by Sax Rohmer
“We do not doubt,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “your love for Harvey Bragg.”
“No need to doubt it! Looks like I’m dying for him right here and now. I want to tell you this: He’s the biggest man this country has known for a whole generation and more. Think that over. I say it.”
“You would not consider changing your opinion?”
“I knew it!” Grosset was recovering vigor. “Saw it coming. Listen, you saffron-faced horror! You couldn’t buy me for all the gold in Washington. I’ve lived for Harvey right along… I’ll die for Harvey.”
“Admirable sentiments,” Dr. Fu-Manchu muttered, and bent over the strapped figure, hypodermic syringe in hand.
“What are you going to do to me?” Grosset shrieked, a sudden note of horror in his voice. “What are you going to do to me? Oh, you filthy yellow swine! If only my hands were free!”
“I am going to kill you, my friend. I have no future place for you in my plans.”
“Well, do it with a gun,” the man groaned, “or even a knife if you like. But that thing—”
He uttered a wild, despairing shriek as the needle point was plunged into his flesh. Veins like blue whipcords sprang up on his forehead, on his powerful arms, as he fought to evade the needle point. All was in vain: he groaned and, in the excess of his mental agony, became still.
Dr. Fu-Manchu handed the syringe to the old mandarin, who unemotionally had watched the operation. He stooped and applied his ear to the diaphragm of the unconscious man. Then, standing upright, he nodded.
“The second injection two hours before we want him.” He looked down at the powerful body strapped to the bench. “You have killed many men in defense of your idol, Grosset,” he murmured, apostrophizing the insensible figure. “Seven I have checked, and there are others. You shall end your career in a killing that is really worth while…
* * * *
Carnegie Hall was packed to saturation point. It was an even bigger audience than Fritz Kreisler could have commanded; an audience equally keen with anticipation, equally tense. The headlong advance made by Harvey Bragg — once regarded as a petty local potentate by serious politicians, now recognized as a national force — had awakened the country to the fact that dictatorship, until latterly a subject for laughter, might, incredible though it seemed, be imminent.
The League of Good Americans reputedly numbered fifteen million members upon its roll. That many thousands of the homeless and hopeless had been given employment by Harvey Bragg was an undisputed fact The counter measures of the old administration, dramatically drastic, had apparently done little to check a growing feverish enthusiasm awakened throughout the country by “Bluebeard.” An ever-expanding section of the public regarded him as a savior; another and saner element recognized that he was a menace to the Constitution. Dr. Orwin Prescott, scholarly, sincere, had succeeded in driving a wedge between two conflicting bodies — and the gap was widening.
That Orwin Prescott advocated a sane administration, every sensible citizen appreciated. His avowed object was to split the Bragg camp; but there were those who maintained, although he had definitely denied the charge, that secretly he aimed at nomination to the Presidency.
There was a rumor abroad that he would declare himself tonight.
Among the more thoughtful elements he undoubtedly had a large following, and if the weight of the Abbot of Holy Thorn at the eleventh hour should be thrown into the scales, it was obvious to students of the situation that the forces of Orwin Prescott would become nearly as formidable as those of Harvey Bragg.
In the course of the last few hectic months other contestants had been wiped off the political map. Republican voters, recanting their vows of 1932, had rallied to Orwin Prescott. Agriculture stood solid for the old administration, although Ohio had a big Bragg faction. The ghost of a conservative third party had been exorcised by Abbot Donegal, a close friend of Prescott.
There was a certain studious mystery about Dr. Orwin Prescott which appealed to a large intellectual class. His periodical retirements from public life, a certain aura of secret studies which surrounded him, and the recent silence of Abbot Donegal, had been interpreted as a piece of strategy, the importance of which might at any moment become manifest. One would have had to search far back in American history for a parallel of the almost hysterical excitement which dominated this packed assembly.
