by Sax Rohmer
“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, Ireland. 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 Sterling.
“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.
“Yes,” he said; “put him through to me, please.”
He turned around to Sterling.
“Police constable Waterlow,” he said, “on duty outside Professor Ambroso’s house. Hello! — yes?” He spoke into the mouthpiece. “Here...”
Police constable Waterlow proved to be speaking from a call-box somewhere in Brixton.
“After P.C. Ireland relieved me, sir, and I went off duty, I began thinking. I don’t know if I should have reported it — my orders were a bit vague-like. But talking it over with the missis, I came to the conclusion that you ought to know, sir. Divisional-inspector Watford gave me permission to speak to you, and gave me your number.”
“Carry on, Constable. I’m all attention.”
“Well, sir, the inspector didn’t seem to think there was anything in it. But he said that you might like to know. There was a funeral next door to Professor Ambroso’s house this afternoon—”
“What!”
“From a ground-floor flat, sir, in the next house. I can’t tell you much about it, because I don’t know. But it was a Miss Demuras — has been living there for about a month, I understand. I never thought of mentioning it to Ireland when he took over from me, but my missis says, ‘This is a murder case, and here’s a funeral next door: ring up the inspector.’ I did it, and he said he had instructions to put me straight through to you.”
“Who was in charge of the funeral, Constable?”
Alan Sterling sprang to his feet; fists clenched, quivering, he stood watching Nayland Smith at the telephone.
“The London Necropolis Company, sir.”
“At what time did it take place?”
“At four o’clock this afternoon.”
“Were there any followers?”
“Only one, sir. A foreign gentleman.”
“You don’t know who was attending the patient?”
“Yes, sir; as it happens, I do. A Dr. Norton, who lives on South Side. He was my own doctor, sir, when I lived in Clapham.”
“Thanks, Constable. I wish you had reported this earlier. But it’s not your fault.”
Nayland Smith turned to Sterling.
“Don’t look like that,” he pleaded. “It may mean nothing or it may be a red herring. But whilst I pick up one or two things that I want in the other room, get Gallaho at Scotland Yard, and ask him to join us here with a fast car.”
CHAPTER SIX. DR. NORTON’S PATIENT
Dr. Norton was surprised, somewhat annoyed and obviously perturbed by the invasion of Sir Denis Nayland Smith, Chief-inspector Gallaho and Alan Sterling. His consultations were finished, and he had hastily changed into evening kit. Clearly, he had a dinner appointment. He was a man approaching middle age, of sanguine complexion — West Country, as Nayland Smith recognized at a glance, and clever without being brilliant.
As his three visitors were shown into the upstairs study and made themselves known to Dr. Norton, Nayland Smith’s behavior was somewhat peculiar. Watched by the others, he walked around the room inspecting the bookcases, the pictures, and even the window, smiling in a manner that was almost sad.
“This is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting you, Sir Denis,” said Dr. Norton, “but we have a mutual friend.”
“I know.” Nayland Smith turned, and stared at him. “You bought this practice from Petrie.”
“I’ve stuck it ever since, although it isn’t particularly profitable.”
Nayland Smith nodded and glanced at Gallaho. The celebrated detective-inspector, on this occasion, had removed his bowler, revealing a close-cropped head, and graying, dark hair.
“You must have observed, Inspector, during your great experience of human life, that things move in circles.”
“I have often noticed it, sir.”
“Many years have elapsed, and much history has been made since Dr. Fu-Manchu first visited England. But it was in this very room—” he turned to Dr. Norton— “that the Mandarin Fu-Manchu made his second attempt upon my life.”
“What!”
Dr. Norton could not conceal his astonishment. “I know something, but very little, from Petrie, of the queer matters to which you refer, Sir Denis, but I hadn’t recognized—”
“You hadn’t recognized the existence of the circle,” snapped Nayland Smith. “No, I suppose we have to live many lives before we do. It’s a law, but it always strikes me as odd when I come in contact with it. It was here, in this very room, that Petrie, from whom you bought this practice, came to an understanding with the beautiful woman who is now his wife. It was here that Dr. Fu-Manchu endeavored to remove me by means of the Zayat Kiss. Ah!—” he looked about him, and then pulled his pipe and his pouch from the pocket of his tweed jacket. “The circle narrows. I begin to hope again.”
Dr. Norton’s interest in his dinner engagement was evidently weakening. The magnetic personality of Nayland Smith was beginning to dominate.
“Of course, Sir Denis, one has heard of Fu-Manchu. I haven’t seen Petrie since he settled in Cairo; but odd things crop up in the Press from time to time. Am I to understand that you gentlemen have called this evening with regard to this mythical monster?”
“That’s it,” said Gallaho; “the circle to which Sir Denis referred has roped you in now, Doctor.”
“I am afraid I don’t understand.”
“Naturally,” rapped Nayland Smith.
“May I suggest whiskies and soda,” said the physician. “It doesn’t run to cocktails.”