by Sax Rohmer
Someone had partly raised the front window and opened the shutters. A patch of moonlight shone down upon the floor immediately below my hiding-place and furthermore enabled me vaguely to discern the disorder of the room.
A bulky figure showed silhouetted against the dirty panes. It was that of a man who, leaning upon the window sill, was peering intently in. Silently he had approached, and silently had raised the sash and opened the shutters.
For thirty seconds or more he stood so, moving his head from right to left ... and I watched him through the broken panel, almost holding my breath with suspense. Then, fully raising the window, the man stepped into the room, and, first reclosing the shutters, suddenly flashed the light of an electric lamp all about the place. I was enabled to discern him more clearly, this mysterious spy who had tracked us from the moment that we had left the hotel.
He was a man of portly build wearing a heavy fur-lined overcoat and having a soft felt hat, the brim turned down so as to shade the upper part of his face. Moreover, he wore his fur collar turned up, which served further to disguise him, since it concealed the greater part of his chin. But the eyes which now were searching every corner of the room, the alert, dark eyes, were strangely familiar. The black mustache, the clear-cut, aquiline nose, confirmed the impression.
Our follower was M. Samarkan, manager of the New Louvre.
I suppressed a gasp of astonishment. Small wonder that our plans had leaked out. This was a momentous discovery indeed.
And as I watched the portly Greek who was not only one of the most celebrated mâitres d’hôtel in Europe, but also a creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu, he cast the light of his electric lamp upon a note attached by means of a drawing-pin to the inside of the room door. I immediately divined that my friend must have pinned the note in its place earlier in the day; even at that distance I recognized Smith’s neat, illegible writing.
Samarkan quickly scanned the message scribbled upon the white page; then, exhibiting an agility uncommon in a man of his bulk, he threw open the shutters again, having first replaced his lamp in his pocket, climbed out into the little front garden, reclosed the window, and disappeared!
A moment I stood, lost to my surroundings, plunged in a sea of wonderment concerning the damnable organization which, its tentacles extending I knew not whither, since new and unexpected limbs were ever coming to light, sought no less a goal than Yellow dominion of the world! I reflected how one man—Nayland Smith—alone stood between this powerful group and the realization of their project ... when I was aroused by a hand grasping my arm in the darkness!
I uttered a short cry, of which I was instantly ashamed, for Nayland Smith’s voice came:—
“I startled you, eh, Petrie?”
“Smith,” I said, “how long have you been standing there?”
“I only returned in time to see our Fenimore Cooper friend retreating through the window,” he replied; “but no doubt you had a good look at him?”
“I had!” I answered eagerly. “It was Samarkan!”
“I thought so! I have suspected as much for a long time.”
“Was this the object of our visit here?”
“It was one of the objects,” admitted Nayland Smith evasively.
From some place not far distant came the sound of a restarted engine.
“The other,” he added, “was this: to enable M. Samarkan to read the note which I had pinned upon the door!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE SECOND MESSAGE
“Here you are, Petrie,” said Nayland Smith—and he tossed across the table the folded copy of a morning paper. “This may assist you in your study of the first Zagazig message.”
I set down my cup and turned my attention to the “Personal” column on the front page of the journal. A paragraph appeared therein conceived as follows:—
ZAGAZIG—Z,—a—•g•—a;—z:—I:—g;z,•—a,g;—A—z;i—:G,—z:—a;g—A,z—i;—g•z,•A;g,a•Z—•i;g,z:a,g—:a z i g•
I stared across at my friend in extreme bewilderment.
“But, Smith!” I cried, “these messages are utterly meaningless!”
“Not at all,” he rapped back. “Scotland Yard thought they were meaningless at first, and I must admit that they suggested nothing to me for a long time; but the dead dacoit was the clue to the first, Petrie, and the note pinned upon the door of the house near the Oval is the clue to the second.”
Stupidly I continued to stare at him until he broke into a grim smile.
