smith! You may be right! I had no idea that a Chinese woman could possess such features." "She may not have a Chinese mother; furthermore, there are pretty women in China as well as in other countries; also, there are hair dyes and cosmetics. But for Heaven's sake go on!" I continued my all but incredible narrative; came to the point where I discovered the straying marmoset and entered the empty house, without provoking any comment from my listener. He stared at me with something very like surprised admiration when I related how I had become an unseen spectator of that singular meeting. "And I though I had achieved the triumph of my life in gaining admission and smuggling Weymouth and Carter into the roof, armed with hooks and rope-ladders!" he murmured. Now I came to the moment when, having withdrawn into the empty house, I had heard the police whistle and had heard Smith's voice; I came to the moment when I had found myself face to face with Dr. Fu-Manchu. Nayland Smith's eyes were on fire now; he literally quivered with excitement, when-- "_Ssh!_ what's that?" he whispered, and grasped my arm. "I heard something move in the sitting-room, Petrie!" "It was a coal dropping from the grate, perhaps," I said--and rapidly continued my story, telling how, with my pistol to his head, I had forced the Chinese doctor to descend into the hallway of the empty house. "Yes, yes," snapped Smith. "For God's sake go on, man! What have you done with him? Where is he?" I clearly detected a movement myself immediately behind the half-open door of the sitting-room. Smith started and stared intently across my shoulder at the doorway; then his gaze shifted and became fixed upon my face. "He bought his life from me, Smith." Never can I forget the change that came over my friend's tanned features at those words; never can I forget the pang that I suffered to see it. The fire died out of his eyes and he seemed to grow old and weary in a moment. None too steadily I went on:--