"I've got a motor-boat at the breakwater," said Ryman, nodding to
Fletcher, and staring hard at me.
Weymouth laughed shortly.
"Evidently you don't recognize Dr. Petrie!" he said.
"Eh!" cried Ryman—"Dr. Petrie! why, good heavens, Doctor, I should never have known you in a month of Bank holidays! What's afoot, then?"—and he turned to Weymouth, eyebrows raised interrogatively.
"It's the Fu-Manchu business again, Ryman."
"Fu-Manchu! But I thought the Fu-Manchu case was off the books long ago? It was always a mystery to me; never a word in the papers; and we as much in the dark as everybody else—but didn't I hear that the Chinaman, Fu-Manchu, was dead?"
Weymouth nodded.
"Some of his friends seem to be very much alive, though" he said. "It appears that Fu-Manchu, for all his genius—and there's no denying he was a genius, Ryman—was only the agent of somebody altogether bigger."
Ryman whistled softly.
"Has the real head of affairs arrived, then?"