..." I began.
"I know that," rapped Smith. "I shouldn't have been sleeping in it,
had it been within reach of the window; but, knowing that the Doctor
avoids noisy methods, I had thought myself fairly safe so long as I
made it impossible for any one actually to enter the room...."
"I have always insisted, Smith," I cried, "that there was danger! What
of poisoned darts? What of the damnable reptiles and insects which
form part of the armoury of Fu-Manchu?"
"Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose," he replied. "But as it
happened, none of those agents was employed. The very menace that I
sought to avoid reached me somehow. It would almost seem that Dr.
Fu-Manchu deliberately accepted the challenge of those screwed up
windows! Hang it all, Petrie! one cannot sleep in a room hermetically
sealed in weather like this! It's positively Burmese; and although I
can stand tropical heat, curiously enough the heat of London gets me
down almost immediately."
"The humidity; that's easily understood. But you'll have to put up
with it in the future. After nightfall our windows must be closed
entirely, Smith."
Nayland Smith knocked out his pipe upon the side of the fireplace. The
bowl sizzled furiously, but without delay he stuffed broad-cut mixture
into the hot pipe, dropping a liberal quantity upon the carpet during
the process. He raised his eyes to me, and his face was very grim.
"Petrie," he said, striking a match on the heel of his slipper, "the
resources of Dr.
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