by Sax Rohmer
Another blank came...
He was lying on a camp bed, in a low, square brick chamber. His head throbbed agonizingly, but a soft arm pillowed his head, and soothing fingers caressed his brow. He struggled again to recover himself. This was phantasy, a disordered dream.
Where was he?
The act of opening his eyes alone had been an exquisite torture. Now, turning them aside, he experienced new pain. A woman, strangely dressed, knelt beside the bed upon which he lay. Her dark hair was disordered, her long green eyes watched him, piteously, supplicatingly, as the eyes of a mother watching a sick child.
Those long green eyes stirred latent memories, stimulating the dull brain. What woman had he known who possessed those eyes?
She was a strange creature. Her beautifully molded lips moved as if she spoke, softly. But Nayland Smith could detect no words. Her shoulders were bare; her skin reminded him of ivory. And now, perhaps recognizing some return of understanding, she bent, fixing the gaze of her brilliant eyes upon him.
A moment of semi-lucidity came. He had seen this woman before; this woman with the ivory shoulders and the green eyes. But if a woman, why did she wear coarse gray flannel trousers?... She was perhaps half a woman and half a man...
Her lips were crushed to his own, as darkness came again...
“You have never known... you would never have known... but at least we shall die together... Wake, oh, my dear! wake; for the time is so short, and because I know I have to die, now I can tell you...”
Nayland Smith, as if in obedience to those urgent words, fought his way back to full consciousness.
The brick chamber and the camp bed had not been figments of delirium. He actually lay upon such a bed in a square brick chamber. The woman tending him was Fah Lo Suee!
Recognizing the return of full consciousness, she gently withdrew her arm from beneath his head, composedly rearranging the silk straps of a tiny garment which afforded a strange contrast to the wrinkled flannel trousers.
Nayland Smith saw that a gray coat, a complement of the trousers, lay upon the floor near by. There was a bowl of water on a little table beside him, a small bottle and a piece of torn silk saturated with Eau de Cologne.
Fah Lo Suee replaced the coat which was part of the uniform of the one-eyed waiter, and quietly seating herself on the solitary chair which the chamber boasted, watched him coolly and without embarrassment.
Had he heard aright? Had he heard this woman — thinking that she spoke to an unconscious man — profess her love? Had she pressed her lips to his? He was beginning to remember; now clearly recalled all that had happened. Perhaps those later impressions were unreliable, or perhaps — a possibility — it was a deliberate move on the part of this daughter of an evil father. A new plot — but what could its purpose be?
Good God! He was in the power of Dr. Fu-Manchu, his lifelong enemy!
It was the end! She had said it was the end, unless he had dreamed. He moved his head so that he could see her more clearly. Heavens! Who and what had struck him? His memories afforded no clue to the identity of his assailant. And Sergeant Murphy? What had become of Sergeant Murphy?
Fah Lo Suee watched him under lowered lashes.
Any make-up which she had worn in her role of Chinese waiter, had been removed. He must suppose that those long lashes were naturally dark. But her lips were pale, and now, from the pocket of the dirty flannel jacket, she took out a lipstick and a mirror which formed the lid of a small rouge-box. Unaffectedly, she adjusted her appearance to her own satisfaction, delicately rouging her cheeks.
Sir Denis watched her. Slowly he was regaining control of mind and body. Finally, replacing the tiny toilet case, Fah Lo Suee pulled out a yellow packet of cigarettes and bending forward, offered one.
A picture of the elegant Madame Ingomar flashed momentarily before his mind... The long jade holder; those patrician cigarettes of the finest yenedji...
“Thank you,” he said, and was glad to find that his voice was steady.
He took the cigarette, and Fah Lo Suee, placing another between her lips, dropped the packet back into her pocket, producing a lighter which she snapped into life, and lighting both.
Nayland Smith cautiously sat upright. This ghastly brick chamber, which might have been part of a sewer works, swam around him. His head ached mercilessly. His sight, too, was queerly dim. He had been struck upon the temple. He leaned back against the wall in an angle of which the bed was set.
“Fah Lo Suee,” he said— “for I know you by no other name: where are we, and why are we here together?”
She glanced at him swiftly, and as swiftly looked aside.
“We are in part of the workings of an abandoned Thames tunnel. We are together because... we are going to die together.”
Nayland Smith was silent for a moment, watching her, and then:
“Is this place below Sam Pak’s?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then the raiding party will break through at any moment.”
“There are iron doors,” Fah Lo Suee replied, tonelessly. “Long before they can force them, we...”
She shrugged her shoulders, fixing the gaze of her long, narrow eyes upon him. Nayland Smith met that queer, contemplative gaze.
He realized how rarely in the past, in all his battles with the group surrounding Dr. Fu-Manchu, he had looked into the eyes of Fah Lo Suee. How much had he dreamed? — to what extent now were his impressions his own, and to what extent due to the hypnotic power which he knew this woman to possess?
“Fu-Manchu’s daughter,” he said: “Do you hate me as your father hates me?”
