by Sax Rohmer
In his restless promenade he stirred the loose sheets with his foot.
“The grave problems facing the Old World are allotted but little space. The nervous collapse (as such it is accepted) of Orwin Prescott merely occurs as a brief bulletin from Weaver’s Farm. The several murders which have decorated the Doctor’s visit to the United States are falling into the background. Even our Chinatown raid is granted scanty honours. No, Harvey Bragg, the Martyr, continues to dominate the news—his name now coupled with that of Paul Salvaletti. And—a significant fact, as I have said—Lola Dumas is creeping in.”
There was a short silence interrupted only by the buzzing of the telephone, the subdued voice of Fey answering in an adjoining room. Evidently none of the messages was of sufficient importance to demand the presence of Nayland Smith or Hepburn. But Fey would be making careful notes. Smith, staring out of the window, saw that all traces of fog had disappeared; that icily clear visibility which sometimes characterizes New York City in the winter months was prevailing.
“Are you looking at the Stratton Building, Smith?” Hepburn asked.
“Yes,” snapped Smith. “Why?”
“You remember what I told you about the strange man who lives up there at the top—as reported by Robbie Adair?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps—I admit maybe because it is associated with Mrs. Adair, I am very curious about this man. I put inquiries in hand late last night and I have a report this morning. There’s rather a queer thing about the Stratton Building.”
“What is it?”
Nayland Smith turned and looked at Hepbum.
“This—so far as the report goes; it’s by no means complete:
The whole of the building is occupied by offices of concerns in which the late Harvey Bragg was interested.”
“What!”
“The New York headquarters of the League of Good Americans is there; the head offices of the Lotus Transport Corporation; even the South Coast Trade Line has an office in the building.”
Nayland Smith came forward, resting his hands upon the table; bending down, he stared keenly into Mark Hepburn’s eyes.
“This is interesting,” he said slowly.
“I think so. It’s odd, to say the least. Therefore I arranged early this morning to inspect the lightning conductors—by courtesy of the Midtown Electric Corporation. I may discover nothing, but at least it will give me access to a number of the rooms in the building.”
“You interest me keenly,” said Nayland Smith, returning to the window and staring up at the Stratton Building. “The League of Good Americans, eh? You must realize, Hepburn, that the great plot doesn’t end with the control of the United States. It embraces Australia, the Philippines, and ultimately Canada! Middle Western farmers, crippled by mortgages, are being subsidized by the league and sent to Alaska, where unconsciously they are establishing a nucleus of Fu Manchu’s future domination!”
“In heaven’s name where does all the money come from?”
“From the Si-Fan, the oldest and most powerful secret society in the world. If the truth about the League of Good Americans—’America for every man and every man for America’—reached the public, I shudder to think what the reaction would be! But to return to personal matters—What are your plans in regard to Mrs. Adair?”
“I have none.” Mark Hepburn spoke slowly, his usual voice sounding even more monotonous than usual. “I have told you everything I know about her, Smith. And I think you will agree that the situation is one of great danger.”
“It is—for both. I assume that you are leaving it to Mrs. Adair to communicate with you?”
“I must.”
Nayland Smith stared hard for a moment, and then:
“She may be a trump card, Hepburn,” he said, “but frankly, I don’t know how to play her.”
in
“Saw my funny man last night, Goofy,” said Robbie Adair, laying down his porridge spoon and staring up wide-eyed at Nurse Goff. “Funny man who makes heads.”
“I believe he’s just a dream of yours, child,” Nurse Goff declared. “/ have never seen him.”
But Robbie was very earnest on the point, and was not to be checked. According to his account, the mysterious madman who hurled models of human heads from his lofty studio had appeared on the previous night. Robbie had awakened very late; he knew it had been very late “ ‘cause of the way the sky had looked.” He had gone to the window and had seen the man hurl a plaster head far out over the dome.
“I never heard such a silly tale in my life,” Nurse Goff declared. “God bless the child—he’s dreaming!”
