by Sax Rohmer
“We don’t know which way it opens,” he whispered— “always supposing it does open.”
The spar separated the two men.
“That doesn’t matter. Ring seven times.”
Police Captain Corrigan raised his hand to a sunken bell-push and pressed it seven times. Almost immediately the door opened. Beyond was cavernous darkness.
“Go to it, boys!” Corrigan shouted.
Lustily the spar was plunged through the opening. Nayland Smith and Corrigan shot rays of light into the black gap. Somewhere above a whistle blew. There came a rush of hurrying footsteps upon planking, a subdued uproar of excitement.
“Come on, Corrigan!” snapped Nayland Smith.
Corrigan leaped over the spar and followed his leader into black darkness now partly dispersed by the light of two torches. It was a brick tunnel in which they found themselves, illimitable so far as the power of the lights was concerned. Corrigan paused, turned, and:
“This way, boys!” he shouted.
The patter of feet echoed eerily in that narrow passage. Vaguely, against reflection from the river, the spar could be seen jammed across the doorway. Nayland Smith’s light was already far ahead.
“Wait for me, Chief!” Corrigan yelled urgently.
The officer in charge of the hidden party which secretly had been assembled for many hours appeared, a silhouette against a background of shimmering water, leading his men as Corrigan sprang along the tunnel behind Nayland Smith.
Five paces Corrigan had taken when Nayland Smith turned.
“Wait for the men, Corrigan,” he cried, his snappy instructions echoing weirdly.
Corrigan paused, turned, and looking back. A line of figures, ant-like, streamed in from the river opening. Then:
“My God! what’s this?” Corrigan groaned.
Something, something which created a shattering crash, had blotted out the scene. Corrigan turned his light back. Nayland Smith was running to join him.
An iron door, resembling a sluice-gate, had been dropped between them and the river. . . . They were cut off!
Chapter 24
SEIGE OF CHINATOWN
The temple of the seven-eyed goddess was illuminated by light which shone out from its surrounding alcoves. Since each of these was draped by a curtain of different colour, the effect was very curious. These curtains were slightly drawn aside so that from the point occupied by the seven-eyed idol it would have become apparent that many cells were occupied.
There were shadowy movements depicted upon the curtains. At the sound of a gong these movements ceased.
The brazen note was still humming around the vault-like place when Dr. Fu Manchu came in. He wore his yellow robe, and a mandarin’s cap was set upon his high skull. He took his seat at a table near the pedestal of the carved figure. He glanced at some notes which lay there.
“Greeting,” he said gutturally.
A confused murmur of voices from his hidden audience responded.
“I may speak in English,” he continued, his precise voice giving its exact value to every syllable which he uttered, “for I am informed that this language is common to all of us present to-night. Those of the Seven not here in person are represented by their accredited nominees, approved by the council. But in accordance with our custom whereby only one of all the Seven shall know the other six, it has been necessary, owing to the presence of such nominees, to hold this meeting in the manner arranged.”
A murmur which might have been one of assent greeted his words.
“I have succeeded in placing the chief executive we have selected in a position from which no human agency can throw him down. You may take it for granted that he will enjoy the support of the League of Good Americans. The voice of the priest, Patrick Donegal, I have not yet contrived wholly to control. . . . Because of a protective robe which seems to cover him, I regard this priest as the challenge of Rome to our older and deeper philosophy. . . .
“Suitable measures will be taken when the poppy is in flower. There is much more which I wish to say, but it must be temporarily postponed, since I have arranged that we shall all hear our chosen executive speak to-night. He is addressing a critical audience in the assembly hall in which Harvey Bragg formerly ruled as king. This is his second public address since Bragg was removed. It will convince you more completely than any words of mine could do of the wisdom of our selection. I beg for silence: you are now listening to a coast-to-coast broadcast.”
So closely had Dr. Fu Manchu timed his words that the announcer had ceased speaking when radio contact was made.