Fah Lo Suee closed and opened the slender fingers of her left hand. He watched that hand fascinatedly — thinking of the dirty yellow fingers of the Chinese waiter. His thoughts drew his glance floorwards, for there, near the chair upon which Fah Lo Suee sat, lay two crumpled objects which had puzzled him.
They were painted gloves! — gloves which had concealed the varnished nails and slim, indolent fingers of this daughter of the Manchus.
He glanced up again, and swiftly though Fah Lo Suee lowered her lashes, nevertheless, she had answered his question.
And he was silenced.
“I have loved you since the first day I ever saw you,” she replied, quietly.
And, listening to the music of her voice, Nayland Smith understood why so many men had fallen under its spell...
“I have had many of those experiences which are ridiculously called ‘affairs,’ but the only man I could ever love, was the only man I could never have. You would never have known, for I should never have told you. I tell you now, because, although we could not live together, we are going to die together.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR. MORE IRON DOORS
“No way out,” said Gallaho, flashing his light about a low cellar, which contained stores of various kinds: bottles of wine, casks of beer, and cases of gin and whisky. There were cheeses, too, and even less fragrant delicacies of Chinese origin.
“This way, sir,” came a voice from somewhere above. “Here’s the way down!”
Gallaho came out of the cellar, and hurried up to a kitchen where Trench was standing before an open cupboard. The shelves of this cupboard contained all kinds of rubbish — tins, old papers, cardboard boxes. But in some way, probably by accident, the Scotland Yard man had discovered a hidden latch, and had swung all these shelves inward, for they constituted a second, masked, door.
Hot, stifling air came up out of the darkness beyond.
“This is just below the bar, Inspector, and I noticed how hot it was at that end of the club room.”
“What’s in there? Be careful.”
Gallaho came forward and shot his light into the cavity. A steeply sloping passage with wooden steps was revealed.
“Come on,” he growled, and led the way.
Ten steps down there was a bend, Gallaho cautiously rounded it, and saw more steps ahead. It was very hot in this place, a thing for whi
ch he was quite unable to account. A brick landing was reached. Some of the brickwork had fallen away, and:
“This is built into an iron framework,” came a voice from somewhere behind.
There was a steady tramp of feet upon the stairs.
“Oh!” said Gallaho. “That’s funny!” He paused and looked about him. “I wonder if this is anything to do with the tunnel that Sir Denis has been inquiring about?”
“It’s been built a long time.”
“So I see. Also, it goes down a long way.”
The formation of the steps became more crude, the lower they went. They were merely boards roughly attached to cement. Now came a long, straight passage, brick-walled and cement floored. Gallaho led on; but it was so extensive that before he had reached the end, the whole of the party engaged in searching Sam Pak’s premises filed along behind him.
“This is a queer go,” said someone.
“We must be below Thames level.”
Gallaho pulled up with a jerk.
“Thames level or not,” he growled, “we’ve struck it here.”
“What is it, Inspector?”
Trench and others came crowding forward; Forester, far behind, was bringing up the rear.
“It’s this: another blasted iron door! I want to know the history of this place, and I want to know why no report has ever been made upon it. Iron doors in a restaurant — why?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE. THE FURNACE
Alan Sterling had abandoned hope. The message to Nayland Smith written on a leaf of his pocket-book (for nothing had been taken from him with the exception of his automatic) and pushed under the door to Ali, had miscarried, or perhaps it had never been despatched.
No duties were allotted to him; no one came near the room. He was surrounded by an oppressive silence, through which, from time to time, that muted roaring seemed to vibrate. In his fall he had smashed his wrist watch, and so had no means of knowing the time.
Hour after hour went by. He was desperately thirsty, but for a long time resisted his desire to pour out a drink from the water bottle.
Logic came to his rescue. Since he was completely in the power of the Chinese doctor, why should the latter trouble to tamper with the drinking water, when without danger or difficulty he could shoot him down at any time?
And what had become of Ali? Was it possible that he had been detected, and that he, Sterling, was doomed to be left locked in this dark brick prison somewhere in the bowels of the earth, perhaps even under water? So situated, hope of rescue there was none, if those who had placed him there chose to remain silent.
In short, his life depended upon that note having reached Sir Denis, and upon his success in tracing the subterranean tunnel, so vaguely referred to in it.
Hours passed in silence and a great weariness claimed him. Telling himself over and over again “You must not fall asleep... you must not fall asleep,” perhaps by the very monotony of reiteration, he presently lost all knowledge of his surroundings.
His awakening was a rude one.
He felt himself seized in a herculean grasp, lifted and then thrown face downward upon the bed!
Blindly, he began to struggle, but his ankles were grasped and firmly tied, throughout being held in such a manner that he was unable to reverse his position. Then, again he was lifted by his unseen assailant, lightly as a woman lifts a toy dog, and thrown back upon the bed.
A short, yellow man, stripped to the waist, grasped his arms, clasped them together with a remorseless strength which appalled Sterling, and adroitly tied his wrists with some kind of fine, strong twine.
