"Eltham!" he whispered--"_Eltham_! is Eltham here?"
"I left him ten minutes ago on the common."
Smith dashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand, and his
eyes gleamed almost wildly.
"My God, Petrie!" he said, "am I fated _always_ to come too late?"
My dreadful fears in that instant were confirmed. I seemed to feel my
legs totter beneath me.
"Smith, you don't mean--"
"I do, Petrie!" His voice sounded very far away. "Fu-Manchu is here;
and Eltham, God help him ... is his first victim!"
CHAPTER II
ELTHAM VANISHES
Smith went racing down the stairs like a man possessed. Heavy with
such a foreboding of calamity as I had not known for two years, I
followed him--along the hall and out into the road. The very peace and
beauty of the night in some way increased my mental agitation. The sky
was lighted almost tropically with such a blaze of stars as I could
not recall to have seen since, my futile search concluded, I had left
Egypt. The glory of the moonlight yellowed the lamps speckled across
the expanse of the common. The night was as still as night can ever be
in London. The dimming pulse of a cab or car alone disturbed the
quietude.
With a quick glance to right and left, Smith ran across on to the
common, and, leaving the door wide open behind me, I followed. The
path which Eltham had pursued terminated almost opposite to my house.
One's gaze might follow it, white and empty, for several hundred yards
past the pond, and farther, until it became overshadowed and was lost
amid a clump of trees.
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