TIME wore on and seemingly brought us no nearer, or very little nearer, to our goal. So
carefully had my friend Nayland Smith excluded the matter from the press that, whilst
public interest was much engaged with some of the events in the skein of mystery which
he had come from Burma to unravel, outside the Secret Service and the special
department of Scotland Yard few people recognized that the several murders, robberies
and disappearances formed each a link in a chain; fewer still were aware that a baneful
presence was in our midst, that a past master of the evil arts lay concealed somewhere in
the metropolis; searched for by the keenest wits which the authorities could direct to the
task, but eluding all-triumphant, contemptuous.
One link in that chain Smith himself for long failed to recognize. Yet it was a big and
important link.
"Petrie," he said to me one morning, "listen to this:
"`. . .In sight of Shanghai--a clear, dark night. On board the deck of a junk passing close
to seaward of the Andaman a blue flare started up. A minute later there was a cry of
"Man overboard!"
"`Mr. Lewin, the chief officer, who was in charge, stopped the engines. A boat was put
out. But no one was recovered. There are sharks in these waters. A fairly heavy sea was
running.
"`Inquiry showed the missing man to be a James Edwards, second class, booked to
Shanghai. I think the name was assumed. The man was some sort of Oriental, and we had
had him under close observation. . . .'"
"That's the end of their report," exclaimed Smith.
He referred to the two C.I.D. men who had joined the Andaman at the moment of her
departure from Tilbury.
He carefully lighted his pipe.
"IS it a victory for China, Petrie?" he said softly.
"Until the great war reveals her secret resources--and I pray that the day be not in my
time--we shall never know," I replied.
Smith began striding up and down the room,
"Whose name," he jerked abruptly, "stands now at the head of our danger list?"