“Surely you understand?” he said. “You remember where the dead Burman was found?”
“Perfectly.”
“You know the street along which, ordinarily, one would approach the wharf?”
“Three Colt Street?”
“Three Colt Street, exactly. Well, on the night that the Burman met his end I had an appointment in Three Colt Street with Weymouth. The appointment was made by phone, from the New Louvre! My cab broke down and I never arrived. I discovered later that Weymouth had received a telegram purporting to come from me, putting off the engagement.”
“I am aware of all this!”
Nayland Smith burst into a loud laugh.
“But still you are fogged!” he cried. “Then I’m hanged if I’ll pilot you any farther! You have all the facts before you. There lies the first Zagazig message; here is the second; and you know the context of the note pinned upon the door? It read, if you remember, ‘Remove patrol from Joy-Shop neighborhood. Have a theory. Wish to visit place alone on Monday night after one o’clock.’”
“Smith,” I said dully, “I have a heavy stake upon this murderous game.”
His manner changed instantly; the tanned face grew grim and hard, but the steely eyes softened strangely. He bent over me, clapping his hands upon my shoulders.
“I know it, old man,” he replied; “and because it may serve to keep your mind busy during hours when otherwise it would be engaged with profitless sorrows, I invite you to puzzle out this business for yourself. You have nothing else to do until late tonight, and you can work undisturbed, here, at any rate!”
His words referred to the fact that, without surrendering our suite at the New Louvre Hotel, we had gone upon a visit, of indefinite duration, to a mythical friend; and now were quartered in furnished chambers adjoining Fleet Street.
We had remained at the New Louvre long enough to secure confirmation of our belief that a creature of Fu-Manchu spied upon us there; and now we only awaited the termination of the night’s affair to take such steps as Smith might consider politic in regard to the sardonic Greek who presided over London’s newest and most palatial hotel.
Smith setting out for New Scotland Yard in order to make certain final arrangements in connection with the business of the night, I began closely to study the mysterious Zagazig messages, determined not to be beaten, and remembering the words of Edgar Allan Poe—the strange genius to whom we are indebted for the first workable system of deciphering cryptograms: “It may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve.”
The first conclusion to which I was borne was this: that the letters comprising the word “Zagazig” were designed merely to confuse the reader, and might be neglected; since, occurring as they did in regular sequence, they could possess no significance. I became quite excited upon making the discovery that the punctuation marks varied in almost every case!
I immediately assumed that these constituted the cipher; and, seeking for my key-letter, e (that which most frequently occurs in the English language), I found the sign of a full stop to appear more frequently than any other in the first message, namely ten times, although it only occurred thrice in the second. Nevertheless, I was hopeful ... until I discovered that in two cases it appeared three times in succession!
There is no word in English, nor, so far as I am aware, in any language, where this occurs, either in regard to e or any other letter!
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sp; That unfortunate discovery seemed so wholly to destroy the very theory upon which I relied, that I almost abandoned my investigation there and then. Indeed, I doubt if I ever should have proceeded were it not that by a piece of pure guesswork I blundered on to a clue.
I observed that certain letters, at irregularly occurring intervals, were set in capital, and I divided up the message into corresponding sections, in the hope that the capitals might indicate the commencements of words. This accomplished, I set out upon a series of guesses, basing these upon Smith’s assurance that the death of the dacoit afforded a clue to the first message and the note which he (Smith) had pinned upon the door a clue to the second.
Such being my system—if I can honor my random attempts with the title—I take little credit to myself for the fortunate result. In short, I determined (although e twice occurred where r should have been!) that the first message from the thirteenth letter, onwards to the twenty-seventh (id est: I;—g:—z•a•g•A•z;i—;g;—Z,—a;—g•a•z•i;—) read:—
“Three Colt Street.”
Endeavoring, now, to eliminate the e where r should appear, I made another discovery. The presence of a letter in italics altered the value of the sign which followed it!
