by Sax Rohmer
“Yes,” he said, listened for a moment, and then: “Put him through to me here.”
He glanced at Nayland Smith.
“The constable on duty outside Professor Ambroso’s house,” he reported, a note of excitement discernible in his voice.
Some more moments of silence followed during which all watched the man at the desk. Smith smoked furiously. Sterling, haggard under his tan, glanced from face to face almost feverishly. Chief Detective-inspector Gallaho removed his bowler, which fitted very tightly, and replaced it at a slightly different angle. Then:
“Hello, yes—officer in charge speaking. What’s that?... ” The vague percussion of a distant voice manifested itself. “You say you are in the house? Hold on a moment.”
The inspector looked up, his eyes alight with excitement.
“The officer on duty heard a cry for help,” he explained; “found his way through the fog to the house; the door was open, and he is now in the lobby. The house is deserted, he reports.”
“We are too late!” It was Nayland Smith’s voice. “He has tricked me again! Tell your man to stand by, Inspector. Gather up all the men available and pack them into the second car. Come on, Gallaho. Sterling, you join us!”
CHAPTER FOUR
PIETRO AMBROSO’S STUDIO
Even the powerful searchlights attached to the Flying Squad car failed to penetrate that phenomenal fog for more than a few yards. Progress was slow. To any vehicle not so equipped it would have been impossible. A constable familiar with the districts walked ahead, carrying a red lantern. A powerful beam from the leading car was directed upon this lantern, and so the journey went on.
P.C. Ireland in the lobby of Professor Ambroso’s house learned the lesson that silence and solitude can be more terrifying than the wildest riot. His instructions had been to close the door but to remain in the lobby. This he had done.
When he found himself alone in that house of mystery, the strangest promptings assailed his brain. He was not an imaginative man, but sheer common sense told him that something uncommonly horrible had taken place in the house of Professor Ambroso that night.
The fire was burning low in the grate. There were some wooden logs in an iron basket, and Ireland tossed two on the embers without quite knowing why he took the liberty. Red tape bound him. Furtively he watched the stairs which disappeared in shadows, above. He was a man of action; his instinct prompted him to explore this silent house. He had no authority to do so. His mere presence in the lobby—since he could not swear that the cry actually had come from the house—was a transgression. But in this, at least, he was covered; the divisional inspector had told him to stay there. How did they hope to reach him, he argued. They would probably get lost on the way.
Now that the fog was shut out, he began to miss it. The silence which seemed to speak and in which there were strange shapes, had been awful, out there, on the verge of the Common, but the silence of this lighted lobby was even more oppressive.
Always he watched the stair.
Mystery brooded on the dim landing, but no sound broke the stillness. He began to study his immediate surroundings. There were some very strange statuettes in the lobby—queer busts, and oddly distorted figures. The paintings, too, were of a sort to which he was unused. The entire appointments of the place came within the category which P.C. Ireland mentally condemned under the heading of “Chelsea.”
One of the logs which he had placed upon the fire, and which had just begun to ignite, fell into the hearth. He started, as though a shot had been fired.
“Damn!” he muttered, “this place is properly getting on my nerves.”
He rescued the log and tossed it back into place. A cigarette was indicated. He could get rid of it very quickly, if the inspector turned up in person, which he doubted. He discarded his oilskin cape, and produced a little yellow packet, selecting and lighting a cigarette almost lovingly. There was company in a cigarette when a man felt lonely and queer. Always, he watched the stair.
He had finished his cigarette and reluctantly tossed the stub into the fire which now was burning merrily, when the sharp note of a bell brought him to his feet at a bound. It was the door-bell. P.C. Ireland ran forward and threw the door open.
A man in a leather overcoat, a gray-haired man, with piercing steely-blue eyes, stood staring at him.
“Constable Ireland?” he rapped.
There was unmistakable authority about the new arrival, and:
“Yes, sir,” Ireland replied.
