This time I asked no question, but leapt across the room and threw the
door open. Nayland Smith stood before me, muffled up in a heavy
traveling coat, and with his hat pulled down over his brows.

"At last!" I cried, as my friend stepped in and quickly reclosed the
door.

Smith threw his hat upon the settee, stripped off the great-coat, and
pulling out his pipe began to load it in feverish haste.

"Well," I said, standing amid the litter cast out from the trunk, and
watching him eagerly, "what's afoot?"

Nayland Smith lighted his pipe, carelessly dropping the match-end upon
the floor at his feet.

"God knows what _is_ afoot this time, Petrie!" he replied. "You and I
have lived no commonplace lives; Dr. Fu-Manchu has seen to that; but
if I am to believe what the Chief has told me to-day, even stranger
things are ahead of us!"

I stared at him wonder-stricken.

"That is almost incredible," I said; "terror can have no darker
meaning than that which Dr. Fu-Manchu gave to it. Fu-Manchu is dead,
so what have we to fear?"

"We have to fear," replied Smith, throwing himself into a corner of
the settee, "the Si-Fan!"