From that point onward the task became child’s-play, and I should merely render this account tedious if I entered into further details. Both messages commenced with the name “Smith” as I early perceived, and half an hour of close study gave me the complete sentences, thus:—
Smith passing Three Colt Street twelve-thirty Wednesday.
Smith going Joy-Shop after one Monday.
The word “Zagazig” was completed, always, and did not necessarily terminate with the last letter occurring in the cryptographic message. A subsequent inspection of this curious code has enabled Nayland Smith, by a process of simple deduction, to compile the entire alphabet employed by Dr. Fu-Manchu’s agent, Samarkan, in communicating with his awful superior. With a little patience, any one of my readers my achieve the same result (and I should be pleased to hear from those who succeed!).
This, then was the outcome of my labors; and although it enlightened me to some extent, I realized that I still had much to learn.
The dacoit, apparently, had met his death at the very hour when Nayland Smith should have been passing along Three Colt Street—a thoroughfare with an unsavory reputation. Who had killed him?
Tonight, Samarkan advised the Chinese doctor, Smith would again be in the same dangerous neighborhood. A strange thrill of excitement swept through me. I glanced at my watch. Yes! It was time for me to repair, secretly, to my post. For I, too, had business on the borders of Chinatown tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE SECRET OF THE WHARF
I sat in the evil-smelling little room with its low, blackened ceiling, and strove to avoid making the slightest noise; but the crazy boards creaked beneath me with every movement. The moon hung low in an almost cloudless sky; for, following the spell of damp and foggy weather, a fall in temperature had taken place, and there was a frosty snap in the air tonight.
Through the open window the moonlight poured in and spilled its pure luminance upon the filthy floor; but I kept religiously within the shadows, so posted, however, that I could command an uninterrupted view of the street from the point where it crossed the creek to that where it terminated at the gates of the deserted wharf.
Above and below me the crazy building formerly known as the Joy-Shop and once the nightly resort of the Asiatic riff-raff from the docks—was silent, save for the squealing and scuffling of the rats. The melancholy lapping of the water frequently reached my ears, and a more or less continuous din from the wharves and workshops upon the further bank of the Thames; but in the narrow, dingy streets immediately surrounding the house, quietude reigned and no solitary footstep disturbed it.
Once, looking down in the direction of the bridge, I gave a great start, for a black patch of shadow moved swiftly across the path and merged into the other shadows bordering a high wall. My heart leapt momentarily, then, in another instant, the explanation of the mystery became apparent—in the presence of a gaunt and prowling cat. Bestowing a suspicious glance upward in my direction, the animal slunk away toward the path bordering the cutting.
By a devious route amid ghostly gasometers I had crept to my post in the early dusk, before the moon was risen, and already I was heartily weary of my passive part in the affair of the night. I had never before appreciated the multitudinous sounds, all of them weird and many of them horrible, which are within the compass of those great black rats who find their way to England with cargoes from Russia and elsewhere. From the rafters above my head, from the wall recesses about me, from the floor beneath my feet, proceeded a continuous and nerve-shattering concert, an unholy symphony which seemingly accompanied the eternal dance of the rats.
Sometimes a faint splash from below would tell of one of the revelers taking the water, but save for the more distant throbbing of riverside industry, and rarer note of shipping, the mad discords of this rat saturnalia alone claimed the ear.
The hour was nigh now, when matters should begin to develop. I followed the chimes from the clock of some church nearby—I have never learnt its name; and was conscious of a thrill of excitement when they warned me that the hour was actually arrived....
A strange figure appeared noiselessly, from I knew not where, and stood fully within view upon the bridge crossing the cutting, peering to right and left, in an attitude of listening. It was the figure of a bedraggled old woman, gray-haired, and carrying a large bundle tied up in what appeared to be a red shawl. Of her face I could see little, since it was shaded by the brim of her black bonnet, but she rested her bundle upon the low wall of the bridge, and to my intense surprise, sat down upon it!
