Sax Rohmer - Fu Manchu 09

by Re-enter Dr Fu Manchu

  Ah! mon Dieu!” She stumbled, turned back, clutched Sergeant Ruppert. “I twist my ankle!”

  Her slender hands—he noted a great violet ring (the colour of her eyes!) on one white finger—slipped around his neck. Her touch made him tremble. And this moment of emotion was the last thing he remembered… . She had turned the bezel.

  He experienced a sensation as though he had been clubbed on the back of his head—and knew no more.

  She had carried out her last task—for she couldn’t afford to fail. In a fractional moment she reversed the bezel—a miniature receiver, tuned to pick up the lethal note from the transmitter in the penthouse. But as the big, good-looking policeman pitched forward and fell on his face, tears dimmed her eyes. She raised the jewelled wristwatch. Her hands trembled when she adjusted the cunning radio mechanism.

  “It is done!” she whispered.

  “Good. Do not return to your apartment. Whatever you leave behind there shall be recovered or replaced. Walk down one more floor. Then use the elevator. You have money with you?”

  “As you ordered, Doctor.”

  “Avoid observation going out. Use a side entrance. Take a taxi to East 74th Street at Park Avenue. A man will be standing outside the drug store on the corner. He will wear evening dress and a red rose in his buttonhole.

  Say ‘Si-Fan’ and he will make all arrangements. Your life is your own… .”

  Chapter 18

  Brian’s vigil at the stairhead proved something of a tax on his nerves.

  If the strange and oddly sinister figure who had dominated the meeting in the penthouse was none other than Dr. Fu Manchu then his uneasy feeling in the presence of the man he had accepted as Otto Hessian called for no further explanation. During the journey from Egypt he had

  had a strong inclination to avoid him, and, as he now recalled clearly, the bogus Nayland Smith had encouraged him to do so, saying, “He has the brains of a genius but the manners of a gorilla… .”

  And now, the fabulous Dr. Fu Manchu was near, on the defensive, at bay!

  Already he had spirited away a physically powerful police officer, armed and keenly alert to danger… .

  In the long, lighted corridor there was unbroken silence. Guests occupying the several apartments were probably away for the evening, he assumed—unless (a disturbing thought) there were other apartments as well as that adjoining their own which harboured servants of the Chinese doctor. He saw again, mentally, the two Asiatic assassins dragging away the body of the unfortunate double.

  Perhaps they had strangled Sergeant Ruppert!

  He changed his position slightly, so that he had his back to a wall; tried to blot out a ghastly memory of the dead man’s face, and to call up the image of Lola.

  What had happened to her? He seemed to have lived through another life since that wonderful hour in her room. In fact, during this one day he had experienced every emotion of which humanity is capable. Love, when he held Lola in his arms; horror, and a great fear, when he saw Nayland Smith lying dead on the floor. And fear had come again—fear that he was insane—when another Nayland Smith had appeared.

  The belief, the conviction, that Lola was nothing more than a decoy of Dr. Fu Manchu’s had brought a sorrow such as he had never known… .

  And now when he knew the truth—she had gone!

  A faint sound broke the silence of the corridor.

  Brian stood, tense, almost holding his breath, listening.

  The sound came from the stair.

  He pulled out the big revolver, readied it for action, and slightly turned his head, looking down. Soft footsteps were mounting the stair. He raised the barrel, sighting it on the bend at which the person coming up would appear.

  No one appeared. But a snappy voice came: “Don’t shoot, Merrick!”

  It was Nayland Smith. A moment later he stood beside Brian. “Phew!”

  Brian felt hot all over. “Glad you spoke!”

  “So I see,” Sir Denis commented dryly. “But don’t relax your vigilance.

  We have the situation in hand, if——”

  “If what?”

  “If we’re not too late.” Nayland Smith spoke in a low tone. “First, we go to our own apartment. Don’t open your mouth while I try to call the penthouse. Remember, the room has been wired.”

