Explore "The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu" by Sax Rohmer on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was with my mind in a condition of unique perplexity that I hurried with Nayland Smith into the cab which waited and dashed off through the streets in which the busy life of London just stirred into being. I suppose I need not say that I could penetrate no farther into this, Fu-Manchu's latest plot, than the drugging of Norris West with hashish? Of his having been so drugged with Indian hemp -- that is, converted temporarily into a maniac -- would have been evident to any medical man who had heard his statement and noted the distressing aftereffects which conclusively pointed to Indian hemp poisoning. Knowing something of the Chinese doctor's powers, I could understand that he might have extracted from West the secret of the combination by sheer force of will whilst the American was under the influence of the drug. But I could not understand how Fu-Manchu had gained access to locked chambers on the third story of a building.
"Smith," I said, "those bird tracks on the windowsill -- they furnish the key to a mystery which is puzzling me."