poured poison into them. I strove desperately, by close attention to my professional duties, to banish the very memory of Karamanèh fro

thoroughly ashamed of myself. Needless to say, Smith had made such other arrangements as were necessary to safeguard the injured man, and these proved so successful th

nd it was one night, long after the clocks had struck the mystic hour, "when churchyards yawn," tha

, Dr. Petri

nducted my late visitor to the door, I closed and b

ogizing for troubling me at so late an hour, but explaining that he had only just come from the docks. The hall clock announced the hour of one as I ascended the stairs. I found myself wondering wh

!" I c

watch!" was the

out across the common. Even as I saw him, a dim silhouette, I could

ined

t?" I aske

. Watch that

ted for the absence of the moon, and the night had a quality of stillness that made for awe. This was a tropical summer, and the common, with its dan

s beauty, for it only served to remind me that somewhere amid London's millions was lurking

r patient?"

a new channel. No footstep disturbed the si

he window. Smit

ean out,

glancing at h

en's sake

esently, Petrie.

is doing. He seems to have remained s

snapped Smith. "

prised? I can say it with truth. But I shall add that I was thrilled, eerily; fo

Man

hemselves up in my mind. Why was Forsyth standing there at the gate? I had never seen him before, to my knowledge, yet there was something oddly reminiscent about the man. C

's grip tight

, Petrie!" he whis

ground, grew a vaporous blue light. It flared up, elfinish, then began to ascend. Like an igneous phantom, a witch flame, it rose, higher,

ake, Smith,

etrie. I have se

mith's shoulder I saw Forsyth cross the road, cl

impetuously

en, clapping a hand to my mouth as I was

nd went blundering downs

he garden-the

ollowed him out, closing it behind me. The smell from some tobacco plants in a neighbouring flower-bed was faintly perce

stepped out, close on his h

ards up, where there is a pathway, as though homeward bound to the north side. Give me half a minute's start, then you proceed in an opposite dir

stol into my h

is eyes gleaming like steel, I had been at one with him in his feverish mood, but now, when I stood alone in

pe and America under Chinese rule, not of Nayland Smith, who alone stood between the Chinaman and the realization of his monstrous schemes, not even of Karamanèh,

the elms I found myself wondering what it was all about, and for what we were come. Fifty yards west of the trees it occurred to m

hthawk. I could not recall ever to have heard the cry of that bird on the common before, but oddly enough I attached little significance to it un

of anything until I found myself

athlessly. "Smith! m

the shadows staggered a ghastly figure-that of a man whose face appeared to be streaked. His ey

gue. The figure reeled, and the man fe

again became perfect. Then, from somewhere beyond the elms, Nayland Smith appeare

, Petrie," I heard dimly. "G

ds arou

as a whisper-"for one

ed. "Our poor sailor has met th

ome puzzling way, and I knew why Forsyth now lay dead upon the grass. Save that he was a fair