by Sax Rohmer
Porchester Gate was the gate by which I had come in, and for one mad moment I weighed my chances of bowling the man over and following Ardatha. I think, disastrous though such an assault must have been, that I should have risked it had I not sighted a constable heading in our direction.
I pulled up, breathing heavily, and shrugged my shoulders. That lithe figure was already a phantom in the misty distance. Such a cloud of despair succeeded to the wild joy I had known at the sight of Ardatha, such a madness of frustration, that frankly I think I was on the verge of tears. I clenched my teeth and turned back.
“One moment, sir.”
The park-keeper was following me. Struggling as I was for self-control, I prompted myself: “Don’t hit him. He is only doing his duty. She ran away. You have no case. Be tactful or you will spend the night in a lock-up.”
I slowed my pace.
“Yes—what is it?”
He ranged up alongside. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the nearing figure of the constable.
“I was just wondering why you was in such a hurry, like.”
We were walking along together, now, and I forced a smile, looking at the man’s lined, ingenuous face. I decided that he was an old gamekeeper.
“I wanted to catch somebody,” I said. “I had had a quarrel with my girl friend and she ran away from me.”
“Oh, is that so?” He continued to regard me doubtfully. “Run away had she? Young lady with a cape?”
“Yes. She was wearing a cape. I have no idea where she has gone.”
“Oh, I see. Neither of you lives over on Kensington side, like? “No—neither of us.”
“Oh, I see.” He had accepted me now. “That’s hard luck, sir. She’s a bit high mettled, like, no doubt.”
“She is.”
“Well, them’s sometimes the best, sir, when it comes to a pinch. I reckon when the paddy’s worn out she’ll come back as sweet as honey.”
“I hope so.”
And indeed the man’s simple philosophy had helped to restore me. I was glad that I had not quarrelled with him—and glad that I had told him the truth.
We walked along together through growing dusk. In the shadows about us nothing stirred. Moisture dripped mournfully from the trees. Already, London grew silent at the touch of night. Of Ardatha I dared not think; only I knew that the mystery of her reappearance, and of her flight, belonged to the greater and darker mystery which was Dr. Fu-Manchu.
A sense of evil impending, of some unwelcome truth fighting for admission, oppressed me. When I left Kensington Gardens and heard the gate locked behind me, I stood for a while looking across at my windows.
There was a light in the writing-room and the blinds were not drawn. Except for a big Packard just turning the corner into Craven Terrace, there was no nearby traffic. As I ran across, fumbling for my keys, subconsciously I noted the number-plate of the car: BXH 77. It was rememberable, and I was in that troubled mood when one notes trivialities.
Opening the door, I hurried upstairs. I had much to tell Barton—and much to learn from him. The whole current of my life had changed. I remember that I banged my front door and dashed into the lighted workroom.
Standing by the desk was a tall, thin man, his face tropically brown, his hair nearly white at the temples and his keen eyes fixed upon me. I pulled up suddenly; I could not accept the fact.
It was Nayland Smith!
“Smith—Smith! I was never so glad to see any man in my life!”
He wrung my hand hard, watching me with those questing eyes; but his expression was stem to grimness.
“What has become of Barton?” I asked.
Smith seemed to grow rigid. He positively glared at me.
“Barton!” he exclaimed—“Barton! was Barton here?”
“I left him here.”
He dashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand.
“My God, Kerrigan!” he said; “and you left your front door open—for so I found it. I have been searching London for Barton, and now—”
My fears, sorrows, forebodings, in that instant became crystallized in a dreadful certainty.
“Smith, do you mean—”
“I do, Kerrigan!” He spoke in a low voice. “Fu-Manchu is in London… and he has got Barton!”
* * *
Smith went racing into the spare bedroom; in broken syllables I had told my tale. At the threshold, as I switched on the lights, we both pulled up.
The room was in wild disorder!
