Together we stooped and rolled the heavy body on its back. A flood of whispers came sibilantly from the stairway. Smith spun around rapidly, and glared upon the group of half-dressed servants.
“Return to your rooms!” he rapped, imperiously; “let no one come into the hall without my orders.”
The masterful voice had its usual result; there was a hurried retreat to the upper landing. Burke, shaking like a man with an ague, sat on the lower step, pathetically drumming his palms upon his uplifted knees.
“I warned him, I warned him!” he mumbled monotonously, “I warned him, oh, I warned him!”
“Stand up!” shouted Smith--“stand up and come here!”
The man, with his frightened eyes turning to right and left, and seeming to search for something in the shadows about him, advanced obediently.
“Have you a flask?” demanded Smith of Carter.
The detective silently administered to Burke a stiff restorative.
“Now,” continued Smith, “you, Petrie, will want to examine him, I suppose?” He pointed to the body. “And in the meantime I have some questions to put to you, my man.”
He clapped his hand upon Burke’s shoulder.
“My God!” Burke broke out, “I was ten yards from him when it happened!”
“No one is accusing you,” said Smith, less harshly; “but since you were the only witness, it is by your aid that we hope to clear the matter up.”
Exerting a gigantic effort to regain control of himself, Burke nodded, watching my friend with a childlike eagerness. During the ensuing conversation, I examined Slattin for marks of violence; and of what I found, more anon.
“In the first place,” said Smith, “you say that you warned him. When did you warn him and of what?”
“I warned him, sir, that it would come to this--”
“He accidentally met a Chinaman at an East End gaming-house, a man he had known in Frisco--a man called Singapore Charlie--”
“Yes, sir, the same man that had a dope-shop, two years ago, down Ratcliffe way--”
“He is one of what we used to call in New York, the Seven Group.”
Smith began to tug at the lobe of his left ear, reflectively, as I saw out of the corner of my eye.
“The Seven Group!” he mused. “That is significant. I always suspected that Dr. Fu-Manchu and the notorious Seven Group were one and the same. Go on, Burke.”