by Sax Rohmer
“That blue light, Sergeant.”
“What blue light?”
“Nearly over the roof of Sam Pak’s. It’s the fourth time I’ve seen it.”
“I can’t see anything.”
“No. It’s just gone again.”
“You’re a bit barmy, aren’t you?”
“I’ve seen it too, Sergeant,” came another voice. “Not tonight for the first time, either.”
“What?”
“I first saw it early last week. I was with the four o’clock boat. It sort of dances in the air, high up over the roof.”
“That’s right,” said the other man.
“Something like a gasworks,” the sergeant suggested facetiously.
“That’s it, Sergeant, only not so bright, and it doesn’t stay long. Just comes and goes.”
The tide lapped and sucked and whispered all around them. The deep voice of the liner moaned down-stream. Metal crashed on metal in the dockyard, and the glare of a million lights created the illusion of a tent stretched overhead; for that high pall still floated above London, angrily, as if waiting to settle again at the first opportunity.
A bent figure moved slowly past the lighted window.
“Tell me if you see it again,” said the sergeant.
Silence fell upon the watchers...
“Hello!—who’s this?” the sergeant growled.
The creaking of oars proclaimed itself, growing ever nearer. Hidden in the shadows, the River Police watched the approach of a small rowboat. The rower had all the appearance of a typical waterman. He had two passengers.
“What’s this?” muttered the sergeant. “I believe he’s making for Sam Pak’s... Ssh! Quiet!”
The crew of six watched eagerly; any break in the monotony of their duty was welcome. The sergeant’s prediction was fulfilled. The boat was pulled in close to rotting piles which at some time had supported a sort of jetty. At the margin of mud and shingle, the two passengers disembarked, making a perilous way along slippery wooden girders until they reached the sloping strand. The crunch of their heavy boots was clearly audible; and as the boatman pulled away, the two mounted a wooden stair and disappeared into a dark opening.
“H’m!” said the sergeant. “Of course, they may not be going to Sam’s. People are often ferried across here. It’s a short cut to the bus route. Hello!”
He stood suddenly upright in the bows of the launch, and might have been seen staring upward at a point high above the roof of Sam Pak’s establishment.
“There you are, Sergeant... that’s what I meant!”
A curious, blue light played there against the pall above. At one moment it resembled a serpent’s tongue, or rather, the fiery tongue of a dragon; then it would change and become a number of little, darting tongues; suddenly, it disappeared altogether.
“Well—I’m damned!” said the sergeant. “That’s a very queer thing. Where the devil can it come from?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AT SAM PAK’S
The exterior of Sam Pak’s presented the appearance of a small and unattractive Chinese restaurant, where also provisions might be purchased and taken away.
As one entered, there was a counter on the left; the air was informed with an odor of Bombay duck and other Chinese delicacies. Tea might be purchased or drunk on the establishment, for there were two or three cane-topped tables on the other side of the shop. Although midnight had come and gone, lights were still burning in this shop, and a very fat woman of incalculable nationality was playing some variety of patience behind the counter, and smoking cigarettes continuously.
A curious, spicy smell, mingling with that of the provisions indicated that joss-sticks might be purchased here; rice, also, and various kinds of cold eatables, suitable for immediate consumption. Excepting the fat lady, there was no one else in the shop at the moment that Nayland Smith and Sterling entered.
They had been well schooled by a detective attached to K Division, and Nayland Smith, taking the lead, leaned on the counter, and:
“Cigarette please, Lucky Strike,” he said, his accent and intonation that of one not very familiar with English.
The lady behind the counter hesitated for a moment, and then put another card in place. Laying down those which she still held in her hand, she reached back, abstracted a packet of the desired cigarettes from a shelf, and tossed it down before the customer, without so much as glancing at him.
He laid a ten shilling note near to her hand.
“Damn thirsty,” he continued; “got a good drink?”
