Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction which, by his manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the cane in his hand.
“It comes from Australia, Doctor,” he replied; “it’s aboriginal work, and was given to me by a client. You thought it was Indian? Everybody does. It’s my mascot.”
“It is indeed. Its former owner ascribed magical powers to it! In fact, I believe he thought that it was one of those staffs mentioned in biblical history--”
“Aaron’s rod?” suggested Smith, glancing at the cane.
“Something of the sort,” said Slattin, standing up and again preparing to depart.
“You will ‘phone us, then?” asked my friend.
“You will hear from me to-morrow,” was the reply.
Smith returned to the cane armchair, and Slattin, bowing to both of us, made his way to the door as I rang for the girl to show him out.
“Considering the importance of his proposal,” I began, as the door closed, “you hardly received our visitor with cordiality.”
“I hate to have any relations with him,” answered my friend; “but we must not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing with Dr. Fu-Manchu. Slattin has a rotten reputation--even for a private inquiry agent. He is little better than a blackmailer--”
“Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday and looked up the man’s record.”
“I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the case. Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication with the Chinese group; I am only wondering--”
“Yes--I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop even to that.”
No doubt, Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese commissioner was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the mighty Chinaman who represented things unutterable, whose potentialities for evil were boundless as his genius, who personified a secret danger, the extent and nature of which none of us truly understood. And, learning of these things, with unerring Semitic instinct he had sought an opening in this glittering Rialto. But there were two bidders!
“You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of Fu-Manchu?” I asked, aghast.
“Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve that master as readily as any other. His record is about as black as it well could be. Slattin is of course an assumed name; he was known as Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police, and he was kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavory Chinatown case.”