Nayland Smith walked into the lobby, followed by Inspector Gallaho, a figure familiar to every officer in the force. There was a third man, a young, very haggard looking man. But Ireland barely noticed him. The presence of Gallaho told him that in some way which might prove to be profitable to himself, he had become involved in a case of major importance. Fog swept into the lobby. He stood to attention, recognizing several familiar faces, of brother constables, peering in out of the darkness.
“You heard a cry for help?” Nayland Smith went on. His mode of speech reminded the constable of a distant machine gun. “You were then at the gate, I take it?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?” growled Gallaho.
“There was someone moving about in the fog, sir. When I challenged him, he didn’t answer—he just disappeared. At last, I got a glimpse of him, or it, or whatever it was.”
“What do you mean by ‘it’?” Gallaho demanded. “If you saw something—you can describe it.”
“Well, sir, it might have been a man crouching down on his hands and knees—you know what the fog is like—”
“You mean,” said Nayland Smith, “that you endeavored to capture this thing—or person—who declined to answer your challenge?”
“Thank you, sir; yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Did you touch him or it?” Gallaho demanded.
“No, sir. But I lost my bearings trying to grab him. I found myself nearly on the other side of the road by the Common, when I heard the cry.”
“Describe this cry,” snapped Nayland Smith.
“It was a woman’s voice, sir; very dim through the fog. And the words were ‘Help! For God’s sake help me!’ I thought it came from this house. I groped my way back, and when I reached the door, found it open. I’ve been here in the lobby, ever since.”
“You say it was a woman’s voice,” Sterling broke in. “Did it sound like a young woman or an old woman?”
“Judging from what I could make out through the fog, sir, I should say, a young woman.”
Sterling clutched his hair distractedly. He felt that madness was not far off.
Gallaho turned to Sir Denis.
“It’s up to you, sir. Do you want the house searched? According to regulations, we are not entitled to do it.”
His tone was ironical.
“Search it from cellar to attic,” snapped Nayland Smith. “Post a man at each end of the drive and split the others up.”
“Good enough, sir.” Gallaho returned to the open doorway. “How many of you have got lanterns—torches are no good in this blasted fog.”
“Two,” came a muffled voice, “and Ireland has a third.”
“The two men with lanterns are to stand at the ends of the drive. Anybody coming out—get him. Jump to it. The rest of you, come in.”
Four constables came crowding into the lobby.
“Isn’t there a garage?” snapped Nayland Smith.
“Yes, sir,” Ireland replied. “It opens on to the left side of the drive-in. But nothing has gone out of it tonight.”
“Have you any idea where the studio is?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been on day duty here. It’s behind the garage—but probably, there’s a way through from the house.”
“Join me, Sterling,” said Nayland Smith. “Gallaho, allot a man to each of the four floors. Close the door again, and post a man in charge here, in the lobby.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Come with me, Irel
and. You say the studio lies in this direction?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come on, Sterling.”
They crossed the lobby, approaching a door on the left of the ascending staircase. Chief Detective-inspector Gallaho was readjusting his bowler. Police constables were noisily clattering upstairs, their torches flashing as they ran. The door proved to open on to a narrow corridor.
“Find the switch,” snapped Nayland Smith.
Ireland found it. And in the new illumination, queer paintings assailed their senses from the walls. There was a door at the further end of the passage. They opened it and found themselves in some dark, lofty place.
“There’s a switch, somewhere,” Nayland Smith muttered.
“I’ve found it, sir.”
The studio of Pietro Ambroso became illuminated.
To one not familiar with the Modern Art movement it must have resembled a nightmare. Those familiar with the phases of the celebrated sculptor could have explained that his mode of expression, which, for a time—indeed, for many years—had conformed to the school with which the name of Epstein is associated, had, latterly, swung back to the early Greek tradition—the photographic simplicity of Praxiteles. All sorts of figures and groups surrounded the investigators. That deplorable untidiness which seems to be inseparable from genius characterized the studio.
