by Sax Rohmer
I confess that that second tunnel which led under the canal presented terrors from which I shrank.
Propping the great door open so that some dim light penetrated to the tomb-like hall, I began to retrace my steps. Approaching me, a ghostly figure, I saw Nayland Smith groping his way by the aid of a tiny torch—none other than his lighter!
He was alone . . .
As we stood together on the steps, buffeted by that keen breeze, and still at the mercy of the enemy should we be attacked from the rear:
“Smith,” I said, for the thought was uppermost in my mind, “what became of her?”
“She had a second set of keys—God knows where she had found them—and was on her way to release us . . . I hadn’t the heart to arrest her.”
We stood there in the stormy night for three, four, five minutes, but no sort of craft was abroad.
“Nothing else to it,” snapped Smith. “We must go through the tunnel. To delay longer would be madness.”
“But the door at this end may be locked!”
“It is—but I have the key”
“You got it from Ardatha?”
“Yes.”
“What of the padlock at the other end?”
“That is unfastened.”
“Which means—someone is expected to go out tonight?”
“Exactly. I leave the identity of that someone to your imagination.”
We groped across the clammy echoing hall. With the key Ardatha had given him, Smith opened the door to that last gruesome tunnel. He locked it behind him.
“That was stipulated,” he explained drily. “It also protects us from the rear.”
We hurried as fast as we could through the fetid passage and up the steps at the end. The trap was open.
As we came out into that black and narrow lane which led to freedom:
“You must be worn to death, Smith,” I said.
“I confess to a certain weariness, Kerrigan. But since frankly I had accepted the fact that I must lose my identity and be transported to some point selected by Doctor Fu Manchu to carry out the duties of another life, this freedom is glorious! But remember: Rudolf Adion!”
“He had an hour—”
“We have less . . . if we are to save him.”
In The Palazzo Brioni
Colonel Correnti sprang up like a man who sees a ghost. Even the diplomatic poise of Sir George Herbert had deserted him. These were the small hours of the morning, but police headquarters hummed with the feverish activity of a hive disturbed.
“The good God be praised!” Correnti cried, and the points of his grey moustache seemed to quiver. “It is Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Mr. Kerrigan!”
“Glad to see you, Smith,” said Sir George drily.
“Quick!” Smith looked from face to face. “The latest news of Adion?”
The chief of police dropped back into his chair and extended his palms eloquently.
“Tragedy!”
“What? Tell me quickly!”
“He disappeared from the suite allotted to him at the palace—it has a private exit—some time during the night. No one can say when. It was certainly a love tryst—for Mr. Kerrigan saw the appointment made. But, he has not returned!”
“He will never return,” said Nayland Smith grimly, “if we waste a moment. I want a party—at least twenty men.”
“You know where he is?” Sir George Herbert was the speaker.
The chief of police sprang up, his eyes mad with excitement.
“I know where he was”
“But where? Tell me!”
“In a room in the Palazzo Brioni—”
“But Palazzo Brioni belongs to Mr. Brownlow Wilton, the American!”
“No matter. Rudolf Adion was there less than half an hour ago.”
As the necessary men were assembled Smith began to issue rapid orders. One party under a Carabinieri captain hurried off to the old stone boathouse. A second party proceeded to the water gate of the Palazzo Mori, a third covered both palaces from the land side. Ourselves, with the main party and the chief of police, set out for the Palazzo Brioni.
It was not clear to me how Smith had determined that this was the scene of our recent horrible adventure, but:
“I counted my paces as I went—and returned—along the passage,” he explained. “There is no shadow of doubt. The room in which we saw Doctor Fu Manchu and Rudolf Adion is in the Palazzo Brioni . . .
Against that keen breeze which shrieked eerily along the Grand Canal, the black police launch headed for the palace. As we slowed up against the water steps, no light showed anywhere; the great door was closed. Persistent ringing and knocking, however, presently resulted in a light springing up in the hallway.
