CHAPTER VII. ENTER MR. ABEL SLATTIN
"I don't blame you!" rapped Nayland Smith. "Suppose we say, then, athousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of Fu-Manchu,the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit by yourinformation or not?"
Abel Slattin shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to thearmchair which he had just quitted. He reseated himself, placing his hatand cane upon my writing-table.
"A little agreement in black and white?" he suggested smoothly.
Smith raised himself up out of the white cane chair, and, bendingforward over a corner of the table, scribbled busily upon a sheet ofnotepaper with my fountain-pen.
The while he did so, I covertly studied our visitor. He lay back inthe armchair, his heavy eyelids lowered deceptively. He was a thoughtoverdressed--a big man, dark-haired and well groomed, who toyed with amonocle most unsuitable to his type. During the preceding conversation,I had been vaguely surprised to note Mr. Abel Slattin's marked Americanaccent.
Sometimes, when Slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon thethird finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. There was a sortof bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable even in his handsbut proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy face and especiallyunder the eyes. I diagnosed a laboring valve somewhere in the heartsystem.
Nayland Smith's pen scratched on. My glance strayed from our Semiticcaller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me. It was of mostunusual workmanship, apparently Indian, being made of some kind of darkbrown, mottled wood, bearing a marked resemblance to a snake's skin; andthe top of the cane was carved in conformity, to represent the headof what I took to be a puff-adder, fragments of stone, or beads, beinginserted to represent the eyes, and the whole thing being finished withan artistic realism almost startling.
When Smith had tossed the written page to Slattin, and he, having readit with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it neatly and placedit in his pocket, I said:
"You have a curio here?"
Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction which, by hismanner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the cane in his hand.
"It comes from Australia, Doctor," he replied; "it's aboriginal work,and was given to me by a client. You thought it was Indian? Everybodydoes. It's my mascot."
"Really?"
"It is indeed. Its former owner ascribed magical powers to it! Infact, I believe he thought that it was one of those staffs mentioned inbiblical history--"
"Aaron's rod?" suggested Smith, glancing at the cane.
"Something of the sort," said Slattin, standing up and again preparingto depart.
"You will 'phone us, then?" asked my friend.
"You will hear from me to-morrow," was the reply.
Smith returned to the cane armchair, and Slattin, bowing to both of us,made his way to the door as I rang for the girl to show him out.
"Considering the importance of his proposal," I began, as the doorclosed, "you hardly received our visitor with cordiality."
"I hate to have any relations with him," answered my friend; "but wemust not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing with Dr.Fu-Manchu. Slattin has a rotten reputation--even for a private inquiryagent. He is little better than a blackmailer--"
"How do you know?"
"Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday andlooked up the man's record."
"Whatever for?"
"I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the case.Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication with theChinese group; I am only wondering--"
"You don't mean--"
"Yes--I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop evento that."
No doubt, Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese commissionerwas vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the mighty Chinamanwho represented things unutterable, whose potentialities for evil wereboundless as his genius, who personified a secret danger, the extentand nature of which none of us truly understood. And, learning of thesethings, with unerring Semitic instinct he had sought an opening in thisglittering Rialto. But there were two bidders!
"You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature ofFu-Manchu?" I asked, aghast.
"Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve thatmaster as readily as any other. His record is about as black as itwell could be. Slattin is of course an assumed name; he was known asLieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police, and he waskicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavory Chinatown case."
"Chinatown!"
"Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget that he isundeniably a clever scoundrel."
"Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?"
"Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait until tomorrow."
"What!"
"I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin,to-night."
"At his office?"
"No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his objectis to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his favorableprogress to his employer to-night!"
"Then we should have followed him!"
Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old shooting-jacket.
"He has been followed, Petrie," he replied, with one of his rare smiles."Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all night!"
This was entirely characteristic of my friend's farseeing methods.
"By the way," I said, "you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon beconvalescent. Where, in heaven's name, can he--"
"Don't be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie," interrupted Smith. "His lifeis no longer in danger."
I stared, stupidly.
"No longer in danger!"
"He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese, uponChinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope, having atypewritten address and bearing a London postmark."
"Well?"
"As nearly as I can render the message in English, it reads: 'Although,because you are a brave man, you would not betray your correspondent inChina, he has been discovered. He was a mandarin, and as I cannot writethe name of a traitor, I may not name him. He was executed four daysago. I salute you and pray for your speedy recovery. Fu-Manchu.'"
"Fu-Manchu! But it is almost certainly a trap."
"On the contrary, Petrie--Fu-Manchu would not have written in Chineseunless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, I received a cable thismorning reporting that the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat was assassinated in hisown garden, in Nan-Yang, one day last week."