The huge building was entirely in the hands of police and federal agents. Hidden patrols covered the route from the Dumases’ apartment on Park Avenue right to the door of the hall by which Harvey Bragg would enter. Up to an hour before the meeting was timed to open, no one knew where Prescott was, or even if he were in the city. The audience, which numbered over three thousand, had been admitted to their seats, every man and woman closely scrutinized by hawk-eyed police officers. The buzz of that human beehive was something all but incredible.
A military band played patriotic music, many numbers being sung in unison by three thousand voices. Suspense was intense; excitement electrical.
Nayland Smith, in an office cut off from the emotional vibrations of that vast gathering, was in constant touch with police headquarters, and with Fey, who sat at the telephone at the top of the Regal Tower. Mark Hepburn, bearded and bespectacled, ranged the building from floor to floor, reporting at intervals in the office which Nayland Smith had made his temporary base.
Outside, limelight turned night into day, and a team of cameramen awaited the arrival of distinguished members of the audience. Thousands who had been disappointed in obtaining admittance thronged the sidewalks; the corner of 57th Street was impassable. Patrolmen, mounted and on foot, kept a way open for arriving cars.
Hepburn walked into the office just as Nayland Smith replaced the telephone. Smith turned, sprang up.
Sarah Lakin, seated in a rest-chair on the other side of the big desk, flashed an earnest query into the bespectacled eyes. Mark Hepburn shook his head and removed his spectacles.
“Almost certainly,” he said in his dry, unemotional way, “Abbot Donegal is not in the hall, so far.”
Nayland Smith began to walk up and down the room tugging at the lobe of his ear, then:
“And there is no news from the Mott Street area. I am beginning to wonder — I am beginning to doubt.”
“I have deferred to your views, Sir Denis,” came the grave voice of Miss Lakin, “but I have never disguised my own opinion. In assuming on the strength of a letter, admittedly in his own hand, that Orwin will be here tonight, I think you have taken a false step.”
“Maurice Norbert’s telephone message this morning seemed to me to justify the steps we have taken,” said Hepburn drily.
“I must agree with you there, Captain Hepburn,” Miss Lakin admitted; “but I cannot understand why Mr. Norbert failed to visit me or to visit you. It is true that Orwin has a custom of hiding from the eye of the Press whenever an important engagement is near, but hitherto I have been in his confidence.” She stood up. “I know, Sir Denis, that you have done everything which any man could do to trace his whereabouts. But I am afraid.” She locked her long, sensitive fingers together. “Somehow, I am very afraid.”
A sound of muffled cheering penetrated to the office.
“See who that is, Hepburn,” snapped Nayland Smith.
Hepburn ran out. Miss Lakin stared into the grim, brown face of the man pacing up and down the floor. Suddenly he stopped in front of her and rested his hand upon her shoulder.
“You may be right and I may be wrong,” he said rapidly. “Nevertheless, I believe that Orwin Prescott will be here tonight.”
Mark Hepburn returned.
“The Mayor of New York,” he reported laconically. “The big names are beginning to arrive.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Plenty of time yet.”
“In any event,” said Nayland Smith, “we have neglected no possible measure. There is only one thing to do — wait.”
CHAPTER TWENTY. THE CHINESE CATACOMBS (CONCLUDED)
Orwi
n Prescott dressed himself with more than his usual care. Maurice Norbert had brought his evening clothes and his dressing-case, and in a perfectly appointed bathroom which adjoined the white bedroom, Prescott had bathed, shaved, and then arrayed himself for the great occasion.
The absence of windows in these apartments had been explained by Nurse Arlen. This was a special rest room, usually employed in cases of over-tired nerves and regarded as suitable by Dr. Sigmund, in view of the ordeal which so soon his patient must face. The doctor he had not seen in person; quite satisfied with his progress, the physician — called to a distant patient — had left him in the care of Nurse Arlen. Orwin Prescott would have been quite prepared to remain in her care for a long time. Although he more than suspected the existence of a yellow streak in Nurse Arlen’s blood, she was the most fascinating creature with whom he had personally come in contact.