“You see, Kerrigan, you see!” cried Smith. “It was a ruse to get you out of the house. Poor Barton put up a fight, by heaven! Look at that smashed chair!”
“His bag has gone!”
Smith nodded and began ferreting about among the wreckage. A heavy cloisonné vase lay beside the bed, although its proper place was on the mantel. He examined it carefully, although I could not imagine what evidence he hoped it might afford. Then, I saw something else.
The room was equipped with an old-fashioned open grate, beside which rested tongs and poker. The fire was not laid, for I had not anticipated receiving a guest, but the iron poker lay half under an armchair! Taking if up I uttered an exclamation.
“Smith, look!”
The poker was bent in an unmistakable, significant manner. Smith grabbed it, held it under the bedside lamp—for darkness had fallen—and touched it at several points with the tip of his forefinger. He tossed it on to the bed and began to stare around, tugging at the lobe of his left ear, a mannerism which I knew well.
“Barton is a powerful man,” he said. “Something snapped when that poker was bent! Amazing that no one heard the row.”
“Not at all. The rest of the house is empty, and my daily woman was gone before Barton arrived.”
My voice sounded dull in my ears. Ardatha had lured me away, and my poor friend had been left alone to fight for his life… Ardatha—
“There are other curious features, Kerrigan.”
Smith dropped to his knees and began to examine the disordered carpet with close attention. He crawled as far as the door.
“Assuming, as we might, that Fu-Manchu’s agents entered shortly after you went out, they had come on very urgent business—”
“Barton’s bag! He told me that it contained something which would have saved you a journey to the Caribbean.”
“Ah!” He stood up. “As I expected. They came for the chart. Barton put up a fight. Now—if they killed him, why carry a heavy body down all those stairs and run the risk of meeting a policeman outside? If he survived, where is he?”
“You say the street door was open?”
“Yes. Quick, Kerrigan! Let us examine the stairs. But wait—first, all the cupboards and other possible hiding places.”
Outside, in Bayswater Road, I heard a bus go by. I imagined it to be laden with home-bound City workers anxious to reach their firesides. The black tragedy of war oppressed them; yet, not one, in passing, would suspect that within sight from the bus windows, two of their fellows faced a terror deeper than that of the known enemy.
My flat had become a theatre of sinister drama. As Smith and I ran from room to room, sharing a common dread, the possibility that we should come upon Barton’s body checked me more than once. It was Smith who opened the big store-cupboard. Smith who explored an old oak wardrobe.
We found no trace.
“Now, the stairs,” he snapped. “We are wasting precious time, but we cannot act without a clue.”
“What do you expect to find?”
“No body was dragged from the bedroom. I have satisfied myself on that point. But it may have been carried. The stair-carpet should show traces if any load had been dragged downstairs—Hullo! what’s this?”
A bell had begun to ring.
“Street door!”
“Down you go, Kerrigan. Have you got a gun?”
“No, but I’ll get one.”
I hurried to my desk, slipped a friendly old Colt into my pocket and went do
wn. Smith, using a pocket-torch was already crawling about on the landing peering at the carpet.
When I reached the front door and threw it open, I don’t quite know what I expected to find there. I found a constable.
“Is this your house, sir?” he said gruffly.
“No; but I occupy a flat on the second floor.”
“Well, then it’s you I want to see. It’s ten minutes after blackout time and you have lights blazing from all your windows!”
As I stared into the darkness beyond—there was no traffic passing at the moment and the night was profoundly still—I realized, anew, the strange power of Dr. Fu-Manchu. So completely had the handiwork of that Satanic genius disturbed us that Smith and I (he, an ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard) had utterly forgotten regulations, and had offended against the Law!
“Good heavens! you’re right,” I exclaimed. “We must be mad. The fact is, constable, there have been queer happenings here, and—”
“None of my business, sir. If you will go up and draw all the blinds in the first place, I shall then have to take your name, and—”
From behind me came a sound of running footsteps.
