The Shadow of Fu-Manchu Read Online Free PDF

her. “And there’s rather a long one, bit of a teaser, on this thing.” He pointed to the dictaphone. “Mind removing same and listening in to my rambling rot?”
    Camille stooped and took the cylinder off the machine. “Your dictation is very clear, Dr. Craig.”
    She spoke with a faint accent; more of intonation than pronunciation. It was a low-pitched, caressing voice. Craig never tired of it.
    “Sweet words of flattery. I sound to myself like a half-strangled parrot. The way you construe is simply wizard.”
    Camille smiled. She had beautifully moulded, rather scornful lips.
    “Thank you. But it isn’t difficult.”
    She put the cylinder in its box and turned to go.
    “By the way, you have an invitation from the boss. He bids you to Falling Waters for the week-end.”
    Camille paused, but didn’t turn. If Craig could have seen her face, its expression might have puzzled him.
    “Really?” she said. “That
is
sweet of Mr. Frobisher.”
    “Can you come? I’m going, too, so I’ll drive you out.”
    “That would be very kind of you. Yes, I should love to come.”
    She turned, now, and her smile was radiant.
    “Splendid. We’ll hit the trail early. No office on Saturday.”
    There was happiness in Craig’s tone, and in his glance. Camille drooped her eyes and moved away.
    “Er—” he added, “is the typewriter in commission again?”
    “Yes,” Camille’s lip twitched. “I managed to get it right.”
    “With a bit of string?”
    “No.” She laughed softly. “With a hairpin!”
    As she went out, Craig returned to his drawing board. But he found it hard to concentrate. He kept thinking about that funny little moue peculiar to Camille, part of her. Whenever she was going to smile, one corner of her upper lip seemed to curl slightly like a rose petal. And he wondered if her eyes were really so beautiful, or if the lenses magnified them.
    The office door burst open, and Nayland Smith came in again like a hot wind from the desert. He had discarded the rainproof in which he had first appeared, and now carried a fur-collared coat.
    “Missed him, Craig,” he rapped. “Slipped through my fingers—the swine!”
    Craig turned half around, resting one shirt-sleeved elbow on a corner of the board.
    “Of course,” he said, “if you’re training for the Olympic Games, or what-have-you, let me draw your attention to the wide-open spaces of Central Park. I
work
here—or try to.”
    He was silenced by the look in Nayland Smith’s eyes. He stood up.
    “Smith!—what is it?”
    “Murder!” Nayland Smith rapped out the word like a rifle shot. “I have just sent a man to his death, Craig!”
    “What on earth do you mean?”
    “No more than I say.”
    It came to Morris Craig as a revelation that something had happened to crush, if only temporarily, the indomitable spirit he knew so well. He walked over and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
    “I’m sorry, Smith. Forgive my silly levity. What’s happened?”
    Nayland Smith’s face looked haggard, worn, as he returned Craig’s earnest stare.
    “I have been shadowed, Craig, ever since I reached New York. I left police headquarters a while ago, wearing a borrowed hat and topcoat. A man slightly resembling me had orders to come to the Huston Building in the car I have been using all day, wearing my own hat, and my own topcoat.”
    “Well?”
    “He obeyed his orders. The driver, who is above suspicion, noticed nothing whatever unusual on the way. There was no evidence to suggest that they were being followed. I had assumed that they would be—and had laid my plans accordingly. I went down to see the tracker fall into my trap—”
    “Go on, Smith! For God’s sake, what happened?”
    “This!”
    Nayland Smith carefully removed a small, pointed object from its wrappings and laid it on the desk. Craig was about to pick it up, when:
    “Don’t touch it!” came sharply. “That is, except by the feathered end. Primitive, Craig, but deadly—and