“Not dweaming,” Robbie declared stoutly. “Please can I have some jam? Is Mum coming to-day?”
“I don’t know, dear; I hope so.”
“Are we going to the garden?”
“If it’s fine, Robbie.”
Robbie dealt with bread and jam for some time, and then:
“Will Uncle Mark be there?” he inquired.
“I don’t think so, dear.”
“Why not? I like Uncle Mark—all ‘cept his whiskers. I like Yellow Uncle, too, but he never comes.”
Nurse Goff suppressed a shudder. The man whom the boy had christened “Yellow Uncle” terrified her as her dour Scottish nature had never been terrified before. His existence in the life of Mrs. Adair, whom she respected as well as liked, was a mystery beyond her understanding. Rare, though his visits were, that he was Mrs. Adair’s protector she took for granted. But how Mrs. Adair, beautiful and delicately nurtured, ever could have begun this association with the dreadful Chinaman was something which Mary Goff simply could not understand. The affection of Robbie for this sinister being was to her mind even a greater problem.
“Give me an auto on my birfday,” Robbie added reminis-cently; ‘Yellow Uncle did.”
“Gave you an auto, Robbie. God bless the boy! I don’t know where you get these words. . . .”
When, an hour later, his “auto” packed behind in the big Rolls driven by Joe, the cheerful Negro chauffeur, lonely little Robbie accompanied by Nurse Goff set out for his Long Island playground, a “protection” party in a Z-car was following.
Far in the rear, keeping the Z-car in sight, a government car in charge of Lietenant Johnson brought up the rear of the queer procession.
Chapter 27
THE STRATTON BUILDING
Mark Hepburn, in blue overalls and wearing a peaked cap, crept out from a window on to a dizzy parapet. Two men similarly attired followed him. One was an operative of Midtown Electric, the firm which had installed the lighting conductors;
the other was a federal agent. They were on the forty-seventh floor of the Stratton Building. The leaded dome swept up above them; below the New York hive buzzed ceaselessly.
“This way,” said Hepburn, and headed along the parapet.
He constantly looked down into a deep gutter which formed their path until at a point commanding an oblique view of the gulley which was Park Avenue, he pulled up sharply.
Storm clouds were gathering and sweeping over the city. To look upward was to derive an impression that the towering building swayed like a ship. Mark Hepburn was looking downward. He expressed an exclamation of satisfaction.
Fragments of clay littered the gutter; on some of the larger pieces might be seen the imprint of a modeller’s work. The madman of the Stratton Building was no myth, but an actuality!
Hepburn glanced up for a moment. The effect of the racing clouds above the tower of the building was to make him dizzy. He felt himself lurching and closed his eyes quickly; but he had seen what he wanted to see.
Above the slope of the leaded dome was an iron gallery upon which two windows opened. . . . .
“Steady-oh, Captain!” said the government man, seeing him sway. “It’s taken a long time to get up, but it wouldn’t take long to fall down.”
Hepburn, the moment of nausea past, stared again at the fragments at his feet.
“All right
,” he replied; “I was never a mountaineer.”
He knelt down and examined the pieces of hard clay with keen curiosity. They surely formed part of a modelled head, possibly of more than one modelled head; but no one of them was big enough to give any indication of the character of the finished work. Over the shoulder:
“Gather all these pieces together,” he directed, “and bring them away.”
The man from the electric firm watched the two agents in respectful silence.
“Ha! What’s this?” Hepburn exclaimed.
He had come upon a wired frame to which portions of crumbling clay still adhered. But what had provoked his words when he picked the thing up had been the presence upon the wooden frame, fixed by two drawing pins, of what resembled a tiny coloured miniature of a human face, framed around with white paper.
He detached this curious object from the wood and examined it more closely. Raising the mount he stared for a long time at that which lay beneath.
It was a three-cent Daniel Webster stamp, dated 1932, gummed upside down upon a piece of cardboard, then framed by the paper in which a pear-shaped opening had been cut. The effect, when the frame was dropped over the stamp, was singular to a degree. It produced a hideous Chinese face!