There were one or two earlier examples of ceramic experiments— strange figures in porcelain resembling primitive goddesses. But Nayland Smith’s entire attention was focussed upon a long, narrow box, very stoutly built, which lay upon the floor. In form, it bore an unpleasant resemblance to a coffin. Its lid was propped against the wall near by, and a sheet of plate glass, obviously designed to fit inside the crate, lay upon the floor. Quantities of cotton wool were scattered about. Nayland Smith bent and peered at the receptacle.
“This is the thing described by Preston,” he said. “Look—” He pointed. “There are the rests which he mentioned—not unlike those used in ancient Egypt for the repose of the mummy.”
He stared all around the studio.
“I know what you’re thinking, Sir Denis,” said Sterling, hoarsely.
“Where is the porcelain Venus?”
There was a momentary silence, and then:
“That Customs officer,” came Gallaho’s growling voice—he had just come in—“didn’t seem to be quite sure that what he saw was the porcelain Venus.”
“I quite agree, Inspector,” said Nayland Smith.
His manner, his voice, indicated intense nervous tension. From an inner pocket he extracted a leather case, and from the leather case, a lens. He bent, peering down into the crate designed to contain the celebrated work of art.
Gallaho watched him silently, respectfully. Sterling, fists clenched, knew that sanity itself depended upon what Nayland Smith should find. Sir Denis completed his examination of the box and then turned his attention to the wooden rests designed to support the figure. This quest, also, seemed to yield no result. Dim voices sounded about the house. The search party was busy. Demon Fog had penetrated to the studio. He could be seen moving in sinister coils about the electric lights. Finally, Sir Denis addressed himself to the cottonwool packing, and suddenly:
“Ah,” he cried. “By God I was right. Sterling! I was right—”
“What, Sir Denis? For heaven’s sake, tell me, what is it you have found?”
Nayland Smith moved to a bench littered with fragments of plaster, wire frames and other odds and ends, and laid something tenderly down immediately under an overhanging light.
“A wavy, Titian red hair,” he said, in a low voice. “Study it closely, Sterling. You know the color and texture of Fleurette’s hair better than I do.”
“Sir Denis...”
Sterling was electrified.
“Don’t despair, Sterling. I suggest that the beautiful figure which Preston saw in his crate, was not constructed at the Sevres factory to the design of Professor Ambroso, but was... Fleurette.”
CHAPTER FIVE
P.C. IRELAND IS UNEASY
“This blasted fog is blotting everything out again,” said Nayland Smith irritably: “already I can’t see the river. By dusk it will be as bad as ever.”
He turned from the window and stared across the room in the direction of a leather couch upon which his visitor was extended. Alan Sterling, his keen, tanned face very haggard, summoned up a smile.
A log fire burned in the open hearth. Red leather was the predominant note in the furniture, and there were some fine, strong oil paintings on the wall. The big lofty room was under-furnished, but homely and habitable. One might have supposed its appointments to have been dictated by somebody long resident in the East, and therefore used to scanty furniture. Some of the paintings were of Eastern subjects, and there was some good jade on top of a bookcase which seemed to be filled with works of a medico-legal character, with a sprinkling of Orientalism.
“You know, Sir Denis,” said Alan Sterling, sitting upright, “you are like a tonic to me. I am keen enough about my own job, which happens to be botany; but if I may say so, for an ex-Assistant Commissioner of Metropolitan Police to select a residence right in Whitehall—next door, as it were, to Scotland Yard—indicates an even greater keenness.”
Nayland Smith glanced swiftly at the speaker. He knew the tension under which Sterling was laboring; how good it was to distract his mind from those torturing queries:—Where is she? Is she alive, or dead?
“You are quite right,” he replied, quietly. “I have been through the sort of fires which are burning you now, Sterling, and I have always found that work was the best ointment for the burns. It was fate, I suppose, that made me an officer of Indian police. The gods— whoever the gods may be—had selected me as an opponent for—”
“Dr. Fu-Manchu,” said Sterling.
