The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu Read Online Free PDF

as I've said, to go
to his rooms, and dress for the job."
    "Did he keep any record of his cases?"
    "Of course! He was most particular. Cadby was a man with
ambitions, sir! You'll want to see his book. Wait while I get his
address; it's somewhere in Brixton."
    He went to the telephone, and Inspector Ryman covered up the
dead man's face.
    Nayland Smith was palpably excited.
    "He almost succeeded where we have failed, Petrie," he said.
"There is no doubt in my mind that he was hot on the track of
Fu-Manchu! Poor Mason had probably blundered on the scent, too, and
he met with a similar fate. Without other evidence, the fact that
they both died in the same way as the dacoit would be conclusive,
for we know that Fu-Manchu killed the dacoit!"
    "What is the meaning of the mutilated hands, Smith?"
    "God knows! Cadby's death was from drowning, you say?"
    "There are no other marks of violence."
    "But he was a very strong swimmer, Doctor," interrupted
Inspector Ryman. "Why, he pulled off the quarter-mile championship
at the Crystal Palace last year! Cadby wasn't a man easy to drown.
And as for Mason, he was an R.N.R., and like a fish in the
water!"
    Smith shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
    "Let us hope that one day we shall know how they died," he said
simply.
    Weymouth returned from the telephone.
    "The address is No.-Cold Harbor Lane," he reported. "I shall not
be able to come along, but you can't miss it; it's close by the
Brixton Police Station. There's no family, fortunately; he was
quite alone in the world. His case-book isn't in the American desk,
which you'll find in his sitting-room; it's in the cupboard in the
corner-top shelf. Here are his keys, all intact. I think this is
the cupboard key."
    Smith nodded.
    "Come on, Petrie," he said. "We haven't a second to waste."
    Our cab was waiting, and in a few seconds we were speeding along
Wapping High Street. We had gone no more than a few hundred yards,
I think, when Smith suddenly slapped his open hand down on his
knee.
    "That pigtail!" he cried. "I have left it behind! We must have
it, Petrie! Stop! Stop!"
    The cab was pulled up, and Smith alighted.
    "Don't wait for me," he directed hurriedly. "Here, take
Weymouth's card. Remember where he said the book was? It's all we
want. Come straight on to Scotland Yard and meet me there."
    "But Smith," I protested, "a few minutes can make no
difference!"
    "Can't it!" he snapped. "Do you suppose Fu-Manchu is going to
leave evidence like that lying about? It's a thousand to one he has
it already, but there is just a bare chance."
    It was a new aspect of the situation and one that afforded no
room for comment; and so lost in thought did I become that the cab
was outside the house for which I was bound ere I realized that we
had quitted the purlieus of Wapping. Yet I had had leisure to
review the whole troop of events which had crowded my life since
the return of Nayland Smith from Burma. Mentally, I had looked
again upon the dead Sir Crichton Davey, and with Smith had waited
in the dark for the dreadful thing that had killed him. Now, with
those remorseless memories jostling in my mind, I was entering the
house of Fu-Manchu's last victim, and the shadow of that giant evil
seemed to be upon it like a palpable cloud.
    Cadby's old landlady greeted me with a queer mixture of fear and
embarrassment in her manner.
    "I am Dr. Petrie," I said, "and I regret that I bring bad news
respecting Mr. Cadby."
    "Oh, sir!" she cried. "Don't tell me that anything has happened
to him!" And divining something of the mission on which I was come,
for such sad duty often falls to the lot of the medical man: "Oh,
the poor, brave lad!"
    Indeed, I respected the dead man's memory more than ever from
that hour, since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite
pathetic, and spoke eloquently for the unhappy cause of it.
    "There was a terrible wailing at the back of the house last
night, Doctor, and I heard it again to-night, a second before you
knocked. Poor lad! It was the