by Sax Rohmer
Chapter VI
When Morris Craig returned to his office, it remained as he had left it, illuminated only by two desk lights. He glanced automatically at the large electric clock on the wall above and saw that the hour was nine-fifty-five. He took off his topcoat and hung it up with his hat and jacket.
He was back on time.
What had Nayland Smith said?—”You’re a pure fanatic. Some lunatic like you will blow the world to bits one of these days. You’re science drunk. Even now, you’re dancing to get away . . .”
Craig stared out of the window. Many rooms in that towering building which overtopped the Huston were dark now, so that he thought of a London coster dressed in “pearlies” from which most of the buttons had been torn off. Yes, he had felt eager to get back.
Was it the call of science—of that absorbing problem which engaged his mind? Or was it, in part at least, Camille?
If the latter, then it simply wouldn’t do. In the life of a scientist steeped in an investigation which might well revolutionize human society there was no place for that sort of thing. When his work was finished—well, perhaps he might indulge in the luxury of thinking about an attractive woman.
Thus, silently. Dr. Morris Craig communed with himself— quite failing to appreciate the fact that he was thinking about an attractive woman all the time.
Nayland Smith suspected this interest. Hard to deceive Smith. And, somehow (Craig couldn’t pin down the impression), he felt that Smith didn’t approve. Of course, recognition had come to Craig, suddenly staggeringly, of the existence of danger he had never suspected.
He moved among shadowy menaces. Not all of them were intangible. He had seen the hand of Dr. Fu Manchu stretch out, fail in its grasp, and then bestow life upon one given up to death.
Dr. Fu Manchu . . . No, this was not the time to involve a girl in the affairs of a man marked down by Dr. Fu Manchu.
Craig glanced towards the door of Camille’s room, then sat down resolutely and touched a control.
“Laboratory,” came. “Regan here.”
“Thought I’d let you know I’m back, Regan. How are the readings?”
“Particularly irregular. Doctor. You might like to see them?”
“I will, Regan, presently. Nothing else to report?”
“Nothing.”
Craig stood up again, and crossed to the office door, which he opened
“Sam!”
“Hello,boss?”
Sam emerged from some cubbyhole which served as his headquarters. He had discarded the leather jacket and the cap with a long peak, and was resuming overalls and eye shade.”
“Is there any need for you to hang around?”
“Sure—plenty. Mr. Regan he told me to report back. There’s some job in the lab needs fixing up.”
“I see.” Craig smiled. “You’re not just sort of killing time until I go home, so that you can dog my weary footsteps?”
Sam tried an expression of injured innocence. But it didn’t suit him.
“Listen, Doctor—”
“Sir Denis tipped you to keep an eye on me until I was tucked up safely in my downy cot. Did he or didn’t he?”
“Well, maybe he figures there’s perils in this great city—”
“You mean, he did?”
“I guess that’s right.”
“I thought so. Just wanted to know.” Craig took out his keys and turned. “I’m going into the lab now. Come on.”
Followed by Sam, he crossed and went up the three steps to the metal door. As he unlocked it, eerie greenish-grey light shone out and a faint humming sound, as of a giant hornets’ nest, crept around the office. A moment later, the door closed as they went in.
The office remained silent and empty whilst the minute hand of the clock swept the dial three times. There was an attachment which sounded the hours, and its single bell note had just rung out on the stroke of ten, when Camille came in.
She stood quite still for a moment one hand resting on the edge of the door, her slim fingers looking curiously listless. Then she came right inside and opened her handbag. Taking out the black-rimmed glasses, she stared at them as though they were unfamiliar in some way. Her glance wandered to the clock.
It would have seemed to one watching her that the clock had some special significance, some urgent message to impart; for Camille’s expression changed. Almost, she might have been listening to explicit instructions. Her gaze grew alert.
She crossed to her room and went in, leaving the door half open.