When at last, preceded by the shooting of several bolts, the door opened, I saw a half-clad and very frightened manservant staring out.
“I represent the police,” said Nayland Smith rapidly. “I must speak immediately to Mr. James Brownlow Wilton. Be good enough to inform him.”
We all crowded into the hallway, a beautiful old place in which I had glimpses of fine pictures, statuary and furniture, every item of which I recognized to be museum pieces. The man, pulling his dressing gown about him, stared pathetically from face to face.
“But, please, I don’t understand,” he said. He was Italian, but spoke fair English. “What is this? What has happened?”
In that dimly lighted hall as we stood about him, wind howling at the open door, I could well believe that his bewilderment was not assumed.
“First, who are you?” Smith demanded.
“I am the butler here, sir. My name is Paulo.”
“Mr. Wilton is your employer?”
“Yes sir.”
“Where is he?”
“He left tonight, sir.”
“What! Left for where?”
“For his yacht Silver Heels in the lagoon.”
“But what of his guests?”
“They have all gone too.”
“You mean that the house is empty?”
“Except for myself and the staff, sir, yes.”
One of the party said urgently to the chief of police:
“Silver Heels has sailed.”
“Silver Heels must be overtaken!” snapped Smith. “Send someone to make the necessary arrangements. I leave it to you. But I must be one of the party.”
A man, following rapid instructions from Colonel Correnti, went doubling off.
Turning again to the frightened butler:
“How long have you worked here?”
“Only for two weeks, sir. I was engaged by Mr. Wilton’s secretary. But I have worked here before for others who have leased the palace.”
“Lead the way to the tapestry room lighted by four iron candelabra.”
The man stared in almost a horrified manner.
“That room, sir, is part of what is called the Old Palace. It has long been locked up. I have no key.”
“Nor to the room with the lotus floor?”
Nayland Smith was watching him keenly, his unshaven face very grim.
“The room with the lotus floor!” Paulo’s expression grew even more wild. “I have heard of it, sir, but it is also part of the Old Palace. I have never seen it. Those rooms have a very unpleasant reputation, you understand. No one would lease the palace if they knew of them. The doors have not been unlocked for twenty years.”
“Then one must be broken down. Do you know where they are?”
“I know of two.”
“Go ahead.”
As Paulo turned to obey I heard a sound of distant voices.
“What is that?” snapped Smith.
“Some of the other servants, sir, who have been aroused!” Smith glanced at Colonel Correnti.
“Have this looked into. Colonel,” he said. “You, Paulo, lead on.”
Our party was broken up again. Smith, myself, the chief of police, Detective Stocco and two Carabinieri following the butler. He led us to a do
orway set in an arched recess. A magnificent cabinet—a rare piece of violet lacquer—stood in front of the arch.
“Behind here, sir, is one of the doors, but I have no key to open it.”
“Get this thing out of the way.”
In a few minutes the men had set the cabinet aside. Smith stepped forward and examined an ancient iron lock. He was soon satisfied. He turned and shook his head.
“This is not the door in use. You say you know of another?”
“Yes sir, if you will come this way.”
Aside to me:
“The fellow is honest,” Smith muttered. “This is a very deep plot.” He glanced at his wrist watch as we crossed a deserted dining room. “Our chance of saving Adion grows less and less, but there is someone else in danger.”
“Who is that?”
“James Brownlow Wilton! He is notorious throughout the United States for his Nazi sympathies. The full extent of this scheme is only just beginning to dawn upon me, Kerrigan.”
In a room overluxuriously furnished as a study, Paulo opened a satinwood door inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl to reveal an empty cupboard.
“At the back of this cupboard, sir,” he said, “you see there are very ancient panels. I have always understood it is an entrance to the Old Palace . . .”
* * *
“This door has been used recently. . . It has a new lock!” Smith’s eyes glittered feverishly.
