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The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu | Sax Rohmer | |
The Coughing Horror |
Page 5 of 5 |
Nayland Smith was watching me curiously as I bent over the little brass ash-tray. "You are puzzled," he rapped in his short way. So am I--utterly puzzled. Fu-Manchu's gallery of monstrosities clearly has become reinforced; for even if we identified the type, we should not be in sight of our explanation." "You mean," I began . . . "Fully four feet from the window, Petrie, and that window but a few inches open! Look"--he bent forward, resting his chest against the table, and stretched out his hand toward me. "You have a rule there; just measure." Setting down the ash-tray, I opened out the rule and measured the distance from the further edge of the table to the tips of Smith's fingers. "Twenty-eight inches--and I have a long reach!" snapped Smith, withdrawing his arm and striking a match to relight his pipe." There's one thing, Petrie, often proposed before, which now we must do without delay. The ivy must be stripped from the walls at the back. It's a pity, but we can not afford to sacrifice our lives to our sense of the aesthetic. What do you make of the sound like the cracking of a whip?" "I make nothing of it, Smith," I replied, wearily. "It might have been a thick branch of ivy breaking beneath the weight of a climber." "Did it sound like it?" "I must confess that the explanation does not convince me, but I have no better one." Smith, permitting his pipe to go out, sat staring straight before him, and tugging at the lobe of his left ear. |
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The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu Sax Rohmer |
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