Then, again, silence fell. By ones and twos, the gleaming buttons imagined by Craig disappeared from the pearly scheme which decorated a nocturne framed by long windows.
When Craig opened the laboratory door, he paused at the head of the steps.
“Be at ease, Sam. I will not stir a yard without my keeper.”
He closed and locked the door, came down, and went straight across to the safe. Resolutely he avoided looking toward Camille’s room to see if she had come back.
From his ring he selected the safe key, and spun the dial. Not until he took out his big drawing board, and turned, did he see Camille.
She stood right at his elbow, in shadows.
Craig was really startled.
“Good Lord, my dear!—I thought I’d seen a ghost!”
Camille’s smile was vague. “Please forgive me. Didn’t—you know—I was here?”
Craig laughed reassuringly.
“Forgive me. I shouldn’t be such a jumping frog. When did you come in?”
“A few minutes ago.” He saw now that she held a notebook in her hand. “There is this letter to Dr. White, at Harvard. I must have forgotten it.”
Craig carried the board over to its place and fixed it up. Camille slowly followed. When he was satisfied, he suddenly grasped her shoulders and turned her around so that the reflected light from the drawing desk shone up onto her face.
“My dear—er—Miss Navarre, you have, beyond any shade of doubt, been overdoin’ it. I warned you. The letter to Dr. White went off with the other mail. I distinctly recall signing same.”
“Oh!” Camille looked down at her notebook.
Craig dropped his hands from her shoulders and settled himself on the stool. He drew a tray of pencils nearer.
“I quite understand,” he said quietly. “Done the same thing myself, lots of times. Fact is, we’re both overtired. I shan’t be long on the job tonight. We have been at it very late here for weeks now. Leave me to it. I suggest you hit the hay good and early.’
“But—I am sorry”—her accent grew more marked, more fascinating—”if I seem distrait—”
“Did you cut out for eats, as prescribed?”
Craig didn’t look around.
“No. I—just took a walk “
“Then take another one—straight home. Explore the icebox, refresh the tired frame, and seek repose. Expect you around ten in the morning. My fault, asking you to come back.”
* * *
Camille sat on the studio couch in her small apartment, trying to reconstruct events of the night.
She couldn’t.
It baffled her, and she was frightened.
There were incidents which were vague, and this was alarming enough. But there were whole hours which were entirely blank!
The vague incidents had occurred just before she left the Huston Building. Morris had been wonderfully sympathetic, and his kindness had made her desperately unhappy. Why had this been so? She found herself quite unable to account for it. Their entire relationship had assumed the character of an exquisite torture; but what had occurred on this particular occasion to make the torture so poignant?
What had she been doing just before that last interview!
She had only a hazy impression of writing something in a notebook, tearing the page off, and—then?
Camille stared dreamily at the telephone standing on her bureau. Had she made a call since her return? She moved over and took up the waste-basket
. There were tiny fragments of ruled paper there. Evidently she had torn something up, with great care.
Her heart beginning to beat more swiftly, she stooped and examined the scraps of paper, no larger than confetti disks. Traces of writing appeared, but some short phrase, whatever it was, had been torn apart accurately, retorn, and so made utterly undecipherable.
Camille dropped down again on the divan and sat there staring straight before her with unseeing eyes.
Could it be that she had overtaxed her brain—that this was the beginning of a nervous collapse? For, apart from her inability to recall exactly what she had done before leaving the office, she had no recollection whatever, vague or other wise, of the two hours preceding her last interview with Morris!
Her memory was sharp, clear-cut, up to the moment she had lifted the phone on her own desk to make a certain call. This had been some time before eight. Whether she ever made that call, or not, she had no idea. Her memory held no record of the interval between then and Morris telling her she seemed tired and insisting that she go home.
But over two hours had elapsed—two lost hours!
Sleep was going to be difficult. She had an urge for coffee, but knew that it was the wrong thing in the circumstances. She went into the kitchenette and cut herself two sandwiches. She ate them standing there while she warmed some milk. This, and a little fruit, made up her supper.