Piercing black eyes were raised instantaneously. Both men recognized that at that moment they were being submitted to a scrutiny as searching as an X-ray examination. Those gimlet eyes were lowered again. The woman took the note, dropped it into a wooden bowl, and from the bowl extracted silver change.
“Who says you get a drink here?” she muttered.
“All sailors know Sam Pak keeps good beer,” Nayland Smith replied rapidly, in that Shanghai vernacular which sometimes passes for Chinese.
The woman smiled; her entire expression changed. She looked up, replying in English.
“How you know Chinese?” she asked.
“Live for ten year in Shanghai.”
“You want beer or whisky?”
“Beer.”
The woman pushed a little paper pad forward across the counter, and handed the speaker a pencil.
The paper was headed “Sailors’ Club.”
“Please, your name here,” she said; then, glancing at Sterling, “your friend too.”
Nayland Smith shrugged his shoulders as if helplessly, and then, laboriously traced out some characters to which no expert alive could possibly have attached any significance or meaning.
“Name of ship, please, here.”
A stubby finger, with a very dirty nail, rested upon a dotted line on the form. They had come prepared for this, and Nayland Smith wrote, using block letters in the wrong place “s. s. Pelican.”
“Now you, please.”
The beady eyes were fixed on Sterling. He wrote what looked like “John Lubba” and put two pencil dots under Smith’s inscription— S.S. Pelican.
“One shilling each,” said the woman, extracting a two shilling piece from the change and dropping the coin into the wooden bowl. “You members now for one week.”
She pressed a bell-button which stood upon the counter near to her hand, and a door at the end of the little shop was opened.
Nayland Smith, carefully counting his change, replaced it in a pocket of his greasy trousers, and turned as a very slender Chinese boy who walked with so marked a stoop as to appear deformed, came into the shop. He wore an ill-fitting suit and a red muffler, but, incongruously, a small, black Chinese cap upon his head. Perhaps, however, the most singular item of his make-up, and that which first struck one’s attention, was an eye-patch which obscured his left eye, lending his small, pale yellow features a strangely sinister appearance. To this odd figure the stout receptionist, tearing off the form from the top of the block, passed the credentials of the two new members, saying rapidly in Chinese:
“For the files.”
Sterling did not understand, but Nayland Smith did; and he was satisfied. They were accepted.
The one-eyed Chinese boy signaled that they should follow, and they proceeded along a short, narrow passage to the “Club.” This was a fair-sized room, the atmosphere of which was all but suffocating. Ventilation there was none. A velvet-covered divan, indescribably greasy and filthy ran along the whole of one wall, tables being set before it at intervals. At the farther end of the place was a bar, and, on the left, cheap wicker chairs and tables. The center of the floor was moderately clear. It was uncarpeted and some pretense had been made, at some time, to polish the deal planks.
The company present was not without interest.
At a side table, two Chinamen were playing Mah jong, a game harmless enough, but interdict in Limehouse. At another table, a party, o
ne of whom was a white girl, played fantan, also illegal in the Chinese quarter. The players spoke little, being absorbed in their games.
Although the fog had cleared from the streets of Limehouse and from the river, one might have supposed that this stuffy room had succeeded in capturing a considerable section of it. Visibility was poor. Tobacco smoke predominated in the “club,” but with it other scents were mingled. Half a dozen nondescripts were drinking and talking—mostly, they drank beer. One visitor seated alone at the end of the divan, elbows resting on the table before him, glared sullenly into space. He had a shock of dark hair, and his complexion was carrot-colored. His prominent nose was particularly eloquent.
“Gimme another drink, Sam,” he kept demanding. “Gimme another drink, Sam.”
Save for two chairs set before the table upon which the thirsty man rested his elbows, there was no visible accommodation in the “Sailors’ Club.”
“Go ahead!” Nayland Smith whispered in Sterling’s ear. “Grab those two chairs.”
