by Sax Rohmer
“Can’t you?” he growled. “Did you see how anybody was going to gain access to that room in Isphahan? I know more about the methods employed by Dr. Fu-Manchu than you do, Greville. And as I told Smith just now, I think nothing of safes at any time. We shouldn’t have the stuff now if I thought as you do.”
“True enough,” I admitted, and took out a delicate and exquisite mask from the box which held it.
“Gad!” exclaimed Sir Lionel in a low voice—“What a beauty! Unique, Greville, absolutely unique! This one item would make the reputation of any collector.”
He paused in his task, stood up, and stared about him. Then from a battered leather hat box he took an old sun helmet, emptied a cigar box onto the bed (it contained quite a dozen cigars) and put the gold mask in their place. Tying the box with a piece of string, he dropped it into the helmet, returning the latter to its leather case. He threw the case on the settee.
“A very clever American,” he remarked—“one Edgar Allan Poe— laid it down that the best place to hide a thing was where everyone could see it. Ha! here’s what you want, Greville.”
An umbrella belonging to Rima had somehow strayed into his cabin, left there in error by a steward, no doubt when the baggage had come aboard. She had bought it in Cairo. It was short, with a fancifully carved handle of glass, representing the Sphinx.
“Wrap it up,” he said; “that’s splendid.”
He laughed, in his loud, boisterous fashion. And something of his crazy humour began to infect me also. His treatment of a menace which had overhung us darkly for so long, which already had cost several lives and had stirred up the beginnings of a promising Arab rising, was stimulating, to say the least.
I wrapped up the umbrella in the canvas packing, tying it with care; and Sir Lionel, having unfastened the gold plates, examined them lingeringly. I knew he would have liked to devote hours to that examination, but the time was not now.
“Where’s the Burberry?” he asked.
I pointed to an open door communicating with his bedroom; my old Burberry hung upon a hook there.
He nodded, wrapped the sheets of thin gold in pieces of newspaper, and slipped them into the big pocket of the coat, which contained them quite easily.
“Let me see!” he cried.
I exhibited the parcel I had just completed.
“Not bad,” he commented; “I think it will pass. Now, to seal it.”
Crossing to a little writing table, and kicking all sorts of litter out of his way as he went, he opened a box containing odds and ends of stationery, and presently found a piece of sealing wax. Lighting many matches and dropping a quantity of wax upon the carpet, he sealed several of the knots, pressing his signet ring upon each of them. Then, holding up the finished product, he laughed like a schoolboy.
“Number one ready!” he cried. “Ah! you have done another. What did you put in the box?”
“Nothing,” I replied; “the weight of the mask is negligible.”
“Hand me that thin atlas over there,” he directed.
From a pile of books thrown carelessly on the floor, I collected the volume to which he referred. It was roughly of about the same size and shape as the fifteen gold plates laid together. It was also very heavy.
“Good enough!” he said, weighing it in his hand. “Hello! Who’s this? Don’t open, Greville.”
Someone was rapping on the cabin door.
“Who’s there?” roared Sir Lionel.
“Steward, sir. Miss Barton has asked me to inquire if an umbrella which is missing has been brought in here.”
“No,” roared the chief, “it hasn’t. Never seen it.”
“Do you mind if I take a look round, sir?”
“I mind very much. I’m busy. Go away!”
He stood upon the settee, drew the curtain aside, and peered through a porthole.
“We’re clear of shore, Greville,” he reported. “By heaven! I’ve tricked him this time!”
A few minutes later we completed the third parcel to his satisfaction, and:
“Cut along to your cabin,” he directed; “you haven’t far to go. Carry your Burberry over your arm; you can hold the sword underneath it.”
“Very good. Where shall I put them?”
“Put the sword under your bed for the time being, and hang the Burberry in the bathroom, or anywhere. I’ll come along presently and decide definitely. But first we must see the purser.”
