When Dr. Petrie saw a bullet enter the skull of the fiendish mastermind Fu-Manchu, he assumed England had nothing more to fear from the evil genius. But Nayland Smith knows that whatever became of the devil doctor, the sinister organization he served will go on trying to conquer the world. From beyond the grave, Fu-Manchu reaches out to destroy the world. Sir Gregory Hale, attaché to the British Embassy in Peking, has returned from a six-month expedition to the Gobi Desert and has sequestered himself in a London hotel refusing to see anyone but Smith. Ten minutes before the Burmese commissioner reaches him, Hale is struck by a deadly poison. His final act is to scratch out a warning...."Guard my diary. . . . Tibetan frontier . . . Key of India. Beware man . . . with the limp."