“I don’t think so, sir. Mr. Wilton used the room, and I am sure he did not know of the door. I have always been careful to avoid mentioning to tenants who came anything about those locked rooms.”
“Carbines!” Smith cried on a high note of excitement. “Those two men forward. Blow the lock out. The fate of a nation hangs on it!”
The sound of muffled shots reverberated insanely in that lavishly furnished study. I heard cries—racing footsteps. The other police party dashed to join us . . . The lock was shattered, the door flung open.
“Follow me, Kerrigan!”
Nayland Smith, shining a ray of light ahead, stepped into the dark cavity. I went next, Colonel Correnti close at my heels.
“You see, Kerrigan! You see!”
Descending four stone steps we found ourselves in one of those narrow passages which surrounded the rooms of the Old Palace. I took a rapid bearing.
“This way, Smith, I think!”
“You’re right!” he cried. “Ah! what’s this?”
A door was thrown open, we crowded in, and flashlamps flooded the tapestry room in which I had seen Rudolf Adion confronting Dr Fu Manchu!
The red candles in the candelabra were extinguished, and in the light of our lamps I saw that the tapestry was so decayed as to be in places dropping from the wall. The ebony chair on the dais was there, but save for the extinguished candles, one of which Smith examined, there was nothing to show that this sinister apartment had been occupied for a generation.
During the next hour we explored some of the strangest rooms I had ever entered. We even penetrated to the cellar below the lotus floor. The place still reeked of hawthorn, but that unknown gas was no longer present in anesthetic quantity. A net was hung below the trap . . .
We had a glimpse in those evil catacombs of the Venice in which men had disappeared never to be heard of again.
But not a soul did we find anywhere!
None of the other police parties had anything to report. Rudolf Adion, whose slightest words disturbed Europe, had vanished as completely as in the days of the doges when prominent citizens of Venice had vanished!
It was a fact so amazing that I found it hard to accept. No member of that household had ever entered these locked rooms and cellars. All that I had heard, all that I had seen there might have been figments of a dream! Saving the presence and the evidence of Nayland Smith I should have been tempted to suppose it so.
Yet again, like an evil cloud out of which lightning strikes destruction, Dr Fu Manchu had gone with the breeze, to leave no trace behind!
And Ardatha?
Silver Heels
“Are you ready, Kerrigan?”
Nayland Smith burst into my room at the hotel. A bath and a badly needed shave had renewed the man. He lived on his nerves. To me he was a constant source of amazement.
“Yes, Smith, I’m ready. Is there any more news?”
He dropped down on the side of my bed and began to fill his pipe. Wind howled through the shutters, and this was the darkest hour of the night.
“Silver Heels has answered the radio and is waiting for us.”
“What do you think it all means. Smith? To me it still seems like a dream that you and I were confined there in that vile place. Granting Paulo’s statement to be true, that Brownlow Wilton and his guests had left before my arrival, it’s still incredible. That scene between Fu Manchu and Rudolf Adion . . . Now at this moment I cannot believe it ever happened!”
“Think,” snapped Smith. “The Palazzo Brioni was leased on behalf of Brownlow Wilton by his secretary and a staff assembled. Neither the secretary, one assumes, nor Brownlow Wilton, had the remotest idea of the history of the place. It contained a series of rooms belonging to what is known apparently as the Old Palace which, for good reasons, were shut off—never entered.”
“So far, I agree.”
His pipe satisfactorily filled, Nayland Smith struck a match. While he lighted the tobacco, he continued:
“Only one member of the household, Paulo, the butler who has served there before, knows anything about those hidden rooms. Very well. A genius of evil who does know about them, seizes this opportunity. Wilton, who has upheld to his peril the Nazi banner in the United States, is in a position to entertain Rudolf Adion. Fu Manchu knows that Rudolf Adion is coming incognito to Venice. An invitation to a luncheon party on the millionaire’s yacht is arranged. There are servants of Fu Manchu on board.”
