by Sax Rohmer
Less than nine hours before, police headquarters had become a Vesuvius.
Nayland Smith’s wallet had been handed in by the frightened patrolman to whom he had passed it. He had given a detailed description of the man posing as “Dr. Malcolm.” It was recognized, at Centre Street, to correspond to that of the bogus doctor who had saved the life of Officer Moreno!
Wires had hummed all night. The deputy commissioner had been called at his home. So had the district attorney. All cars in the suspected area were radioed. Senior police officers took charge of operations. What had been regarded, in certain quarters, as an outbreak of hysteria in the F.B.I, suddenly crystallized into a present menace, when the news broke that a celebrated London consultant had been swept off the map of Manhattan.
Prom the time that “Dr. Malcolm” had left with his supposed patient, nothing more was known of his movements. His identity remained a mystery. Feverish activity prevailed. But not a solitary clue came in.
An internationally famous criminal investigator had been spirited away under the very eyes of the police—and no one knew where to look for him!
But Manhattan danced on . .
Craig’s uneasiness grew greater as the day grew older. It began seriously to interfere with concentration. His lunch consisted of a club sandwich and a bottle of beer sent up from the restaurant on the main floor, below. The nearer that Shaw’s work came to completion in the laboratory, the further Craig seemed to be from contributing those final elements which would give it life. The more feverishly he toiled the less he accomplished.
Early in the afternoon he spoke to the manager of Nayland Smith’s hotel.
He learned that Smith had gone out, the evening before, at what exact time the manager didn’t know. He had not returned nor communicated. There had been many callers, and a quantity of messages, mail, and cables awaited him. The manager could give no further information.
Craig wondered if he should call police headquarters, but hesitated to make himself a nuisance. After all, the nature of Smith’s business in New York would sufficiently account for long absences. But Craig recalled, unhappily, something he had said on the night they dined together: “I fear that he” (Dr. Fu Manchu) “has decided that I must die . . . What are my chances?”
He tried again to tackle his work, but found the problems which it presented so bewildering that he was not resentful, rather grateful, when Michael Frobisher burst into the office.
“Hullo, Mr. Frobisher!”
Craig swung around and faced his chief, who had dropped into one of the armchairs.
“Hello, Craig. Thought I’d just look in. Don’t expect to be in town again this week. Picking up Mrs. F., who’s having a treatment, and driving right out. How’s the big job shaping?”
Frobisher pulled a cigar from his breast pocket, and Craig noted that his hand was unsteady. The florid coloring had undertones of grey. Sudden recognition came to him that Frobisher was either a sick man or a haunted one.
“Fairly bright,” he replied in his most airy manner. “Time you saw the setup in the lab again.”
“Yes—I must.”
But Craig knew that he would avoid the visit, if possible. The throbbing monster which had its being in the laboratory frightened Michael Frobisher, a fact of which Craig was aware.
“Getting quite a big boy now.”
Frobisher snipped off the end of his cigar. “What are the prospects of finishing by week-end?”
“Fair to medium. Mental functions disturbed by grave misgivings.”
Frobisher glanced up sharply. His eyes, under drawn black brows, reminded Craig, for some reason, of smouldering fires in two deep caves.
“What misgivings?” he growled, and snapped up his lighter, which had a flame like a burning oil well.
Craig, facing Frobisher, dropped the stub of a cigarette and began to grope behind him for a packet which he had put somewhere on the desk.
“I’m a sort of modern Frankenstein,” he explained. “Hadn’t grasped it before, but see it now. In there”—he waved towards the laboratory door—”is a pup of a thing which, full grown, could eat up New York City at one gulp. This brute frightens me.”
“Forget it.” Frobisher lighted his cigar.
“Imposs. The thought hangs on like a bulldog. How this beast can be tamed to perform domestic duties escapes me at the moment. Like training a Bengal tiger to rock baby’s cradle. Then, there’s something else.”
“Such as what?”
“My love child, the horror begotten in that laboratory, is coveted by the governments of the United States, of England, and of Russia.”
Michael Frobisher stood up. His craggy brows struggled to meet over a deep vertical wrinkle.
“Who says so?”
“I say so. Agents of all those governments are watching every move we make here.”
“I knew there was a leak! Do you know those agents?”
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith has arrived from London.”
“Who in hell is Sir Denis Nayland Smith?”
“An old friend of mine. Formerly a commissioner of Scotland Yard. But I don’t know the Washington agent and I don’t know the Soviet agent. I only know they’re here.”
“Oh!” said Michael Frobisher, and sat down again. “Any more troubles?”
“Yes.” Craig found his cigarettes and lighted one. “Dr. Fu Manchu.”
Silence fell between them like a curtain. Craig had turned again to the desk. He swung back now, and glanced at Frobisher. His expression was complicated. But fear was in it. He looked up at Craig.
“You are sure there is such a person?”
“Yes—moderately sure.”
For some reason this assurance seemed to bring relief to Frobisher. A moment later an explanation came.