No one took the slightest notice of their entrance, and walking towards the bar, they seated themselves in the two vacant chairs. The one-eyed boy stood by for their orders.
“Two pints beer,” said Nayland Smith in his queer broken English.
The boy went to the bar to give the order. And the barman to whom he gave it was quite easily the outstanding personality in the room. He was a small Chinaman, resembling nothing so much as an animated mummy. His chin nearly met his nose, for apparently he was quite toothless; and there was not an inch of his skin, nor a visible part of his bald head, which was not intricately traced with wrinkles. His eyes, owing to the puckering of the skin, were almost invisible, and his hands when they appeared from behind the counter resembled the talons of some large bird.
“Gimme another drink, Sam,” hiccupped the man on the divan. “Never mind these blokes—gi’ me another drink.”
One elbow slipped and his head fell right forward on the table.
“O.K. sir,” came a low whisper. “Detective-sergeant Murphy. Something funny going on here tonight, sir.”
Nayland Smith turned to the aged being behind the bar. “Give him another drink,” he said rapidly in Chinese. “Charge me. He is better asleep than awake.”
The incredible features of Sam Pak drew themselves up in a ghastly contortion which may have been a smile.
“It is good,” he whistled in Chinese—“a sleeping fool may pass for a wise man.”
The one-eyed boy was bending over the counter, placing the mugs on a tray. Sterling watched, and suddenly:
“Sir Denis,” he whispered—“look! That isn’t a boy’s figure.”
“Gimme a drink,” blurted Murphy; then, in a whisper: “It isn’t a boy, sir—it’s a girl...”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A LIGHTED WINDOW
Forester of the River Police had taken charge of the party covering Sam Pak’s from the Thames. His presence, which was unexpected, had infused a new spirit into the enterprise. The fact that he was accompanied by the celebrated Inspector Gallaho of the C.I.D., caused a tense but respectful silence to fall upon the party. Everyone knew now that some very important case lay behind this monotonous duty.
A sort of rumor hitherto submerged, now ran magically from man to man, the presence of the famous detective lending its wings.
“It’s the Fu-Manchu business—I told you so...”
“He’s been dead for years...”
“If you ever have the bad luck to meet him, you’ll...”
“Silence on board!” said Forester, in a low but authoritative voice. “This isn’t a picnic: you’re on duty. Listen—isn’t one of you an ablebodied seaman?”
The ex-steward spoke up.
“I was an A.B., sir, before I became a steward.”
“You’re the man I want. You see that lighted window—the one that belongs to Sam Pak’s?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It isn’t more than three feet below the roof and there’s plenty of foothold. Do you think you could climb it?”
There was a moment of silence, and then:
“To the roof, sir?”
“Yes.”
“I could try. There wouldn’t be much risk if the tide was in, but I’m not so sure of the mud.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I’ll take a chance.”
“Good man,” growled Gallaho. “Inspector Forester has brought a rope ladder. We want you to carry a line up to make the ladder fast. The idea is to get a look in at that lighted window. Bear it in mind. But for the love of Mike, don’t make any row. We are taking chances.”
Merton, the ex-sailor, rather thought that he was the member of the party who was taking chances. He was endeavoring to find suitable words in which to express this idea, when:
“That’s a good man, Inspector,” snapped a voice from the barge. “Always keep your eye on a man who volunteers for dangerous duty.”
Merton looked up as two men who resembled Portuguese deckhands dropped from the barge into the tail of the cutter. But the speaker’s voice held an unmistakable note. Rumor had spoken truly.
The presence of Inspector Gallaho had started tongues wagging; here was someone vastly senior to Gallaho, and masquerading in disguise. The attitude of the famous C.I.D. detective was sufficient evidence of the seniority of the last speaker.
The River Police craft was eased alongside the rotting piles which supported that excrescence of Sam Pak’s restaurant. Merton swarmed up without great difficulty towards a point just below the lighted window. Here he paused, making signs to the crew below.