Mark Hepburn took out his notecase and carefully placed this queer discovery in it. As he returned the case to his pocket a memory came of hypnotic green eyes staring into his own—a memory of the unforgettable features of Dr. Fu Manchu as he had seen them through the broken window on the night of the Chinatown raid. . . .
Yes, the fact was unmistakable: inverted and framed in this way, the Daniel Webster stamp presented a caricature, but a recognizable caricature, of Dr. Fu Manchu!
A problem for Nayland Smith’s consideration: no more false moves must be made. But here was a building occupied, so far as he knew, entirely by persons associated directly, or indirectly, with the activities of the League of Good Americans. At the top it seemed a madman resided; a madman who modelled clay heads, and who apparently had possessed and thrown away this queer miniature. Definitely there was a link here which must be tested, but tested cautiously.
Thus far he had every reason to believe that his investigation had been carried out without arousing suspicion. He had penetrated to a number of offices on many floors, craning out of windows in his quest of the supposed flaw in the lightning conductors. He had observed nothing abnormal anywhere, and had been civilly treated by a Mr. Schmidt in the office on the street floor, to whom, with his two companions, he had first applied. It remained to be seen if any obstruction would be offered to his penetrating the mysterious apartment which crowned the dome.
Five minutes later he climbed through the window into a room used apparently as a store by the firm leasing this suite of offices on the forty-seventh. He could not restrain a sigh of relief, as, quitting the swaying parapet, he reached the security of a rubber laid floor. Mr. Schmidt, representing the owners of the building, waited there as Hepburn’s companions in turn climbed in through the low window.
“Everything seems to be in order up to this floor,” said Hepburn. “How do we get to the top of the dome? The fault must be there.”
Mr. Schmidt stared hard for a moment.
There’s no way up,” he replied curtly. The elevators don’t go beyond this floor. There’s a staircase to the flagstaff, but the door’s been boarded up. Orders of the Fire Department, I guess. There’s nothing up there; it’s just ornamental.”
“Then how do I carry out the inspection? It will cost plenty to rig ladders. Cheaper to break through to the staircase, wouldn’t it be?”
“That doesn’t rest with me,” Mr. Schmidt replied hastily; “I shall have to ask you to give me time to consult directors on the point.”
Mark Hepburn surreptitiously nudged the representative of Midtown Electric, and:
“When can you let us know, Mr. Schmidt?” the electrician inquired. “We have to make a report.”
“I’ll call you in the morning,” Mr Schmidt replied.
Mark Hepburn experienced an inward glow of satisfaction. Apart from the testimony of Robbie Adair, he himself had seen lighted windows above the dome of the Stratton Building—and to-day they had found conclusive evidence to show that the rooms were occupied!
Chapter 28
PAUL SALVALETTI
Lola Dumas, concealed behind a partly-drawn curtain, looked down upon the crowded terraces. Palm trees were silhouetted against an evening sky; there was a distant prospect of steel-blue sea. The crowds below were so dense that she thought of a pot of caviare. Here was humanity, seemingly redundant, but pulsing with life so vigorous that its vibrations reached her on that high balcony.
They were cheering and shouting, and through all the excited uproar, like an oboe motif in an orchestral score, rose the name of Salvaletti.
Salvaletti!
This was merely the beginning of a triumphal progress which unavoidably should lead to the White House. Lola Dumas clutched the curtain nervously, her delicate fingers, on which she wore too many jewels, quivering with the tension of the moment. And they were still shouting and calling for Salvaletti when at the faint sound of an opening door Lola turned sharply.
Paul Salvaletti had entered the room.
Adulation, long awaited success had transformed the man into a god. His pale face was lighted up, inspired; the dark eyes reminded her of hot velvet. His habitual stoop was tonight discarded. He stood upright, commanding, triumphant. She looked now not upon the secretary of the late Harvey Bragg, but upon Caesar.