Unbolting the door, we sallied forth. I went along to my cabin and then rejoined Sir Lionel. Stewards were still coming and going, carrying stray items of baggage, the ship being in that state of unrest which prevails on leaving port.
“I don’t trust these Javanese,” the chief whispered. “Every one of them might belong to Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
I felt rather disposed to agree with him. But Nayland Smith had been insistent upon our leaving by the first available ship, and failing the Indramatra, we should have had to wait for three days.
Passengers were standing about at the foot of the stairs in the neighbourhood of the purser’s room, examining notices and making aimless inquiries of almost every European member of the crew who passed. Carrying our strange burdens, we came to the purser’s door.
“I simply refuse to occupy a cabin,” an excited voice was shouting within, “in which the running water resembles beer. It’s scandalous, sir, scandalous!”
“Our friend Kennington,” said the chief, unceremoniously jerking the curtain aside and walking in. “Good evening, purser. Sorry to trouble you, but I have some valuables which I wish to leave in your care.”
“Very good, Sir Lionel,” said the harassed officer, turning in his chair and looking up at us.
“One of them looks a bit bulky for the safe. Perhaps we can manage.”
Mr. Kennington, blown up to his full dimensions, was standing at the farther end of the room, glaring. On further examination he was a singular-looking object. His rotundity seemed positively artificial, so suddenly did it develop, and his dark eyes, behind horn-rimmed spectacles, did not seem to belong to his red and choleric face. He had carroty hair, close-cut, and an absurd little moustache.
“I will not be side-tracked in this manner, sir,” he cried, as the purser, standing up, turned and unlocked the big safe. “I have already been given accommodation other than that which I reserved, and now…”
“And now,” said the chief, looking him up and down in his most truculent and intolerant manner, “you have been given tap water which resembles beer.”
“I have, sir. And I will not tolerate it for one moment—not for one moment!”
“Neither should I,” said the chief, “if I were a teetotaller. Are you a teetotaller?”
“I am, sir.”
“And a member of the Labour party, I take it?”
“Certainly.”
“Funny thing, Greville,” said Sir Lionel, looking at me, “how these enemies of capital always insist upon the best accommodation. But—”
“By a little readjustment,” said the purser, “I can manage your three sealed packages. Sir Lionel.”
He reclosed and locked the massive safe.
“And now you will want a receipt for them.”
He sat down at his table again.
“I have registered my protests, sir,” said Mr. Kennington sternly; “my second protest since I came on board this ship. Since you don’t seem to propose to attach any importance to it, I shall make a point of placing the matter before the captain.”
He bowed with absurd dignity and went out.
“You know, gentlemen,” said Voorden, taking a printed form from a case on his table, “one passenger like that puts years on a ship’s purser. According to his passport, Mr. Kennington does not travel much, which perhaps accounts for it. Ah, well!” he sighed wearily, filling in the form, “I suppose it’s the sort of thing that the company pays me for. There you are, sir.”
Sir Lionel thanked him, folded up the receipt, and placed it in his pocke
t case. As we went out and were crossing towards the stairs, I heard Mr. Kennington talking to the chief steward.
“I insist upon a table to myself, steward.”
“I will do my best, sir.”
“It would be pleasant for everybody concerned,” said the chief in a loud voice, “if some travellers would insist upon a ship to themselves, and stay on board for the rest of their lives.”
Whereupon he began to laugh thunderously.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
FLIGHT FROM EGYPT
I stood at the after end of the promenade deck, my arm very tightly about Rima. Together, we watched the lights of Egypt fading in the distance. It was good to be together after that brief but dreadful hiatus in Cairo, but yet, although neither of us spoke, I knew we shared a common regret. It was true we had known sorrow in Egypt, but we had known great happiness there, and the happiness outweighed the sorrow.
It was growing late, and we had the starboard side of the deck to ourselves; a few passengers lingered in the smoke-room, but nearly everybody was in bed. It would have been good to have Nayland Smith with us, but he and Dr. Petrie hoped to be in London in time for the spectacular wedding which Sir Lionel had planned for us.