  Brian nodded, and they walked along to 420B. Nayland Smith unlocked the door, stood for a moment listening, and then went in. He crossed straight to the penthouse phone, lifted the receiver, held it to his ear awhile and then put it back. He frowned grimly; beckoned Brian to follow and went out of the apartment.

  “Step as nearly like a cat as you can,” he whispered. “I’m going up to listen at the door. If I hear anything we won’t go in alone. We’ll wait for reinforcements.”

  Fighting down a growing excitement (for Lola might be a prisoner there!), Brian watched while Sir Denis quietly unlocked the door to the penthouse stair.

  They stole up.

  The stair opened on a landing, and the door was nearly opposite, as Brian remembered. To their right was the elevator which normally served the penthouse, and beyond, a second door.

  Nayland Smith tiptoed forward, apparently with the intention of pressing his hear to a panel—then paused. Closer contact was unnecessary.

  A voice was speaking, muffled by the intervening door, but still audible —a strident, sibilant voice: “Do you imagine,” it said scornfully, “that your puny interference can check the wheels of the Inevitable? The dusk of the West has fallen. The dawn of the East has come… .”

  Nayland Smith turned, a triumphant grin on his lean face; pointed to the stair. Brian followed him down. Sir Denis partly closed the door below.

  “You heard him, Merrick—you heard him?” he whispered. “One of his favourite slogans. How often have I listened to it! That’s Dr. Fu Manchu!”

  Brian’s heart jumped uncomfortably.

  “Who is he talking to?”

  “I fear—to Lola Erskine… .”

  *

  Brian went through hours of torture in the few minutes that it took to muster the party. Harkness had a search-warrant, and two of the plain-clothes men came from Homicide; for there was evidence to show that a murder had been committed on the top floor of the towering wing of the Babylon-Lido.

  When duties had been allotted, Harkness and another F.B.I, man joined Brian and Nayland Smith, and all four went up to the penthouse.

  Harkness and his assistant—his name was Dakin—were to deal with the kitchen entrance; Brian and Sir Denis concentrated on the other door.

  They stood for a moment, listening.

  Complete silence.

  “Get the door open!” Brian gasped, quivering with suspense. “For God’s sake, open it!”

  Nayland Smith, very grim-faced, put the key in the lock— but never turned it.

  “No, no!” A stifled scream came from inside. “Don’t open that door!

  It’s the end of all of us if you do! Break in at the other end. But don’t open that door!”

  Lola!

  Sir Denis grasped Brian’s arm in a grip that hurt. He withdrew the key.

  “I don’t know what this means, Merrick, but we must do as she directs.

  Come on!” They ran to join Harkness. “In through the kitchen!”

  Harkness unlocked the door. The door swung open.

  Brian tried to hurl himself in. Nayland smith grabbed him.

  “Go easy, Merrick! We can’t be sure. This is my pidgin.”

  An automatic in his hand, Sir Denis stepped warily into a well-equipped kitchenette. Brian followed. There were traces of that peculiar chemical smell which he had noted before, on the night of the demonstration.

  They pushed on into what was evidently a dining-room. But it didn’t appear to have been used for one. The only window was blacked out with heavy velvet drapes. On the buffet odd pieces of chemical apparatus stood, as well as a number of bottles and phials. There was very little furniture except a narrow
table covered with green baize and a large chair. A green-shaded lamp stood on the table—the only light in the room.

  Near the lamp was a cabinet the front of which consisted of a small switchboard.

  “Some kind of radio control,” Nayland Smith commented.

  “In here! Oh! Be quick!”

  Brian, at that wild appeal, pushed past Sir Denis and burst in ahead of everybody.

  He stopped so suddenly that he was nearly floored by the rush from behind.

  The room in which he had witnessed the extraordinary experiment carried out by the man calling himself Dr. Hessian seemed to swim before his eye. A plan of Manhattan still covered the whole of the top of the long table; but the rows of chairs had been removed. The metal containers which had hung from the ceiling were there no longer. The radio set which produced the “inaudible note” remained in its place on a bureau. A small box, which might have been the one used at the demonstration to represent a specially-equipped plane, stood on one end of the table.

