Smith looked up with some faint dawning of interest perceptible in his manner.
“I was unaware,” he said with a slight smile, “that the cleaning-up of haunted houses came within the jurisdiction of Scotland Yard. I am learning something.”
“In the ordinary way,” replied the big man good-humoredly, “it doesn’t. But a sudden death always excites suspicion, and—”
“A sudden death?” I said, glancing up; “you didn’t explain that the ghost had killed any one!”
“I’m afraid I’m a poor hand at yarn-spinning, Doctor,” said Weymouth, turning his blue, twinkling eyes in my direction. “Two people have died at the Gables within the last six months.”
“You begin to interest me,” declared Smith, and there came something of the old, eager look into his gaunt face, as, having lighted his pipe, he tossed the match-end into the hearth.
“I had hoped for some little excitement, myself,” confessed the inspector. “This dead-end, with not a ghost of a clue to the whereabouts of the yellow fiend, has been getting on my nerves—”
Nayland Smith grunted sympathetically.
“Although Dr. Fu-Manchu has been in England for some months, now,” continued Weymouth, “I have never set eyes upon him; the house we raided in Museum Street proved to be empty; in a word, I am wasting my time. So that I volunteered to run up to Hampstead and look into the matter of the Gables, principally as a distraction. It’s a queer business, but more in the Psychical Research Society’s line than mine, I’m afraid. Still, if there were no Dr. Fu-Manchu it might be of interest to you—and to you, Dr. Petrie, because it illustrates the fact, that, given the right sort of subject, death can be brought about without any elaborate mechanism—such as our Chinese friends employ.”
“You interest me more and more,” declared Smith, stretching himself in the long, white cane rest-chair.