When she had prepared the bed and undressed, she still felt wide-awake but had no inclination to read. Switching the lights off, she stood at the window looking down into the street. A number of darkened cars were parked on both sides, and while she stood there several taxis passed. There were few pedestrians.
All these things she noted in a subconscious way. They had no particular interest for her. She was trying all the time to recapture those lost hours. Never in her life before had such a thing happened to her. It was appalling . . .
At last, something taking place in the street below dragged her wandering mind back to the present, the actual.
A big man—abnormally big—stood almost opposite. He appeared to be looking up at her window. Something in his appearance, his hulking, apelike pose, struck a chord of memory, sharp, terrifying, but shapeless, unresolved.
Camille watched him. His presence might have nothing to do with her. He could be looking at some other window. But she felt sure he was looking at hers.
When, as she watched, he moved away, loose-armed and shambling, she stepped to the end of the bay and followed his ungainly figure with her eyes. From here, she could just see Central Park, and at the comer the man paused—seemed to be looking back.
Camille stole across her darkened room to the lobby, and bolted and chained the door.
A wave of unaccountable terror had swept over her.
Why?
She had never, to her knowledge, seen the man before. He was a dangerous-looking type, but her scanty possessions were unlikely to interest a housebreaker. Nevertheless, she dreaded the dark hours ahead and knew that hope of sleep had become even more remote.
Lowering the Venetian blinds, she switched up her bedside lamp and toyed with a phial of sleeping tablets. She had known many restless nights of late, but dreaded becoming a drug addict. Finally, shrugging her shoulders, she swallowed one, got into bed, and sipped the rest of the warm milk.
She did not recall turning the light out. But, just as she was dozing off, a sound of heavy, but curiously furtive, footsteps on the stair aroused her. There was no elevator.
The sound died away—if she had really heard and not imagined it.
Sleep crept upon her unnoticed . . .
She dreamed that she stood in a dimly lighted, thickly carpeted room. It was peculiarly silent, and there was a sickly-sweet smell in the air, a smell which she seemed to recognize yet couldn’t identify. She was conscious of one impulse only. To escape from this silent room.
But a man wearing a yellow robe sat behind a long, narrow table, watching her. And the regard of his glittering green eyes held her as if chained to the spot upon which she stood. He seemed to be draining her of all vitality, all power of resistance. She thought of the shell of a fly upon which a spider has feasted.
She knew in her dream, but couldn’t remember a word that had passed, that this state of inertia was due to a pitiless cross-examination to which she had been subjected.
The examination was over, and now she was repeating orders already given. She knew herself powerless to disobey them.
“On the stroke of ten. Repeat the time.”
“On the stroke of ten.”
“Repeat what you have to write.”
“The safe combination used by Dr. Craig.”
“When are you to await a call in your apartment?”
“At eleven o’clock.”
“Who will call you?”
“You will call me . . .”
She was exhausted, at the end of endurance. The dim, oriental room swam about her. The green eyes grew larger—dominated that yellow, passionless face—merged—became a still sea in which she was drowning.
Camille heard herself shriek as she fought her way back to consciousness. She sprang up, choked with the horror of her dreams; then:
“Did it really happen?” she moaned. “Oh, God! What did I do last night?”
Grey light was just beginning to outline the slats of the Venetian blinds.
Manhattan was waking to a new day.
Chapter VII
Nayland Smith crossed and threw his door open as the bell buzzed.
“Come in, Harkness.”
There was an irritable note in his voice. This was his third day in New York, and he had made no progress worthy of record. Yet every hour counted.
They shook hands. Raymond Harkness was a highly improbable F.B.I, operative but a highly efficient one. His large hazel eyes were ingenuous, almost childish in expression, and he had a gentle voice which he rarely raised. Of less than medium height, as he stood there peeling a glove off delicate-looking fingers he might have been guessed a physician, or even a surgeon, but never a detective.