Tremendous uproar rose to an hysterical peak, and then slowly subsided. Paul Salvaletti began to speak a speech destined both by virtue of beauty, phrasing and the perfect oratory of the man to find a permanent place in American forensic literature.
Salvaletti, to be known from that hour as “Silver Tongue,” was, as befitted a selection of Dr. Fu Manchu, probably one of the four greatest orators in the world. Trained by the Oratorian fathers and then perfected in a famous dramatic academy of Europe, he spoke seven languages with facility, and he learned the subtle art of mass control as understood by the Eastern adepts in the Tiberan monastery of Rache Churan. For two years, efficiently but unobtrusively, he had laboured in silence as confidential secretary to Harvey Bragg. He had the absolute confidence of Harvey Bragg. He had a more intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the League of Good Americans, of the Lotus Transport Corporation, and of the other enterprises which had formed the substantial background of the demagogue, than any man living. He understood human nature, but had the enormous advantage over Bragg of a profound culture. He could speak to the South in the language of the South; he could speak to the world in the language of Cicero.
He began, with perfect art, to deliver this modern version of Mark Antony’s oration over the body of Caesar. . . .
“What in hell’s this?” growled Police Captain Corrigan. “We’re jammed!”
The light of his torch and that of Nayland Smith’s became concentrated upon the iron door which had fallen behind them. Dimly, very dimly, they could hear the voices of the party outside.
“Hadn’t counted on this,” muttered Nayland Smith. “But we mustn’t get bothered—we must think.”
“Looks to me, Chief,” said the police officer, “as if the seven rings work automatically, and that after an interval this second door comes down—like as not to make sure that a big party isn’t bullying in.”
“Something in that Corrigan,” Nayland Smith rapped. “Outstanding point is—we are cut off.”
“I know it.”
They stood still, listening. Shouted orders from somebody who had taken charge became dimly audible. Words reached their ears as mere murmurs. The iron door was not only heavy but fitted perfectly in its grooves.
“Can you hear a sound like water, Chief?” Corrigan said in a low voice.
“Yes.”
The ray from Nayland Smith’s torch searched the floor, the walls, as far ahead as it could reach, revealing nothing but an apparently endless brick tunnel.
“I kind of fancy,” Corrigan went on, “that I’ve heard there used to be a brook or a stream hereabouts in the old days, and that it was switched into a sewer. You can hear running water?”
“I can,” said Nayland Smith.
“I guess we’re beside it or over it. Used to run from some place near Columbus Park where there was a pond. . . .”
“We have to suppose,” said Nayland Smith quietly, “that so far everything is in order——”
“Except that we’re trapped!”
“I mean, if, as you suggest, the river door opens mechanically and this outer door falls at an agreed interval, we shall be quite safe in pushing ahead.”
“I should feel safer with forty men behind me.”
“So should I. The proper routine would be in all probability to re-close the river door, ring the bell seven times, and continue in this way until the whole party was inside
.”
“Sounds reasonable—but how do we do it? . . . Hullo! Look at this!”
Corrigan directed the light of his torch downwards; his hand shook with excitement. Discord of shouting voices grew louder. A crack appeared at the bottom of the iron door. Slowly, it was being raised!
“The opening of the outer door drops it automatically in half a minute or less,” said Nayland Smith. “Normally it is raised when the door is closed. They must have moved the spar. Contact has been established which raises it again.”
“I’m waiting,” Corrigan replied grimly, his gaze fixed upon the slowly moving door. “I’m not built like an eel. When I can get out I’ll be the first to cheer. . . .”
In the streets of Chinatown a cordon had been drawn around the suspected area. During the course of the day a census had been taken of the inhabitants in the section indicated by Nayland Smith; outgoings and incomings, all had been accounted for. Most of those interrogated were Chinese, and the Chinaman is a law-respecting citizen. Almost any other would have openly resented the siege conditions to which the inhabitants of this section of New York City found themselves subjected on this occasion.