“Then I’m not crazy—as that damned Pardoe thinks! Those Asiatic snoopers really exist. They seem to have quit tailing me around town, but queer things happen out at Falling Waters. Whoever went through my papers one night away back must have been working with inside help—”
“But I thought you told me that some yellow character—”
“He was outside. Saw him from my dressing-room window. No locks broken. Then, only last night, my private safe was opened!”
“What’s that?”
“Plain fact. I was awake. Sleep badly. Guess I interrupted him. But the door of the safe was wide open when I got down!”
“See anybody?”
“Not a one. Nothing taken. Doors and windows secure. Craig”— Frobisher’s deep voice faltered—”I was beginning to wonder—”
“If you walked in your sleep? Did these things yourself?”
“Well—”
“Quite understand, and sympathize.”
Michael Frobisher executed a shaking movement with his head, rather like that of a big dog who has something in his ear.
“Listen—but not a word to Mrs. F. I have had a gadget fixed up to record any movement around the house, and show just where it’s coming from. I want you to look it over this weekend.”
“Delightful prospect. I am the gadget king. And this brings me to my main misgiving. You may recall the bother we had fitting up the plant in the lab?”
“Don’t be funny! Didn’t we import workmen from Europe to make it in sections—”
“We did. And I have been my own draughtsman.”
“Then send ‘em home again and assemble the sections ourselves?”
“‘Ourselves’ relating to Shaw, Regan and me? I fail to recall any instance when you put your Herculean but dignified shoulder to the wheel. Still, you were highly encouragin’. Yes—well—to be brief, we shall have to do likewise once more.”
“What’s that?”
“I cannot be responsible for tests carried out in the heart of New York City. Some of my experiments already are slightly alarming. But when I’m all set to tap the juice in quantities, I want to be where I can do no harm.” Craig was warming to his subject; the enthusiasm of
the specialist fired his eyes. “You see, the energy lies in successive strata—like the skins of an onion. And you know what the middle of a raw onion’s like!”
The tip of Frobisher’s cigar glowed ominously.
“Conveying what?” he growled through closed lips.
“Conveying that a site must be picked for an experimental station. Somewhere in wide-open spaces, far from the madding crowd. Little by little and bit by bit we shall transfer our monster there.”
“You told me you needed some high place.”
“There are high places other than the top of the Huston Building. I wish to avoid repeating, in the Huston Building, the story of the Tower of Babel. It would be spectacular, but unpopular.”
Michael Frobisher got up, crossed, removed the cigar from his lips, and stood right in front of Craig.
“Listen. You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”
Craig smiled, that slightly mischievous, schoolboy smile which was so irresistibly charming.
“Yes,” he said. “I am. What are you going to do about it?”
Michael Frobisher turned and picked up his hat, which he had dropped on the floor beside his chair.
“If you say so, I’ll have to get busy.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “Give me all the facts on Saturday.”
When Frobisher opened the office door, he stood looking to right and left of the lobby for a moment before he went out.
Craig scratched his chin reflectively. What, exactly, was going on at Falling Waters? He felt peculiarly disinclined to work, considered ringing for Camille, not because he required her attendance, but for the pure pleasure of looking at her, then resolutely put on his glasses and settled down before the problem symbolized by that unfinished diagram.
He was destined, however, to be interrupted again.
The office door behind him opened very quietly, and Mrs. Frobisher peeped in. Craig remained unaware of her presence.
“Do I intrude?” she asked coyly.
Craig, conscious of shirt-sleeves, took off his glasses, jumped from the stool, and turned.
“Why—Mrs. Frobisher!” He swept back the drooping forelock. “I say—excuse my exposed laundry.”
Stella Frobisher extended her hand graciously. She didn’t offer it;
she extended it. She was an Englishwoman and her pattern of life appeared to be modelled upon customs embalmed in old volumes of Punch. Her hair had been blond, and would always remain so. She had canary-like manners. She fluttered.
“I was waiting until Mike had gone. He mustn’t know I have been here.”
Craig pulled a chair forward, and Stella Frobisher’s high heels clicked like castanets on the parquet as she crossed and sat down. She was correctly dressed in full mink uniform and wore a bird of paradise for a hat.
“Highly compromising. When did your heart first awaken to my charms?” said Craig as he put his coat on.
He had learned that airy badinage was the only possible kind of conversation with Mrs. Frobisher, who was some years younger than her husband and liked to think he had many rivals.
“Oh, you do say the queerest things!” Stella’s reputation for vivacity rested largely upon her habit of stressing words at random. “I have been having a treatment at Professor Hoffmeyer’s.”
“Am I acquainted with the lad?”
“Oh, everybody knows him. He’s simply too wonderful. He has made a new woman of me.”
“Yes. You look quite new.”
“Oh, now you think I’m being silly. Dr. Craig. But truly my nerves had quite gone. You see, there’s something very queer going on.”
“Queer goings on, eh?” Craig murmured, hunting for his cigarettes.
“Most peculiar. I know you’re laughing at me. But truly I’m terrified. There have been the most uncanny people prowling about Falling Waters recently.” She accepted a cigarette and Craig lighted it for her. “I simply dare not speak to Mike about it. You know how nervous he is. But I have ordered a pack of Alsatians from Wanamaker’s or somewhere and insisted that they must be ferocious.”