“He was not carried out, Kerrigan!” came Smith’s voice. “But there’s blood on the third stair from the bottom and there are spots on the paving—What the devil’s this?”
“A serious business sir,” the constable began, but he stared in a bewildered way. “All the lights—”
Smith muttered something and then produced a card which he thrust into the constable’s hand.
“Possibly before your time,” he said rapidly. “But you’ll still remember the name.”
The constable directed his light on to the card, stared at Smith, and then saluted.
“Sorry, sir,” he said, “if I’ve butted in on something more important; but I was just obeying orders.”
“Good enough,” snapped Smith. “I switched off everything before I came down.” He paused, staring at the stupefied man, and then: “What time did you come on duty?” he asked.
“Half an hour ago, sir.”
“And you have been in sight of this door, how long?”
The constable stared as if Smith’s question had been a reprimand. I sympathized with the man, a freckled young fellow with straightforward blue eyes, keen on his job, and one to whom the name of Sir Denis Nayland Smith was a name to conjure with. It occurred to me that he had been held up on his patrol and that he believed Smith to be aware of the fact.
“I know what you’re thinking, sir, but I can explain my delay,” he said.
Smith snapped his fingers irritably, and I saw that a hope had died.
“It was the car running on to the pavement in Craven Terrace,” the man went on. “There was something funny about the business and I took full particulars before I let ’em go.” He delved in a back pocket and produced a notebook. “Here are my notes. It was a Packard—”
Odd are the workings of a human brain. My thoughts as the constable had been speaking, and, it seemed, speaking of matters beside the vital point, had drifted wretchedly to Ardatha. I had been striving to find some explanation of her behaviour which did not mean the shattering of a dream. Now, as he spoke of a Packard, I muttered mechanically:
“BXH 77.”
“That’s it, sir!” the constable cried. ‘That’s the car!”
“One moment,” rapped Smith. “Tell me, Kerrigan, how you happen to know the number of this car.”
I told him that a Packard bearing the number had turned from the main road into Craven Terrace as I had crossed to the door.
“Quick, constable!” He was suddenly on fire. “Your notes. What was suspicious about BXH 77?”
“Well, sir, I have the particulars here.” The man studied his notebook. “The car barged right on to the pavement and pulled up with a jerk about ten yards in front of me. Several people from neighbouring shops ran out. When I arrived I saw that the driver, a foreign looking man, had fainted at the wheel. In some way which I couldn’t make out—because it wasn’t a serious crash—he had broken his arm—”
“Left or right?”
“Left, sir. It was hanging down limp. He was also bleeding from a cut on the head.”
“Good. Go on.”
“In the back I found a doctor and a patient he was removing to hospital. The patient seemed in a bad way—a big powerful man he was, with reddish hair streaked with white; he was only half-conscious and the doctor was trying to soothe him. A mental case—”
“Do you understand, Kerrigan?” cried Smith, his eyes alight. “Do you understand?”
“Good God, Smith—I understand too well!”
“Describe the doctor,” Smith said crisply.
The constable cleared his throat, and then:
“He had a very yellow face,” he replied; “as yellow as a lemon. He wore spectacles with black rims, and was a shortish, heavily-built man. He was not English.”
“His name?”
“Here’s his card, sir.”
As Smith took the card:
“H’m!” he muttered: “Dr. Rudolph Oster, 101 Wimpole Street, W.1. Is there such a practitioner?”
“I was on my way to a call-box when I saw all the lights blazing upstairs, sir. I was going to ask this gentleman to allow me to use his phone.”
“Have you got the doctor’s number?”
“Yes, sir: Langham 09365.”
“Efficient work, constable,” said Smith: “I’ll see that it is recognized.”
The man’s freckled face flushed.
“Thank you, sir. It’s very kind of you.”
“How did the matter end?” I asked excitedly.