He knew that he was forming an infatuation for this graceful nurse, whose soothing voice had run through all the troubled dreams which had preceded his complete recovery. And now, as he stood looking at himself in the glass, he thought that he had never appeared more keenly capable in the whole of his public life. He studied his fine, almost ascetic features. He was pale, but his pallor added character to the curt, gray military moustache and emphasized the strength of dark eyebrows. His gray hair was brushed immaculately.
The situation he had well in hand. Certainly there were remarkable properties in the prescriptions of Dr. Sigmund. His mental clarity he recognized to be super-normal. He had memorized every fact and every figure prepared for him by Norbert! He seemed to have a sort of pre-vision of all that would happen; his consciousness marched a step ahead of the clock. He knew that tonight no debater in the United States could conquer him. He had nothing to fear from the crude rhetoric of Harvey Bragg.
Satisfied with his appearance, delighted with the issue of this misadventure which might well have wrecked his career, he rang the bell as arranged, and Maurice Norbert came in. He, too, was in evening dress and presented a very smart figure.
“I have arranged, Doctor,” he said, “for the car to be ready in twenty minutes. I will set out now to prepare our friends for your arrival, and to see that you are not disturbed in any way until the debate is over. I have never seen you look more fit for the fray.”
“Thanks to your selection of a remarkable physician, Norbert, I have never felt more fit.”
“It’s good to hear you say so. I’ll go ahead now; you start in twenty minutes. I will collect the brushes and odds and ends tomorrow. I thought it best to arrange for a car with drawn blinds. The last thing we want is an ovation on the street which might hold you up. You’ll be driven right to the entrance, where I shall be waiting for you.”
Less than two minutes after Norbert’s departure, Nurse Arlen came in.
“I was almost afraid,” said Orwin Prescott, “that I was not to see you again before I left.”
She stood just by the door, one hand resting on a slender hip, watching him with those long, narrow, dark eyes.
“How could you think I would let so interesting a patient leave without wishing him every good fortune for tonight?”
“Your wishes mean a lot to me. I shall never forget the kindness I have experienced here.”
The woman’s dark eyes closed for a moment, and when they reopened, their expression had subtly changed.
“That is kind of you,” she said. “For my own part I have only obeyed orders.”
She seated herself beside him on the settee and accepted a cigarette he offered from the full case which Norbert had thoughtfully brought along. Vaguely he was conscious of tension.
“I hope to see you again,” he said, lighting her cigarette. “Is that too much to hope?”
“No,” she replied laughingly; “there is no reason why I shouldn’t see you again, Doctor. But” — she hesitated, glanced at him quickly, and then looked aside— “I have practically given up social life. You would find me very dull company.”
“Why should you have given up social life?” Orwin Prescott spoke earnestly. “You are young, you are beautiful. Surely all the world is before you.”
“Yes,” said Nurse Arlen, “in one sense it is. Perhaps some day I may have a chance to try to explain to you. But now…” She stood up. “I have one more duty before you leave for Carnegie Hall — physician’s orders.”
She crossed to the glass-topped table and, from a little phial which stood there, carefully measured out some drops of a colorless liquid into a graduated glass. She filled it with water from a pitcher and handed it to Orwin Prescott.
“I now perform my last duty,” she said. “You are discharged as cured.”
She smiled. It was the smile which had haunted his dreams: a full-lipped, caressing smile which he knew he could never forget. He took the glass from her hand and drained its contents. The liquid was quite tasteless.
Almost immediately, magically, he became aware of a great exhilaration. His mental powers, already keen, were stimulated to a point where it seemed that his heel was set upon the world as on a footstool; that all common clay formed but stepping-stones to a goal undreamed of by any man before him. It was a kind of intoxication never hitherto experienced in his well-ordered life. How long it lasted he was unable to judge, or what of it was real, and what chimerical.
He thought that, carried out of himself, he seized the siren woman in his arms; that almost she surrendered but finally resisted…
Then, sharply, as lightning splits the atmosphere, came sudden and absolute sobriety.
