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I told him what was necessary, and no more, desiring him to go to suite 14a without delay and also without arousing unnecessary attention. "By the way," I said, "have you Oriental guests with you, at the moment?" "No, monsieur," he assured me. "Not a certain Oriental lady?" I persisted. M. Samarkan slowly shook his head. "Possibly monsieur has seen one of the ayahs?
"What did you do?" "I went into the cell and then sent for the head warder." "You realized at once that Samarkan was dead?" "At once, yes." "Were you surprised?" Nayland Smith subtly changed the tone of his voice in asking the last question, and it was evident that the veiled significance of the words was not lost upon Morrison. "Well, sir," he began, and cleared his throat nervously.
To-night, Samarkan advised the Chinese doctor, Smith would again be in the same dangerous neighborhood. A strange thrill of excitement swept through me. I glanced at my watch. Yes! It was time for me to repair, secretly, to my post. For I, too, had business on the borders of Chinatown to-night.
We hurried out into the corridor, and descended by the lift to the lobby. M. Samarkan, long famous as mâitre d'hôtel of one of Cairo's fashionable khans, and now principal of the New Louvre, greeted us with true Greek courtesy. He trusted that we should be present at some charitable function or other to be held at the hotel on the following evening.
Where, and when, had I met their glance before? To that problem I sought an answer in vain. The message despatched to New Scotland Yard, I found M. Samarkan, long famous as a mâitre d' hôtel in Cairo, and now host of London's newest and most palatial khan. Portly, and wearing a gray imperial, M. Samarkan had the manners of a courtier, and the smile of a true Greek.
From some place not far distant came the sound of a restarted engine. "The other," he added, "was this: to enable M. Samarkan to read the note which I had pinned upon the door!" "Here you are, Petrie," said Nayland Smith and he tossed across the table the folded copy of a morning paper. "This may assist you in your study of the first Zagazig message."
"But, my good sir," interrupted the Governor irascibly, "whilst I admit the possibility to which you allude, I do not admit that a dead man, and a heavy one at that, can be carried up a ladder of silk and bamboo! Yet, on the evidence of my own eyes, the body of the prisoner, Samarkan, was removed from the mortuary last night!"
Samarkan quickly scanned the message scribbled upon the white page; then, exhibiting an agility uncommon in a man of his bulk, he threw open the shutters again, having first replaced his lamp in his pocket, climbed out into the little front garden, reclosed the window, and disappeared!
The word "Zagazig" was completed, always, and did not necessarily terminate with the last letter occurring in the cryptographic message. A subsequent inspection of this curious code has enabled Nayland Smith, by a process of simple deduction, to compile the entire alphabet employed by Dr. Fu-Manchu's agent, Samarkan, in communicating with his awful superior.
His eyes were curiously dull, and their pupils interested me, professionally, from the very moment of his entrance. "You were in charge of the prisoner Samarkan?" began Smith harshly. "Yes, sir," Morrison replied. "Were you the first to learn of his death?" "I was, sir. I looked through the grille in the door and saw him lying on the floor of the cell." "What time was it?" "Half-past four A.M."
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