Mark Hepburn with a guard of three men directed operations. He was feverishly anxious, as his deep-set eyes indicated to everyone he approached. His duty was to make sure that none of the invisible members of Dr. Fu Manchu’s organization should escape by the street exits which the vigilance of government men and police engaged upon the inquiry had failed to detect. The importance of his duty was great enough to enable him to force into the background the problem of Moya Adair. Apart from his personal interest, she formed an invaluable link, if only he could succeed in reconciling his conscience with his duty, his own interests with those of the State.
The night had grown bitterly cold; high winds had blown themselves away across the Atlantic; the air had that champagne quality which redoubles a man’s vigour.
Many streets were barricaded; a sort of curfew had been imposed upon part of Chinatown. Every householder had been made responsible for the members of his household. Restaurants and cafes were scrutinized from cellar to roof, particularly Wu King’s Bar. Residents returning to the barricaded area were requested to establish their identity before being admitted. Visitors who did not reside there were escorted to their destinations and carefully checked up.
Mark Hepburn had tackled the situation with his usual efficiency. Pretence had been cast aside. All Chinatown knew that the section was being combed for one of the big shots of the underworld.
And all Chinatown remained in suspense; for now the news had spread through those mysterious channels which defy Occidental detection that other members of the Council of the Seven of the Si-Fan were in the city. The dreaded Black Dragon Society of Japan was no more than an offshoot of the Si-Fan, which embraced in its invisible tentacles practically the whole of the coloured races of the world. No dweller east of Suez or west of it to Istanbul would have gambled a dollar on the life of a man marked down by the Si-Fan.
in
In the cave of the seven-eyed goddess Dr. Fu Manchu sat, eyes closed, long, ivory hands extended upon the table before him, listening to the silver tones of that distant speaker, to the rising excitement of the audience which he addressed; an audience representing but a fraction of that which from coast to coast hung upon his words—words destined to play a strange part in the history of the country. The other listeners, invisible in queer cells which surrounded the central apartment, were equally silent, motionless.
In the seventh of these, that which communicated with a series of iron doors protecting the place from the street above, old Sam Pak crouched mummy-like upon a settee listening with others to that wonderful, inspiring voice speaking in a southern state.
A very faint buzz directly above his head resulted in slitlike eyes being opened in the death mask. Sam Pak turned, glanced up. A tiny disc of blue light showed. Slowly he nodded his shrivelled head and watched this blue light. Two, three, four minutes elapsed—and the blue light still prevailed. Where upon that man of vast knowledge and experience acted. There was something strange here.
The appearance of the blue light was in order, for a seventh representative even now was expected by way of the river-gate. The blue light indicated that the river-gate had been opened by one of the two men on duty who knew its secret. Its persistence indicated that the river-gate had not been re-closed; and this was phenomenal.
But even as Sam Pak stood up and began silently to shuffle in the direction of the door, the blue light flickered, dimmed, flickered again and finally went out.
Something definitely was wrong!
A lesser man would have alarmed the council, but Sam Pak was a great man. Quietly he opened the iron door and ascended the stairs beyond. He opened a second door and mounted higher, switching on lights. Half-way along a stone-faced corridor, stone-paved, he paused beneath a pendant lamp. Reaching up he pulled this pendant.
It dropped, lever fashion, and a section of the seemingly solid wall some five feet high and three feet wide dropped backward like a drawbridge. So perfectly was it fitted, so solid its construction, that he would have been a clever detective indeed who could have found it when it was closed.
Sam Pak, stooping, went into the dark opening. An eerie lapping of moving water had become audible at the moment that the secret door had dropped back. There was a dank, unwholesome smell. He reached for, and found, an iron rail;
then from beneath his blue robe he produced a torch and shone its ray ahead.