Personally, I looked forward to that function with the utmost horror. But I was not at all sure that Rima didn’t secretly enjoy the prospect. Rima had been a very popular debutante two years before; and I knew the chief would enjoy himself to the top of his bent in circulating paragraphs among gossip writers, and in employing his genius for showmanship to make our wedding a successful public entertainment.
In fact, having few friends of my own in London, and knowing that Rima had many, I felt that those days in the Mediterranean which lay ahead would be the last for a long time during which I should have her to myself.
No words were necessary between us. I just held her very closely, and she nestled against me in perfect contentment, while together we watched the lights of Port Said growing more and more dim upon the horizon.
Only nine passengers had joined the Indramatra there, including our own party of three. They had been checked up by Nayland Smith, and not one of them came within the shadow of suspicion. Other than these six first-class passengers and ourselves, no one had come aboard in Egypt, nor had the crew been reinforced. I remembered Sir Denis’s parting words: “Unless, which isn’t impossible, since we’re dealing with Dr. Fu-Manchu, an agent of his has been smuggled aboard disguised as cargo, it would appear, Greville, that, for once in his life, the doctor has misfired.”
It was cold comfort, since I had reason to know that the doctor rarely misfired. And I hugged Rima so closely that she demanded a kiss and received many…
When at last, and very reluctantly, I turned in that night, common sense told me that Sir Lionel had pulled off his daring trick and risked Rima’s life in the process. But, once in Europe, I believed that we had little to fear on this score, since the religious-political unity of the relics by then would have become nil. Only by their immediate recovery could Dr. Fu-Manchu hope to re-establish the claims of the new prophet, already challenged by reason of their absence. A week would make all the difference.
But, in destroying this daring scheme of the greatest, and most evil man I had ever known, what had we done?
His mentality was incalculable. I believed him too great to waste an hour of his time in so futile a purpose as vengeance. But in this I knew that I might be mistaken. He was a Chinaman, and I knew little of Chinese mentality. He was unscrupulous, valuing human life no more highly than the blades of grass one treads upon. But in this he conformed to his own peculiar code.
No desire for personal aggrandisement inspired him, Nayland Smith had assured me. He aimed to lift China from the mire into which China had fallen. He was, according to his peculiar lights, a great patriot. And, this I knew, according to those same peculiar lights, he was scrupulously honourable.
True, the terms he had extorted upon the strength of the abduction of Rima had been blackmail at its vilest, but blackmail of a kind acceptable to his own code. We had agreed to his terms and had set our names to that agreement. Such implicit trust had he placed in our English honour that he had met us alone—the gesture of a great man if a great villain.
And in all good faith on the part of Nayland Smith and myself we had tricked him! Would he have tricked us in that way? Was it what his inscrutable Chinese conscience would regard as fair warfare, or was it not?
I doubted, and, to be perfectly honest, I feared. I had warned Rima to bolt her door before I said goodnight to her, and now, entering my own cabin, I did the same. I made sure that the sword of God was in my golf bag concealed among the clubs, and the gold plates in the pocket of my Burberry before I began to undress. The wooden chest, nailed up again, stood at the end of a blind alleyway leading to the chief’s suite.
The Mediterranean was calm as a great lake, and there was little motion perceptible from stem to stem of the Indramatra. My cabin was forward on the port side and only two removed from that occupied by Sir Lionel. These cabins opened on a narrow gallery overlooking the dining saloon, and Rima’s was nearly opposite my own.
I had experienced a pang of uneasiness on realising that the stewards were almost exclusively Javanese, some of them of a very Mongolian type: silent, furtive, immobile, squatting like images at the corner of nearly every alleyway—their slippers beside them, their faces expressionless.
Tonight, however, they had all disappeared. The ship was silent, the saloon a dark well. Only faint vibrations from the screw propellers and that creaking of woodwork inseparable from a ship at sea, disturbed the stillness.