“Any news?” rapped Smith, dropping restlessly into an armchair and pointing to its twin.
“Yes.” Harkness sat down, first placing his topcoat and hat neatly on a divan. “I think there is.”
“Good. Let’s have it.”
Smith pushed a box of cigarettes across the table and began to charge his foul briar.
“Well”—Harkness lighted a cigarette—”Mrs. Frobisher had an appointment at three o’clock this afternoon with Professor Hoffmeyer, the Viennese psychiatrist who runs a business on the top floor of the Woolton Building.”
“How did you know?”
“I’m having Falling Waters carefully covered. I want to find out who was responsible for the burglary there last week. Stein, the chauffeur-butler, drove Mrs. Frobisher into town, in their big Cadillac. When she had gone in, Stein’s behaviour was just a bit curious.”
“What did he do?”
“He parked the car, left his uniform cap inside, put on a light topcoat and soft hat, and walked around to a bar on East Forty-eighth.”
“What’s curious about that?”
“Maybe not a lot. But when he got to the bar, he met another man who was evidently waiting for him. One of our boys who has ears like a desert rat was soon on a nearby stool.”
“Hear anything?”
“Plenty. But it wasn’t in English.”
“Oh!” Nayland Smith lighted his pipe. “What was the lingo?”
“My man was counted out. He reports he doesn’t know.”
“Useful!”
“No, it isn’t. Sir Denis. But Scarron—that’s his name—had a bright thought when the party broke up. He didn’t tail Stein. Knew he was going back to his car. He tailed Number Two.”
“Good work. Where did the bird settle?”
And when Harkness, very quietly, told him, Nayland Smith suddenly stood up.
“Got something there
, Harkness,” he rapped. “The job at Falling Waters may have been Soviet-inspired, and not, as I supposed, a reconnaissance by Dr. Fu Manchu. What’s Stein’s background?”
“Man at work, right now, on it.”
“Good. What about details of the bogus doctor who saved Moreno’s life? To hand, yet?”
“Yes.” Harkness took out a notebook and unhurriedly turned the pages. “It’s a composite picture built up on the testimony of several witnesses. Here we are.” He laid his cigarette carefully on the edge of an ash-tray. “Tall; well-built. Pale, clear-cut features. Slight black moustache, heavy brows; dark, piercing eyes.”
“H’m,” Smith muttered. “Typical villain of melodrama. Did he carry a riding whip?”
“Not reported!” Harkness smiled, returning the notebook to his pocket. “But there’s one other item. Not so definite—but something I wish you could look into personally. It’s your special province.”
Nayland Smith, who had worn tracks in more carpets than any man in England, was pacing the room, now, followed by a wraith of tobacco smoke.
“Go ahead.”
Harkness dusted ash into a tray and leaned back in his chair.
“For sometime before your arrival,” he said, “but acting on your advice that Dr. Fu Manchu was probably in New York, we have been checking up on possible contacts in the Asiatic quarter.”
“Maybe none. Fu Manchu’s organization isn’t primarily Chinese, or even Oriental. He’s head of a group known as the Council of Seven. They have affiliations in every walk of society and in every country, as I believe. The Communists aren’t the only plotters with far-flung cells.”
“That may be so,” Harkness went on patiently, “but as a matter of routine I had the possibility looked into. Broadly, we drew blank. But there’s one old gentleman, highly respected in the Chinatown area, who seems to be a bit of a mystery.”
“What’s his name?”
“Huan Tsung.”
“What does he look like?”
“He is tall,1 am told, for a Chinese, but old and frail. I’ve never seen him personally.”
“What!” Nayland Smith pulled up and stared. “Don’t follow. Myth?”
“Oh, he exists. But he’s hard to get at. Some sort of invalid,1 believe. Easy enough to see him officially, but I don’t want to do that. He has tremendous influence of some kind amongst the Asiatic population.”