“Push out,” snapped Nayland Smith in a low voice.
The little craft was eased away, and Merton, carrying the line, proceeded to the second and more difficult stage of his journey, watched breathlessly by every man aboard the River Police launch. Twice he faltered, and, once, seemed to have lost his hold. But at last a sort of sympathetic murmur ran around the watching party.
He had reached the roof of the wooden structure. He waved, and began to haul in the line attached to the rope ladder.
A stooping figure passed behind the lighted window...
Merton, in response to signals from Gallaho, moved further left, so that when the ladder was hauled up it just cleared the window. Some delay followed whilst Merton, disappearing from view of those below, sought some suitable stanchion to which safely to lash the ladder. This accomplished, he gave the signal that all was fast, and:
“As soon as I’m on the ladder,” said Nayland Smith, “get back to cover. The routine, as arranged, holds good.”
He began to climb... and presently he could look in at the lighted window.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A BURNING GHAT
A woman attired in scanty underwear was pulling on high-heeled, jade green shoes. She was seated on a cheap and dilapidated wooden chair. Depended upon a hanger on the wall behind this chair, was a green frock, which Nayland Smith guessed to be probably a creation of Worth. A dressing-table of a kind which can only be found in the second-hand stores appeared at one end of the small rectangular room. It was set before a window, and this was the window of the wooden superstructure which looked out towards the Surrey bank of the Thames. A flannel suit, a pair of shoes, a muffler, and a Chinese cap, lay on the floor.
Fascinated and unashamed, Nayland Smith watched the toilet of the woman who squeezed tiny feet into tiny jade green shoes.
She stood up, walked to the mirror, and smeared her face with cream from a glass jar which once had contained potted meat. The features of the one-eyed Chinese waiter became obliterated.
The classic features of Fah Lo Suee, daughter of Dr. Fu-Manchu, revealed themselves!
Fah Lo Suee, having cleansed her skin, hurriedly carried the one chair to the dressing-table, and seating herself before a libelous mirror, set to work artistically to make up as a beautiful woman; for that she was a beautiful woman Nayland Smith had never been able to deny.<
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Silently, cautiously, he began to descend. The River Police craft was pulled in beneath him. Forester and a member of the crew hung on to the end of the ladder as Nayland Smith came aboard.
“Put me ashore,” he snapped. “Gallaho! Sterling! Then stand by for Merton.”
Sterling grabbed the speaker’s arm. His grip was violent in its intensity.
“Sir Denis!” he said—“for God’s sake tell me—who is up there? What did you see?”
Nayland Smith turned. They were alongside the barge, across the deck of which they had come, and by the same route were returning.
“Your old friend Fah Lo Suee! When I gave the sign to Murphy and came out, I thought you had recognized her, too. I was interested in the fact that she seemed to have a base somewhere upstairs.”
“Fah Lo Suee,” Sterling muttered. “Good heavens! Now that you point it out, of course, I realize it was Fah Lo Suee.”
“The Doctor is using her remorselessly: every hour of her day is fully occupied. Late though it is, she has some other duty to perform. She must be followed, Sterling.”
They were crossing the deck of the barge, Gallaho at their heels, his bowler hat jammed on at a rakish angle, when:
“Look!” said Nayland Smith.
With one hand he grabbed the C.I.D. man, with the other he grasped the arm of Sterling.
A wavering blue light, a witch light, an elfin thing, danced against the fog mantle over the house of Sam Pak.
“Good Lord!” Gallaho muttered. “I heard of it for the first time tonight, but I’m damned if I can make out what it is.”
All watched in silence for a while. Suddenly, the mystic light disappeared.
“It looks like something out of hell,” said Gallaho.
“Very possibly it is,” Nayland Smith jerked. He turned to Sterling. “Did you notice anything curious about the air of the Sailors’ Club?”
“It had the usual fuggy atmosphere of places of that kind.”
“Certainly it had, but did anything in the temperature strike you?”