Orwin Prescott stared at Nurse Arlen. She stood a pace away watching him intently.
“That was a heady draft,” he said, and his tones were apologetic.
“Perhaps my hand shook,” Nurse Arlen replied; her caressing voice was not quite steady. “I think it is time for you to go, Dr. Prescott. Let me show you the way.”
He presently found himself in a small elevator which Nurse Arlen operated. Stepping out at the end of a narrow corridor, and a door being opened, he entered a covered courtyard where a Cadillac was waiting. The chauffeur, who wore driving-glasses, was yellow-skinned — he might have been an Asiatic. He held the door open.
“Good night,” said Orwin Prescott, one foot on the step. He held Nurse Arlen’s hand, looking, half afraid, into her dark eyes.
“Goodnight,” she replied— “good luck!”
The windows were shaded. A moment after the door was closed the big car moved off.
* * * *
Dr. Fu-Manchu sat in the stone-faced room behind that narrow table whose appointments suggested those of a medical consultant. His long yellow fingers with their pointed nails rested motionless upon the table-top. His eyes were closed. The curtain which draped the opening was drawn aside, and Sam Pak entered: “Sam Pak” — a name which concealed another once honored in China.
Dr. Fu-Manchu did not open his eyes.
“Orwin Prescott is on his way to Carnegie Hall, Master,” the old man reported, speaking in Chinese, but not in the Chinese which those of the London police who knew him and who knew something of Eastern languages were accustomed to hear. “The woman did her work, but not too well. I fear there were four and not three drops in the final draft.”
“She is a broken reed.” The sibilant voice was clearly audible, although the thin-lipped mouth appeared scarcely to move. “She was recommended in high quarters, but her sex vibrations render her dangerous. She is amorous, and she has compassion: it is the negroid strain. Her amours do not concern me. If men are her toys, she must play; but the fibre and reality of her womanhood must belong to me. If she betrays me, she shall taste the lingering kiss of death… For this reason I removed her from Harvey Bragg in the crisis, and substituted the woman Adair. You are uncertain respecting the drops?”
The jade-green eyes opened, and a compelling stare fixed itself upon the withered face of Sam Pak.
“I was watching — her hand was not steady; he became intoxicated. By th
is I judged.”
“If she has failed me, she shall suffer.” The guttural voice was very harsh. “The latest report regarding this pestilential priest?”
“Number 25, in charge of Z-cars covering Carnegie Hall, reports that the Abbot Donegal has not entered the building.”
There was a silence of several moments.
“This can mean only one of two things,” came sibilantly. “He is there, disguised, or he is in Federal hands and Enemy Number One may triumph at the last moment.”
Old Sam Pak emitted a sound resembling the hiss of a snake.
“Even I begin to doubt if our gods are with us,” the high, precise voice of Fu-Manchu continued. “What of my boasted powers, of those agents which I alone know how to employ? What of the thousands of servants at my command throughout the world? That Nayland Smith has snapped at my heels — may now at any moment bark outside my door. This brings down my pride like a house of cards. Gods of my fathers” — his voice sank lower and lower— “is it written that I am to fail in the end?”
“Quote not from Moslem fallacies,” old Sam Pak wheezed. “Your long contact with the Arabs, Marquis, is responsible for such words.”
Few living men could have sustained the baleful glare of those jade-green eyes now fully opened. But Sam Pak, unmoved by their hypnotism, continued:
“I, too, have some of the wisdom, although only a part of yours. The story of your life is traced by your own hand. This you know: fatalism is folly. I, the nameless, speak because I am near to you and, loving you, am fearless in your service.”
Dr. Fu-Manchu stood up; his bony but delicate fingers selected certain objects on the table.
“Without you, my friend,” he said softly, “I should indeed be alone in this my last battle, which threatens to become my Waterloo. Let us proceed” — he moved, cat-like around the end of the long table— “to the supreme experiment. Failure means entire reconstruction of our plans.”
“A wise man can build a high tower upon a foundation of failures,” crooned old Sam Pak.