He brushed his hair back from his forehead: it was a gesture of distraction, almost of despair. Nayland Smith crossed to the buffet and from a tobacco jar which stood there, began to load his briar.
“Dr. Fu-Manchu. Yes. I know I have failed, Sterling, because the man still lives. But he has failed, too; because, thank God I have succeeded in checking him, step by step.”
“I know you have, Sir Denis. No other man in the world could have done what you have done.”
“That’s open to question.” Nayland Smith stuffed broad cut mixture into the cracked bowl; “but the point is that if I can’t throw him—I can hold him.” He struck a match. “He’s here, Sterling. He’s here, in London.”
Alan Sterling clenched his fists and Nayland Smith watched him, as he lighted his pipe. Passivity threatened Sterling, that Eastern resignation with which Smith was all too familiar. It must be combated: he must revivify the man; awaken the fiery spirit which he had good reason to know burned in him.
“Let’s review the facts,” he went on, briskly, his pipe now well alight. He began to walk up and down the Persian carpet. “You will find, Sterling, that they are not as unfavorable as they seem. To arrange them in some sort of order: (a)”—he raised a lean forefinger—“Dr. Fu-Manchu, hunted by the police of Europe, succeeds in reaching England disguised as Professor Ambroso. You and I know that he is an illusionist unrivalled since the death of the late Harry Houdini. Very well; (b)”—he raised his second finger— “Fleurette Petrie, incidentally, your fiancée, was smuggled off the Oxfordshire by means of some trick which we may never solve, and taken to Nice; (c)”—he raised the third finger—“doubtless in that state of trance which Dr. Fu-Manchu is able to induce, she traveled from Nice to London as the ‘Sleeping Venus’ of Professor Ambroso, and duly arrived at the house on the North Side of the Common.”
“She is dead,” Sterling groaned. “They have killed her.”
“I emphatically deny that she is dead,” snapped Nayland Smith. “Definitely, she was not dead last night.”
“What do you mean, Sir Denis?”
A pathetic light of hope had sprung into the haggard eyes of Ster
ling.
“A dead girl—foully murdered—her spirit silently appealing to a stolid London policeman.”
“But the appeal was not silent. Ireland heard the cry for help.”
“Exactly—therefore the girl was not dead.”
Alan Sterling, his hands clutching his knees, watched the speaker as, of old, supplicants might have watched the Cumaean Oracle.
“It’s an old move of the master schemer; I recognize it. Whilst he holds Fleurette, he holds the winning card. His own safety is bound up in hers. Don’t you see that? Let us proceed to (d).” He held up his little finger: “Pietro Ambroso is either a dupe or an accomplice of Fu-Manchu—it doesn’t matter much one way or the other. But the desertion of his entire household is significant. We have the evidence of P.C. Ireland—an excellent officer—that no car approached or left the house prior to the time of our arrival. Consider this fact. It has extraordinary significance.”
“I am trying to think,” Sterling murmured.
“Keep on trying, and see if your thoughts run parallel with mine. Look at the blasted fog!”—he jerked his arm towards the window. “There’s going to be another blanket tonight. Have you grasped what I mean?”
“Not entirely.”
“They can’t have taken her far, Sterling. Ireland and his opposite number have been on that point all night and all day.”
“My God!” Sterling sprang up, his eyes shining. “You’re right, Sir Denis. I see what you mean.”
“Dr. Fu-Manchu, for the second time in his career, is on the run. You don’t know, Sterling, but I have clipped his wings pretty severely. I have cut him off from many of his associates. I am getting very near to the heart of the mystery. He is financially embarrassed. He’s a hunted man. Fleurette is his last hope. Don’t imagine for one moment that she is dead. Dead—she would be useless; alive, she’s a triumph for the doctor.”
A muffled bell rang. Nayland Smith crossed to a side table and took up a telephone.