“Paul!” She took a step forward. “This is triumph. Nothing can stop you.”
“Nothing,” he replied; and even in speaking that one word the music of his voice thrilled her. “Nothing!”
“Salvaletti for the South!” A cry rose above the uproar below.
A wild outburst of cheering followed. Then came a series of concerted calls:
“Salvaletti! Salvaletti!”
The man plucked out of complete obscurity to be thrust upon a cloudy pinnacle, smiled.
“Lola,” he said, “this was worth waiting for!”
She moved towards him, her graceful bare arms extended, and with a low cry of almost savage delight he clasped her. The world was at his feet—fame, riches, beauty. In silence he held her while, more and more insistent, the demand rose up from the terraces:
“Salvaletti! Salvaletti! America for every man. Every man for America!”
The phone bell rang.
“Answer, Lola,” Salvaletti directed. “I shall speak to no one to-night but to you.”
Lola Dumas glanced at him sharply. The heady wine of success had somewhat intoxicated him. He spoke with an arrogance the very existence of which hitherto he had successfully concealed. She crossed the room and took up the telephone.
A moment she listened; her attitude grew tense; and, ever increasing in volume, the cry “Salvaletti!” swelled up from below. Lola placed the receiver on the table and turned.
“The President,” she said.
Those two words wrought a swift change in Salvaletti.
“What!” he whispered.
For a second he hesitated, then crossing with his characteristic catlike tread, he took up the phone.
“Paul Salvaletti here.”
“I am watching you closely,” came the imperious, guttural voice. “At this stage, you must not make one mistake. Listen now to my orders. Go out upon the balcony of the room in which you stand. Do not speak, but acknowledge the people. Then bring Lola Dumas out on to the balcony, that all may see her. Move in this matter.”
The line was disconnected.
For three, five, ten seconds, as he hung up, Salvaletti’s sensitive nostrils remained distended. He had heard the crack of the whip, had resented it.
“What?” Lola asked.
“An order,” Salvaletti replied, smiling composedly, “which I must obey.”
He crossed, drew the curtains widely apart, and stepped out t
o the balcony. A roar of excited voices acclaimed him, and for a while he stood there, a pale, impressive figure in the moonlight. He bowed, raised his hand and, turning, beckoned to Lola Dumas.
“You are to join me,” he said. “Please come.”
He drew her on to the balcony beside him; and the woman associated for so long with Harvey Bragg, founder of the League of Good Americans, potential saviour of his country, received an almost hysterical ovation. . . .
Back in the room, the curtains drawn, Lola Dumas sank down on a cushioned settee, beckoning to Salvaletti with her eyes and with her lips. He stood beside her looking down.
“Paul,” she said, “did the President give those orders?”
“He did.”
“You see, Paul,” she said very softly, “he has chosen for you. Are you content?”
Chapter 29
GREEN MIRAGE
Mark Hepburn awoke; sat up. He found himself to be clammy with nervous perspiration, and the dream which had occasioned it was still vivid in his mind. It was this:
He had found himself in an apparently interminable tunnel (which he could trace to Nayland Smnith’s account of the attempt to explore the East River water-gate). For a period which seemed to span many hours he walked along this tunnel. His only light was a fragment of thick, wax candle, resembling an altar candle. There were twists and turns in the tunnel, and always in his dream he had hoped to see daylight beyond. Always he had been disappointed.
Some great expediency drove him on. At all costs he must reach the end of this subterranean passage. A stake greater than his life was at hazard. And now, gaping blackly, cross-ways appeared in the tunnel; it became a labyrinth. Every passage revealed by the flickering light of the candle resembled another. In desperation he plunged into one which opened on his right. It proved to be interminable. An opening offered on the left. He entered it. Another endless tunnel stretched before him.
The candle was burning very low; his fingers were covered with hot grease. Unless he could win freedom before that fragment of wick and wax gave up the ghost and plunged him into darkness, he ws doomed to wander forever, a lost soul, in this place deep below the world of living men. . . .