“We got the car back on to the road, and I helped to lift the chauffeur from the driving-seat and put him in the back. That was when I noticed his arm—when he began to come to.”
“How did the patient behave?” Smith asked.
“He just lay back muttering. Dr. Oster explained that it was important to get him to a safe place before he recovered from the effects of an injection he had had to administer.”
Smith uttered a sound like a groan and beat his fist into the palm of his hand.
“A suitcase marked L.B. was beside the driver. It was covered in foreign labels. The doctor took the wheel and drove off—”
“At what time?” snapped Smith.
“According to my watch, sir, at 7.13—that is, exactly five minutes ago.”
CHAPTER THREE
BXH 77
“Stop for nothing,” Smith cried to the driver. “Short of murder!
Use your horn. No regulations apply. Move!”
I had had a glimpse of the efficiency of the Metropolitan Police which had been a revelation. Within the last six minutes we had learned that Dr. Oster was a naturalized British subject, a dermatologist, and was not at home; that BXH 77 had been held up, for using an improperly masked headlight, by a constable on duty in Baker Street; that Dr. Oster, who was driving, said that he was taking a patient to a private clinic at North Gate, Regent’s Park. Five motor-cyclists were out, and every police officer and warden in that area had been advised.
Smith was too tensed up for ordinary conversation, but he jerked out a staccato summary as we sped through the black-out, for this London was a place of mystery, a city hushed; the heart of the world beating slowly, darkly.
“The United States have realized that the Panama Canal has two ends. Strange incidents in the Caribbean. Disappearances. Officers sent to West Indies to investigate. Never returned. Secret submarine base. I followed Fu-Manchu to Jamaica. Lost him in Cuba. Barton has picked up some clue to the site of this base. Suspected before I left. Certain now. Got the facts in Norfolk only this morning. Fu-Manchu has returned to England to silence Barton—and, my God! he has succeeded!”
We seemed to be speeding madly into darkness black as the Pit. I could form no idea of where we were: we might have been in the Grand Avenue of Kamak. Vague, elfin lights I saw in the shadows, to ta
ke the place of illuminated windows, blazing sky signs. Sometimes a car would materialize like a form at a spiritualistic séance, only to disappear again immediately. The traffic signals, green, amber and red crosses, appeared and disappeared also like manifestations from another world…
Our car was braked so suddenly that I was nearly pitched out of my seat.
I saw the driver leap to the road and sprint forward to where a torch was flashing—in and out, in and out. Smith was on the running-board when the man came racing back.
“Jump in, sir!” he shouted, “jump in! They passed here only three minutes ago—I have the direction!”
And we were off again into impenetrable darkness. Angry cries I heard as we flashed past crawling traffic, in contravention of the law issuing blasts of warning. Smith had commandeered Scotland Yard’s ace driver. I was wild with the spirit of the chase.
Barton’s life was at stake—and more…
Our brakes shrieked again, and the speeding car skidded to a perilous halt. We were all out in a trice.
In the light of torches carried by Smith and the driver I saw a police cyclist lying beside a wrecked motor-bike almost under our front wheels!
“Are you badly hurt?” cried Smith.
The man raised a pale face to the light. Blood was trickling down from his brow; his black steel helmet had fallen off.
“Broken ankle, I think. This—” he touched his head—“is nothing. Just get me on to the pavement. It wasn’t your car that hit me, sir.”
We lifted him out of the traffic-way, seating him against the railings of a house veiled in darkness. Our driver bent over him.
“If you can bear it, mate,” he said, “give us the news. Have you sighted the Packard? We’re Scotland Yard. This is Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”
The man looked up at Smith. Obviously, he was in great pain, but he spoke calmly.
“I followed BXH 77 to this spot, sir. Having identified the number, I passed the car and signalled to the driver to pull up—”
“What happened?” snapped Smith.
“He ran me down!”
“Where did he go?”
“First left, sir—two houses beyond.”
“How long ago?”