I had only partially unpacked, and feeling very wide awake, I began to grope among my baggage for a tin of tobacco which I had bought just before leaving Cairo. I had determined to smoke a final pipe before turning in. A final drink would have been welcome, but I doubted if I could obtain one.
Following some searching, I discovered the tobacco, and I had just raised the lid and begun to fill my pipe when there came a soft rapping upon the door of the cabin...
CHAPTER FORTY
THE SEAPLANE
I confess that I was reluctant to open my door. It was perhaps not surprising after the strain which had been imposed upon me during those past few weeks; but I was conscious of a definite decline of morale. I had many unhappy memories and some dreadful ones: not the least of these that strange lacuna in Cairo, throughout which I had obviously been a passive instrument of the Chinese doctor’s will.
The rapping was repeated, rather more insistently, but yet not loudly.
I laid my pipe down on the bed and moved towards the cabin door. Save for that slight creaking of woodwork as the ship rode a barely perceptible swell, there was no sound.
“Who’s there?” I said sharply, but without shooting the bolt back.
“Urgent radio message for Mr. Greville.”
I heaved a sigh of relief which must have been audible beyond the door, shot the bolt back, and there stood a Marconi operator.
“I shouldn’t have disturbed you in the ordinary way,” he explained, “but the message was marked ‘Immediate delivery’.”
“Thanks,” I said; “I hadn’t turned in.” I took the flimsy envelope. “Goodnight,” I added.
“Goodnight, sir.”
I returned and bolted the door. Then, tearing open the message, I read eagerly.
SOMETHING WILL BE ATTEMPTED TONIGHT STOP STAY AWAKE AND KEEP A SHARP LOOK-OUT
NAYLAND SMITH
I dropped the message on the bedcover. From what possible source was such an attempt to be looked for? And what should I do?
Lighting my pipe, I stared at the golf bag propped in a corner of the cabin, a strange repository for a relic which already had such a bloody history; but in Sir Lionel’s opinion a better one than the purser’s safe.
Cudgel my brains as I would—and I was very wide awake now—I could conceive of no plan—even assuming the real whereabo
uts of the damnable relics to be known to our enemies—whereby they could obtain possession of them, otherwise than by an open raid on my cabin and that of the chief.
It was preposterous! Even if it were admissible that Fu-Manchu had servants among the native members of the crew—what could they do?
Yet, here was the message. What in Heaven’s name did it mean?
One thing I determined upon: to obey Nayland Smith’s instructions. I would mount guard until daylight, when the normal life of the ship would be resumed. Then, if nothing had occurred, I might safely assume the danger past.
With this laudable object in view, I removed my coat and threw myself on the bed, taking up a booklet issued by the shipping company and illustrated with charts showing the mileage between ports of call.
I read on industriously. Once I thought I detected a faint sound out in the alleyway, but, putting the pamphlet down and listening intently it presently resolved itself into a variation of that endless creaking. I realised that the gentle, soothing motion had become more marked; the swell was slightly increasing.
How long I pursued my reading, I cannot say, for, as often occurs at such times, although I imagined myself to be wide awake, I was actually tired out, and probably no more than a few minutes later I was fast asleep.
I suppose I slept lightly, for there could be little doubt about what awakened me. I know that I sat up with a start, and at first was utterly confused by my surroundings. Ash was on the counterpane where I had dropped my pipe; fortunately, it had not set fire to it. I sat listening.
Above the noise of creaking woodwork and the dim vibration of the shaft, a new sound was perceptible. I glanced at my watch. I had slept for two hours.
Stepping to my cabin door, I shot the bolt, opened, and looked out into the alleyway. Darkness and silence. Nothing moved. I returned and even more plainly, now, could hear this new disturbance.
I had carefully closed the porthole, having painful memories of the acrobatic methods employed by agents of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I unscrewed the bolts and opened it. The sound became much louder; and curiosity grew overpowering. I was as widely awake as ever now, and I determined to go up on deck for a moment.