  Near by, in a heavy armchair, Lola was seated, white and wild-eyed.

  Her ankles were lashed to the front legs. Both wrists had been tied to the arms of the chair, but she had managed to free her right hand and to tear off the adhesive tape strapped to her mouth.

  It had been done in frantic haste, for her lip was red and swollen.

  Brian sprang to her side and began to unfasten her other wrist, but: “Smash that thing!” she said, in a shrill, unnatural voice, pointing to the little box. “The Sound comes from there! Smash it!”

  Brian stood upright, and ignoring Nayland Smith who had a hand on his shoulder, pulled out the police revolver and fired two shots into the flimsy framework.

  There came a loud explosion, a crash of glass, splinters flew, and one bullet rebounded to be buried in the wall beyond. Then—the box burst into flames!

  Dakin acted promptly. Dashing out to the kitchen, he was back in quick time carrying a big pitcher of water. With this, he dowsed the flaming fragments on the table.

  When Brian turned—Lola had fainted… .

  *

  Brian carried Lola downstairs, using the kitchen entrance. Dakin came with him to unlock the door of the suite. All the other doors along the corridor were wide open, and sounds indicated that the search-parties were at work—apparently without success. As Brian laid Lola on the big couch:

  “She’ll soon pull out of it,” Dakin assured him. “Number One has the heart of a lion. If you have any brandy, I think”— he smiled—”I can leave the patient in your hands. I’ll leave the key, too.”

  Dakin retired, closing the outer door. Brian ran to the buffet and was looking for the brandy when he heard Lola’s voice: “I don’t think I ever fainted in my life before——”

  He turned, ran to her. She was sitting up.

  “Lola, my dearest!”

  “But I do believe a small glass of brandy would do me good!”

  Brian ran back, found the brandy, and poured out a liberal shot.

  He knelt beside her, his arm around her shoulders as she took the glass. Lola smiled, that fascinating, mocking smile.

  “If I drank all this, Brian, I should faint a second time!”

  She took a sip of the brandy, and he drew her to him.

  “Lola!” he whispered.

  “My lips are sticky from that beastly tape,” she protested.

  Brian held her very close, but kissed her gently.

  “I nearly went crazy when I heard you were missing.”

  Lola took another sip and then set the glass down. “So you have found me out.” She spoke softly. “You know what a little liar I am!”

  “I know you have more grit in your little finger than I have in all my hulking carcass!”

  “You mean you forgive me for what I had to do?”

  “Forgive you!” She raised her hand; checked him.

  “Brian, dear, go back now, and let me lie here for five minutes. I shall be quite all right, when I have rested—and cleaned the gum off my face!

  Then I’ll join you.”

  “Leave you here alone! And Fu Manchu——”

  “Fu Manchu is too far away to harm me.”

  “But we heard his voice!”

  “I know you did. He intended you to hear it. But he isn’t there! Go up and see for yourself. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. …”

  And when Brian, torn between his desire to stay with Lola and a burning curiosity, returned to the penthouse, he found the proper entrance door open. Harkness was bending over the cabinet which looked like a radio set, the back of which had been removed. Nayland Smith was pacing the room and twitching the lobe of his ear.

  “How is she?” he rapped.

  “Fine. She’s coming up after a little rest. But where’s … Dr. Fu Manchu?”

  Sir Denis pointed to an open drawer of the bureau.

  “There—all we have of him! A tape-recorder playing back our conversations in Cairo! If you and I had listened a while longer we should have heard my voice as well! Brought over for the benefit of my successor.

  The machine had played right through the records. The cunning devil!”

  Brian stared about the room incredulously, still half expecting to see the dark spectacles of Dr. Hessian (the only picture he had of the dreaded Fu Manchu) peering out from some shadowy corner.

  “But the door! What was the danger of opening the door?”

  “The danger’s on the table there,” Harkness called out. “Three ordinary bell-pushes which were under the carpet where anybody coming in couldn’t miss stepping on one of them!”