She evidently intended to remain there.
I drew back further into the darkness; for the presence of this singular old woman at such a place, and at that hour, could not well be accidental. I was convinced that the first actor in the drama had already taken the stage. Whether I was mistaken or not must shortly appear.
Crisp footsteps sounded upon the roadway; distantly, and from my left. Nearer they approached and nearer. I saw the old woman, in the shadow of the wall, glance once rapidly in the direction of the approaching pedestrian. For some occult reason, the chorus of the rats was stilled. Only that firm and regular tread broke the intimate silence of the dreary spot.
Now the pedestrian came within my range of sight. It was Nayland Smith!
He wore a long tweed overcoat with which I was familiar, and a soft felt hat, the brim pulled down all around in a fashion characteristic of him, and probably acquired during the years spent beneath the merciless sun of Burma. He carried a heavy walking cane which I knew to be a formidable weapon that he could wield to good effect. But, despite the stillness about me, a stillness which had reigned uninterruptedly (save for the danse macabre of the rats) since the coming of dusk, some voice within, ignoring these physical evidences of solitude, spoke urgently of lurking assassins; of murderous Easterns armed with those curved knives which sometimes flashed before my eyes in dreams; of a deathly menace which hid in the shadows about me, in the many shadows cloaking the holes and corners of the ramshackle building, draping arches, crannies and portals to which the moonlight could not penetrate.
He was abreast of the Joy-Shop now, and in sight of the ominous old witch huddled upon the bridge. He pulled up suddenly and stood looking at her. Coincident with his doing so, she began to moan and sway her body to right and left as if in pain; then—
“Kind gentleman,” she whined in a sing-song voice, “thank God you came this way to help a poor old woman.”
“What is the matter?” said Smith tersely, approaching her.
I clenched my fists. I could have cried out; I was indeed hard put to it to refrain from crying out—from warning him. But his injunctions had been explicit, and I restrained myself by a great effort, preserving sil
ence and crouching there at the window, but with every muscle tensed and a desire for action strong upon me.
“I tripped up on a rough stone, sir,” whined the old creature, “and here I’ve been sitting waiting for a policeman or someone to help me, for more than an hour, I have.”
Smith stood looking down at her, his arms behind him, and in one gloved hand swinging the cane.
“Where do you live, then?” he asked.
“Not a hundred steps from here, kind gentleman,” she replied in the monotonous voice; “but I can’t move my left foot. It’s only just through the gates yonder.”
“What!” snapped Smith, “on the wharf?”
“They let me have a room in the old building until it’s let,” she explained. “Be helping a poor old woman, and God bless you.”
“Come along, then!”
Stooping, Smith placed his arm around her shoulders, and assisted her to her feet. She groaned as if in great pain, but gripped her red bundle, and leaning heavily upon the supporting arm, hobbled off across the bridge in the direction of the wharf gates at the end of the lane.
Now at last a little action became possible, and having seen my friend push open one of the gates and assist the old woman to enter, I crept rapidly across the crazy floor, found the doorway, and, with little noise, for I wore rubber-soled shoes, stole down the stairs into what had formerly been the reception-room of the Joy-Shop, the malodorous sanctum of the old Chinaman, John Ki.
Utter darkness prevailed there, but momentarily flicking the light of a pocket-lamp upon the floor before me, I discovered the further steps that were to be negotiated, and descended into the square yard which gave access to the path skirting the creek.
The moonlight drew a sharp line of shadow along the wall of the house above me, but the yard itself was a well of darkness. I stumbled under the rotting brick archway, and stepped gingerly upon the muddy path that I must follow. One hand pressed to the damp wall, I worked my way cautiously along, for a false step had precipitated me into the foul water of the creek. In this fashion and still enveloped by dense shadows, I reached the angle of the building. Then—at risk of being perceived, for the wharf and the river both were bathed in moonlight—I peered along to the left....