The man was built like a baboon; his forehead was abnormally low, his arms incredibly long and of a muscularity which Sterling found almost incredible. The upper arms resembled the thighs of an athlete. The man had Crotonean shoulders and amazing chest development. His face was like a yellow mask; his sunken eyes registered no expression.
Sterling’s heart sank.
This could only mean one thing. Ali Oke had been detected — his message to Nayland Smith had never reached its destination! Dr. Fu-Manchu had changed his mind. Instead of employing him in the subterranean hell, he had determined to kill him...
This frightful awakening had temporarily robbed him of the power of speech, but now:
“Who are you?” he demanded, angrily. “Where are you taking me?”
The Burman, ignoring his words, treating him as he might have treated a heavy sack, grasped Sterling by the middle and threw him over his left shoulder. Stooping, he walked out through the open doorway.
As he hung limply across the gigantic shoulder, he could have “wept with rage, for his very weakness.
He, a physically powerful man, as normal men go, had no more chance against this deformed monster than a child would have had against himself. Yet, the horrible Burman, with his thick bandy legs, was all of three inches shorter than Sterling!
On to those nightmare stairs which led down into the pit, he was carried. From time to time, fitful gleams of light danced on the iron girders, or sent a red glow up into the darkness. He was being carried to his death: every instinct told him so...
One shaded lamp burned in the pit.
It hung directly in front of the furnace door. From time to time, at bends in the staircase, through eyes clouded by reason of his unnatural position, Sterling observed squat figures firing the furnace. The heat grew greater and greater. The place quivered and roared as white hot flames were whipped up under a forced draft.
The bottom reached, his captor and carrier dropped him unceremoniously upon the concrete floor.
Bruised, dazed, he yet succeeded in rolling over into a position from which he could inspect the shadows surrounding that ring of light in front of the furnace.
Several things became visible which conjured up horrible possibilities.
He saw a number of rough wooden trestles, some six feet in length and eighteen inches wide, laid upon the floor in the circle of light.
What could their purpose be?
Some inert body lay quite near to him. He strained his eyes to peer through the darkness; but beyond the fact that it appeared to be the body of a man, he could make out no details. Two muscular Chinamen stripped to the waist appeared now under the light. One, he thought he recognized, unless he was greatly mistaken — for to Western eyes Chinese faces are very similar — as a man who had formed one of the fan-tan party on the night that he and Nayland Smith had visited the Sailors’ Club.
The furnace door crashed open.
Scorching, blinding heat, poured out. Sterling wrenched his head aside. The Chinese stokers, probably professional firemen, fired the furnace, working mechanically and apathetically, although sweat poured down their faces and bodies like rain.
The furnace door was clanged into place again.
Sterling lay so near to it that it had been impossible to take more than quick glances about him during the time that the door had been open, for the heat had seared his eyes. Nevertheless he had seen enough to know that his doom was sealed... perhaps the doom of all who stood in the path of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
The man lying near to him, gagged and bound, was Ali Oke...
Alone, this discovery would have been sufficient to dash his last hope. But there was worse.
On the other side of the furnace door and nearly opposite to where he lay, Nayland Smith crouched on one elbow, bound as he was bound. He had glimpsed him searching the place with agonized eyes, as he himself had searched it.
It was the end.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX. DIM ROARING
“There’s only one thing to do here,” growled Gallaho, banging his fist on the iron door which barred further progress. “There’s a bit of a cavity — so I suppose the hinges are sunk. A couple of dynamite cartridges will shift something.”
“It might shift too much,” said Forester, who had pushed his way from the rear, and now stood at the speaker’s elbow. “Wouldn’t it be better to send for a blow-torch?”
“I’m not forgetting. It was just a suggestion. Anyway, it’s going to take time to get either.”
“The longer we stand talking here, the longer it’s going to take.”
Gallaho, in common with many men of action, had a tendency to lose his temper when checked by such a barrier as this iron door.
“What do you suggest?”
“May I suggest something, sir?” came a voice.
“Yes, my man, what is it?”
“The Kinloch Explosive Works in Silvertown carry on all night. We could get there and back in half an hour in the Squad car, and probably bring someone with us who understands how to employ explosives on a job of this kind.”
“Good man,” growled Gallaho. “I’d better come along, as they won’t act without authority. Will you take charge, Forester?”
“Certainly. But if I can get hold of a blow-torch by hook or by crook, I’m going to start.”
“Good enough. No harm done.”
Gallaho adjusted his bowler and set out. He disappeared along the corridor lighted only by the torches of the police. Forester turned to Trench.
“What about getting through to the Yard?” he suggested. “See if it’s possible to get a blow-torch rushed down.”
“We can try,” Trench agreed. “Leave two men here in case the door happens to open from the other side — and there’s a telephone upstairs in the shop.”
These dispositions were made, and the remainder of the police tramped up the concrete stairs and the wooden stairs into the premises of Sam Pak.
The shop blinds had been drawn — all lights put out. A constable was on duty on the pavement outside. At the moment that they reached the shop, the roar of the Flying Squad motor proclaimed itself as Gallaho dashed by on his journey to Silvertown.
“Here’s the telephone, Inspector,” said one of the men.
Forester nodded to Trench.