"Will Mr. Nayland Smith please come to the Wapping River Police Station at once," was the message. Peaceful interludes were few enough throughout that wild pursuit. "It is certainly something important," said my friend; "and, if Fu-Manchu is at the bottom of it--as we must presume him to be--probably something ghastly." A brief survey of the time-tables showed us that there were no trains to serve our haste. We accordingly chartered a cab and proceeded east. Smith, throughout the journey, talked entertainingly about his work in Burma. Of intent, I think, he avoided any reference to the circumstances which first had brought him in contact with the sinister genius of the Yellow Movement. His talk was rather of the sunshine of the East than of its shadows. But the drive concluded--and all too soon. In a silence which neither of us seemed disposed to break, we entered the police depot, and followed an officer who received us into the room where Weymouth waited. The inspector greeted us briefly, nodding toward the table. "Poor Cadby, the most promising lad at the Yard," he said; and his usually gruff voice had softened strangely. Smith struck his right fist into the palm of his left hand and swore under his breath, striding up and down the neat little room. No one spoke for a moment, and in the silence I could hear the whispering of the Thames outside--of the Thames which had so many strange secrets to tell, and now was burdened with another. The body lay prone upon the deal table--this latest of the river's dead--dressed in rough sailor garb, and, to all outward seeming, a seaman of nondescript nationality--such as is no stranger in Wapping and Shadwell. His dark, curly hair clung clammily about the brown forehead; his skin was stained, they told me. He wore a gold ring in one ear, and three fingers of the left hand were missing. "It was almost the same with Mason." The river police inspector was speaking. "A week ago, on a Wednesday, he went off in his own time on some funny business down St. George's way--and Thursday night the ten-o'clock boat got the grapnel on him off Hanover Hole. His first two fingers on the right hand were clean gone, and his left hand was mutilated frightfully." He paused and glanced at Smith. "That lascar, too," he continued, "that you came down to see, sir; you remember his hands?" Smith nodded. "He was not a lascar," he said shortly. "He was a dacoit." Silence fell again. I turned to the array of objects lying on the table--those which had been found in Cadby's clothing. None of them were noteworthy, except that which had been found thrust into the loose neck of his shirt. This last it was which had led the police to send for Nayland Smith, for it constituted the first clew which had come to light pointing to the authors of these mysterious tragedies.