  “Wired to the receiver you shot to pieces!” Sir Denis added grimly. “If Lola hadn’t lost her head (although God knows I don’t blame her) we might have disconnected them, and so had the secret of the Sound Zone in our hands!”

  “Then the other thing”—Brian nodded towards the cabinet—”was connected all the time?”

  “It was. One step, and Lola, as well as everyone else and everything breakable in the penthouse, would have gone West! Which reminds me of

  something you may be able to tell me. … The french windows. You saw the demonstration. Why weren’t the windows blown out?”

  Brian thought hard; tried to picture this room as he had seen it then—and a memory came.

  “I think I can tell you. I remember now that just before Dr. Hessian began to talk, the Japanese lowered what looked like metal shutters over the windows, and then drew those drapes over them.”

  “Shutters still there,” Sir Denis told him. “Couldn’t make out if they were a hotel fixture. Now I know, they should be examined. Evidently made of some material non-conductive of the fatal sound.”

  Harkness stood up from his examination of the cabinet, and lighted a cigarette.

  “Fu Manchu planned to leave no evidence, Mr. Merrick,” he remarked. “We found a small, but I guess effective, time-bomb inside this thing! Dakin worked with a bomb-disposal squad in England in the war.

  He’s an expert. He’s out in the kitchen fixing it.”

  “You see, Merrick?” Nayland Smith rapped. “I’m naturally proud of Scotland Yard, but your F.B.I, isn’t without merit. What d’you make of that set, Harkness?”

  “This is by no means an ordinary radio set, Sir Denis. It’s some kind of transmitter. Though what it transmits and where it gets it from are mysteries. We haven’t tinkered with it. That’s a laboratory job. But Dakin thinks it can convert all sorts of sounds into that one, high, inaudible note on which we had a report from Number One. Evidently this note doesn’t become dangerous until it has passed through the special receiver——”

  “It’s the receiver that converts the sound,” a clear voice explained.

  All three turned in a flash. Lola stood there smiling at them. Sir Denis was first with a chair. Lola thanked him and sat down.

  “If you feel up to it, Miss Erskine,” he said quietly, “perhaps you would explain in more detail.”

  “I feel up to
anything. Particularly, I feel like an idiot for getting hysterical and then passing out! You see, Sir Denis, he” (she seemed to avoid naming Dr. Fu Manchu, as Nayland Smith had known others to do), “was good enough to give me all particulars before leaving me to be shattered. The transmitter, he informed me, is really a sort of selector, or filter. It picks up only certain high notes, vocal or instrumental. On an ordinary receiving set this would come through as atmospheric interference. It was the thing that Brian blew up which converted the sound to what he called ‘the super-aural key’ which shatters everything within range.”

  She glanced up as Dakin returned from the kitchen quarters.

  “It’s harmless now, sir,” he reported to Nayland Smith. “We have saved some evidence.”

  Another member of Harkness’s party appeared in the doorway.

  “What now?” Harkness demanded.

  “Doc Alex reports that he’s suffering from thundering concussion …

  but there isn’t a single bruise on his head!”

  “Who’s this?” Brian asked excitedly.

  “Sergeant Ruppert.”

  “Sergeant Ruppert! Where did you find him?”

  “In 420C, the apartment of our next-door neighbours,” Nayland Smith told him dryly, “while you were taking care of Miss Erskine.” He turned to the man at the door. “Does the doctor think he will recover?”

  “He does, sir—and hopes there’ll be no complications.”

  “They found a dead man in there, too, Mr. Merrick,” Harkness broke in. “You mightn’t recognize him, the way he looks now. But up till today we all mistook him for Sir Denis!”

  “I know! But the man in a blue turban?”

  “Prince Ranji Bhutani?” Harkness laughed. “He and his horrible-looking servant have vanished, of course. I don’t imagine the ‘prince’ was wearing his blue turban! They must have got away soon after strangling your double, Sir Denis. We had that pair under observation already and there’s a fifty-fifty chance we pick them up.”

  “If Sergeant Ruppert was found there, they evidently got him, too!”