But Smith did not wait to learn whom he might be.
"Quick!" he cried to the stupefied chauffeur. "You passed a car a minute ago—yonder. Can you overtake it?"
"I can try, sir, if I don't lose her track."
Smith leapt in, pulling me after him.
"Do it!" he snapped. "There are no speed limits for me. Thanks! Good night, sir!"
We were off! The car swung around and the chase commenced.
One last glimpse I had of the man we had dispossessed, standing alone by the roadside, and at ever-increasing speed, we leapt away in the track of Eltham's captors.
Smith was too highly excited for ordinary conversation, but he threw out short, staccato remarks.
"I have followed Fu-Manchu from Hong-Kong," he jerked. "Lost him at Suez. He got here a boat ahead of me. Eltham has been corresponding with some mandarin up-country. Knew that. Came straight to you. Only got in this evening. He—Fu-Manchu—has been sent here to get Eltham. My God! and he has him! He will question him! The interior of China—a seething pot, Petrie! They had to stop the leakage of information. He is here for that."
The car pulled up with a jerk that pitched me out of my seat, and the chauffeur leapt to the road and ran ahead. Smith was out in a trice, as the man, who had run up to a constable, came racing back.