He paused, pushed down the smoldering tobacco with his thumb and lighted a second match.
“At that party, Rudolf Adion meets the woman known as Korean!. He is attracted. She makes it her business to see that he shall be attracted; and of this art, Kerrigan, she is a past mistress. She promises him an appointment, but stresses the danger and difficulty in order to prepare Adion for the journey through those filthy passages . . . No doubt she posed as an unhappily married woman.”
“It’s logical enough.”
“Adion, now enslaved, slips away from the Palazzo da Rosa and goes to the spot at which she has promised to confirm their meeting. In the interval she has consulted Doctor Fu Manchu and the nature of Adion’s reception has been arranged. Luckily, you saw the message delivered. Adion keeps the appointment. . . We know what happened.”
His pipe now well alight, he began to walk across and across the floor.
“But, Smith,” I said, watching him fascinatedly, for his succinct summing up of the facts revealed again the clarity of his mind, “you mean that Brownlow Wilton has been ignorant of this from first to last?”
He paused for a moment, surrounding himself with clouds of smoke, and then:
“Hard to believe, I agree,” he snapped, “but at the moment there is no other solution. Wilton, as you probably know, is an eccentric and a chronic invalid—in fact a dying man. Although he entertains lavishly, he often secludes himself from his guests. We have found out that his decision to leave for Villefranche was made suddenly, but the party was a small one. Two, I think, we have identified.”
I nodded.
There was little doubt that Ardatha had been one of Brownlow Wilton’s guests, according to the account of a police officer who had been on board. His description of the only other female member of the party made it clear that this was Korêani. Paulo’s account of the women tallied.
“It had been most cunningly arranged,” Smith went on, speaking rapidly and resuming his restless promenade. “No doubt Brownlow Wilton met them under circumstances which prompted the invitation. After all, they are both charming women!”
&nb
sp; “You think they flew from Paris and joined the yacht party?”
“Undoubtedly. They were under Si-Fan orders, but Brownlow Wilton did not know it. Where he met them no doubt we shall learn. But the facts are obvious, I think.”
“They cannot possibly have sailed in Silver Heels?”
“No—evidently Doctor Fu Manchu had other plans for them and for himself. But I know, in my very bones I know, that Wilton is in danger. He may even be running away from that danger now . . .”
The Adriatic was behaving badly from the point of view of a naval cutter, when presently we cleared the land and set out to overtake Silver Heels. I thought that the chief of police was not easy as our small craft rolled and pitched in a moderately heavy sea.
However, the storm was subsiding, and a coy moon began to peek through breaking clouds. For my own part I welcomed the storm, for neither the flashes of lightning nor rumbling of distant thunder were out of keeping with my mood.
Unknown to most of its inhabitants, Venice tonight was being combed for one of Europe’s outstanding figures. Reserves of police had been called in from neighboring towns. No representative of a great power was in his bed.
Rudolf Adion had been smuggled out of life.
I think that high-speed dash through angry seas in some way calmed my spirit. Lightning flashed again, and:
“There she is!” came the hail of a lookout.
But from where we sat in the cabin, all of us, I suppose, had seen Silver Heels, bathed in that sudden radiance, a fairy ship, riding a sea bewitched, a white and beautiful thing.
A ladder was down when we drew alongside, but it was no easy matter to get aboard. At last, however, our party assembled on deck. We were received by Brownlow Wilton and the captain of the yacht.
My first glimpse of Brownlow Wilton provoked a vague memory to which I found myself unable to give definite shape.
He wore a beret and a blue rainproof overcoat with the collar turned up, a wizened little man as I saw him in the deck lights, with the sallow complexion of a southerner, peering at us through black-rimmed spectacles.
The captain, whose name was Farazan, had all the appearance of a Portuguese. He, too, was a sallow type; he wore oilskins. The astonishment of the American owner was manifest in his manner and in his eyes, magnified by the lenses of his spectacles.