“A pack, you say?”
“A pack,” Stella repeated firmly. “I don’t know how many dogs there are in a pack, but I suppose fifty-two.”
“Expect the pack this week-end?”
“I hope so. Of course, I have engaged a special man to look after them.”
“Of course. Lion tamer, or some such character.”
“I have had barbed wire installed, and I shall loose the dogs at night.”
“Sounds uncommonly attractive. Lovers’ paradise.”
“I wanted to warn you, because now I must be off. If I’m late at the Ritz, Mike will think I’ve been up to something—”
Craig escorted her down to the street and was rewarded with an arch smile. Stella’s smile was an heirloom which had probably belonged to her mother.
Chapter IX
Nayland Smith came to the surface from depths of an unfathomable purple lake. A voice, unpleasantly familiar, matter-of-fact, reached his ears through violet haze which overhung the lake.
“I trust you find yourself quite restored. Sir Denis?”
Smith strove to identify the speaker; to determine his true environment; to find himself.
“And don’t hesitate to reply. You are no longer dumb. The discomfort was temporary.”
The speaker was identified. He was Dr. Malcolm!
“I—I—why . . . thank God! I can speak’.”
Nayland Smith’s voice rose higher on every word.
“So I observe. You are an expert boxer. Sir Denis, for a man of your years a remarkable one. Myself, although trained in several types of wrestling, unfortunately I know little of boxing.”
Dr. Malcolm wore a long white coat. He was regarding Smith with professional interest.
“Too bad. You’ll miss it when I get loose!” Smith rapped.
But Dr. Malcolm retained his suavity.
“Pugnacity highly developed. You appear to feel no gratitude for your restored power of speech?”
He poured a vivid blue liquid from a beaker into a phial. The phial he placed in a leather case.
“No. I’m waiting for the later symptoms to develop.”
Dr. Malcolm reclosed his case.
“You will wait in vain. The first injection I administered was intended merely to paralyze the muscles of articulation.”
“Thanks. It did.”
“A second counteracted it.”
“Truly ingenious.”
“But,” Dr. Malcolm went on, “my duties in your case were not nearly so dangerous as in the case of the policeman, Moreno. I was subject to exposure throughout the time I remained in the hospital.”
“So I gather,” said Smith.
This man’s cool audacity fascinated him.
“Of course”—Dr. Malcolm locked his leather case—”Circle 7-0300 is the number of a well-known hotel. I don’t live there.” He showed strong white teeth in a smile. “Mat Cha was most convincing as the girl who had been robbed, I thought?”
“I thought so too.”
Nayland Smith glanced about him. The place proved to be more extensive than he had supposed at that strange awakening. It was a big cellar. Much of it was unlighted—a dim background of mystery.
“We had several key men in the crowd, of course. The police officer was an intruder. But I did my best with him.”
(“So did I!” Nayland Smith was thinking.)
“When you succeeded in knocking me out, I was indebted to this officer—and to a pair of our people placed to cover such a possibility—for your recapture.”
“Yes, you were,” said Smith conversationally. “All the luck lay with you.” As Dr. Malcolm picked up his case: “Must you be going?”
“Yes. I am leaving you now. I regret the incivility of putting you under constraint. You will have noted, since you are fully restored, that your arms are lightly attachéd to the bench upon which you sit. These thin lines, however, are quite unbreakable,
except by a wire-cutter. A preparation invented by my principal. I bid you good night. Sir Denis. It is improbable that we meet again.”
“Highly improbable,” Smith murmured. “But lucky, once more, for you! By the way, how long have I been here?”
Dr. Malcolm paused.
“Nearly twenty-four hours—”
“What!”
“Not actually in this cellar, but under my care, elsewhere. You have been suitably nourished, and I assure you there will be no ill effects.”
Dr. Malcolm merged into the background. His white coat, ghostlike, marked his progress for a while and then became swallowed up. An evidently heavy door was opened—and closed.
Twenty-four hours!
Nayland Smith satisfied himself that he was indeed helpless. The slender, flexible threads, like strands of silk, which confined his arms were steel-tough. The bench was clamped to the floor. He peered into surrounding gloom. One light on the wall behind him afforded sole illumination. Outside its radius lay shadows ever increasing to complete blackness.
Somewhere in this blackness, almost defying scrutiny, objects were stacked against a further wall. Specks of color became discernible, vague forms.
Intently Smith stared into the darkness, picking out shapes, dim lines.
At last he understood.
He was looking at a pile of Chinese coffins . . .
The sound made by a heavy, unseen door warned him of the fact that someone had entered the cellar.
Long before a tall figure came silently out of the shadows, Nayland Smith knew who had entered. The quality of the atmosphere had changed, become charged with new portent.
Wearing a dark, fur-collared topcoat and carrying a black hat in one long, yellow hand, Nayland Smith’s ancient adversary faced him.
A tense, silent moment passed.
“I confess that I had not expected to meet you. Sir Denis.”
The words were spoken softly, the sibilants marked.