"How do you know?"

"Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday and
looked up the man's record."

"Whatever for?"

"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--"

"You don't mean--"

"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