He stood on a gallery above a deep sewer, an inspection-gallery accessible to, and sometime used by, the sanitary authorities of the city. Into this a way had been struck from the secret warren below Chinatown and another way out at the farther end by the river bank.
He moved slowly along, a crouched, eerie figure in a whispering, evil place.
At a point where the oily waters disappeared beneath an arch, the gallery seemingly ended, and before a stone wall he paused.
His ancient, clawlike hands manipulated some piece of mechanism, and a small box came to light, a box in which a kind of telephone stood. Sam Pak raised the instrument; he listened.
“Chee, chee, chee!” he hissed.
He hung up the telephone, re-closed the box in which it was hidden and began to return along the iron gallery, moving now with extraordinary rapidity for a man of his years. The unexpected, but not the unforeseen, had happened.
The enemy had forced the water-gate.
IV
At the corner of Doyers Street a crowd had gathered beyond the barricade. Those who wished to pass were referred by the police officer on duty to another point, which necessitated a detour. A tall, bearded man, his coat collar turned up and his hat brim pulled down, stood beside a big car, the windows of which were bullet-proof, lurking in shadow and studying the group beyond the barricade. A messenger from local police headquarters made his way to his side.
“Captain Hepburn?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“We seem to have lost contact with the party operating under Federal Officer Smith down on East River.”
“No news?”
“Not a thing.”
Mark Hepburn experienced a sudden, great dread. The perils of the river-gate, although a large party had been assembled, were unknown—unknown as the resources of the formidable group which Nayland Smith sought to break up. His quick imagination presented a moving picture of things which might have happened. Johnson was perfectly capable of taking charge of routine here on the street; indeed, Johnson had done most of the work, Hepburn merely supervising and taking reports. On the other hand, a dash to the waterfront would be technically to desert his post. He turned to the man beside him.
“Go personally,” he directed in his monotonous way; “take a launch if you can’t make it on shore. Then hurry right back to me to report just what you have seen.”
“All right, Captain.”
The man set out.
/> Mark Hepburn entered the bullet-proof car and gave brief directions to the driver.
Outside Wu King’s Bar the car stopped. Mark Hepburn went in, followed by the three men who had accompanied him. The place was almost wholly patronized by Asiatics, except when squads of sightseers were brought there, Wu King’s being one of the show places in Chinatown tours.
A buzz of conversation subsided curiously as the party entered. Following Hepburn’s lead they walked through the restaurant to the bar at the farther end, glancing keenly at the groups of men and women occupying the tables set in cubicles. Behind the bar Wu King, oily and genial, presided in person, his sly eyes twinkling in a fat, pock-marked face.
“Ah, gen’I’men,” he said, rubbing his hands and speaking with an accent which weirdly combined that of the Bowery and Shanghai, “you want some good beer, eh?”
Everyone in the place except Wu King spoke now in a lowered voice; this serpentine hissing created a sinister atmosphere.
“Yes,” said Hepburn, “some beer and some news.”
“Anything Wu King know, Wu King glad to tell.” He pumped up four glasses of creamy lager. “Just say what biting you and Wu King put right, if know enough, which probably not.”
Mark Hepburn paid for the beer and nodded to his companions. Leaning against the bar they all directed their attention toward the groups in the little cubicles. There was another room upstairs, and according to the local police, still another above that where fan-tan and other illegal amusements sometimes took place.
“You seem to be pretty busy?” Hepburn said.
“Yes,” The Chinaman revealed a row of perfect but discoloured teeth. “Plenty busy. Customers complain funny business outside. You gen’I’men know all about it I guess?”
“My friends here may know. What I want is copy.”
“Oh sure! You a newspaperman?”
“You’ve got it, Wu. I guess you know most of your customers?”
“Know ‘em all, mister. All velly old friend. Some plenty money, some go tick, but all velly good friend. Chinaman good friend to each other, or else”—he shrugged his shoulders— “What become of Chinaman?”