by Sax Rohmer
“Maybe there’s a rat in there.”
“Quiet! Listen!”
A faint, irregular knocking sound became audible. It was followed by one which resembled a stifled moan.
“Quick! This way! Open all those things. Down with the lot!”
A rush back to the coffin cellar took place. They pulled down five or six, and found them empty. Rafferty held up his hand.
“Stop the clatter. Listen.”
All became quiet. And from somewhere near the base of another pile not yet attacked they heard it again, more clearly . . . tapping and a stifled groan.
“It’s that thing with all the gilt! Last but one from the floor!”
They went to work with a will. To move the empty coffins on top was a business of minutes. And in the most ornate specimen of all, they found Nayland Smith.
His wrists and ankles were lashed up with what looked like sewing silk. But clasp-knives failed to cut it. A piece of surgical strapping was fastened across his mouth. When this had been removed:
“Thank God you heard me,” he croaked. “I could just move one foot. Don’t blunt your knives on this stuff. Get a wire-cutter. Lift me out.”
Two men lifted him out, and supported him to a bench set before the opposite wall. He smiled grimly as he sat there. The deputy commissioner produced a flask.
“Thank God indeed, Sir Denis. It’s a miracle you weren’t suffocated,”
“Air holes bored in coffin. Never mind me. What of Dr. Fu Manchu?”
“Not a sign of him.”
Nay-land Smith sighed, and took a drink.
“Yet he left here little more than half an hour ago.
“What! But it’s impossible! No one has left this area during that time who wasn’t known to be a regular resident.”
Smith shot him a steely glance.
“What about Huan Tsung? Doesn’t he wear a wide-brimmed hat and a heavy, fur-lined coat?”
The deputy commissioner and Captain Rafferty exchanged worried looks.
“He does, and he certainly went out again,” said Rafferty. “He went twice to a house on lower Fifth. But he’s back.”
“He may be,” Smith rapped. “But he only went there once. It was Dr. Fu Manchu, dressed like him, who came back and Dr. Fu Manchu who has just slipped through your fingers again! Have this Fifth Avenue place raided—now . . . But already it’s too late.”
Chapter X
Manhattan danced on tirelessly; a city of a thousand jewelled minarets, and not one mueddin to call Manhattan to prayer.
An enemy, one who aspired to nothing less than dictatorship of the United States, was within the gates, watching Morris Craig’s revolutionary experiments. London, knowing the hazard, watched also. Washington, alive to the menace, had instructed the F.B.I. And the F.B.I., smelling out the presence of a further danger, in the formidable person of Dr. Fu Manchu, had sent for Nayland Smith.
But no hint of the desperate battle waging in their midst was permitted to reach the ears of those whose fate hung in the balance. That hapless unit, the Man in the Street, went about his affairs never suspecting that a third world war raged on his doorstep.
Nayland Smith called up Craig the next morning.
“Thought you might be worried,” he said. “Had a bit of a brush with the enemy, but no bones broken. Watch your step, Craig. This thing is coming to a head. Hope to look in later . . .”
The mantle of gloom which had enveloped Craig dropped from his shoulders. His problems no longer seemed insuperable. Clearly enough, opposition more dangerous than that of commercial rivalry was in the field against Huston Electric. His science-trained brain, which demanded tangible evidence before granting even trivial surmises, had fought against acceptance, not merely of the presence, but of the existence, of Dr. Fu Manchu.
Now he was converted.
Ignorant, yet, of what had happened to Nayland Smith, he must regard the attempt on Moreno as the work of some enemy unusually equipped. The mode of attack certainly suggested oriental influence.
If, then. Dr. Fu Manchu, what of the Soviet agent?
He might reasonably suppose, although Smith had never even hinted it, that Smith acted for the British government. Very well. Who was acting for the Kremlin?
Certainly, his discovery (for which, in his modest way, Craig claimed no personal credit) had called down the lightning. But, in his new mood, there was no place for misgiving. On the contrary, he was exultant, for by that night, he believed, his task would be completed.
When Camille came in, he turned to her with a happy smile.
“Just heard from Nayland Smith. Thank heaven the old lad’s okay”
“I am glad,” said Camille, and Craig listened to the harp notes in her fascinating voice. “I know you were worried.”
“I’m worried about you, too.”
She started; her eyes seemed to assume a deeper shade.
“Why—Dr. Craig?”
“You’re overdoin’ it, my dear. It simply won’t work, you know. Because I’m sure you’re not getting enough sleep.”
“Do I look such a wreck?” she smiled.
“You always look lovely,” he replied impulsively, and then regretted the words, for a faint flush tinged Camille’s cheeks, and so he added, “when you don’t wear those damned glasses.”
“Oh!” said Camille—and he watched for, and saw, that adorable little moue, like a suppressed dimple, appear on her lip. “As you told me you didn’t like them, I only wear them, now, when I am working.”
“I didn’t say anything of the kind. I said I preferred your eyes in the nude, so to speak. There’s only one other thing you might do to add to my joy.”
“What is that. Dr. Craig?”
“Well—must you hide the most wonderful hair that ever escaped captivity in Hollywood by pinning it behind your ears as if you wanted to forget it?”
Then Camille laughed, and her laughter rang true.
“Really, you are ridiculous! But very complimentary. You see, I know my hair is rather—well—flamboyant. It waves quite obstinately, and I don’t feel—”
“It’s a display entirely in order for the office of a stuffy physicist? Well—I’ll let you off. But there’s a proviso.”
“What is the proviso. Dr. Craig?”
“That you unloose the latent fires as from tomorrow, when we disport ourselves at Falling Waters.”
“Oh,” said Camille demurely. “Am I allowed to think it over?”
“Yes. But make up your mind by the morning.”
Camille crossed toward the door of her room, then paused, and turned.
“I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I quite forgot to mention what I really came to ask you. Dr. Craig.”
“Remembered now?”
“Yes. Mrs. Frobisher was speaking to me on the phone yesterday, and we discovered we both suffered from insomnia. She called me this morning to tell me she had arranged an appointment with Professor Hoffmeyer. Of course, I should never have dreamed of such a thing. But—”
“You can’t duck it as the boss’s wife has fixed it? Quite agree. He’ll probably prescribe six weeks at Palm Beach. But pay no attention.”
“What I wanted to ask you was if it would be all right for me to go along there at eight tonight?”
“Eight?”
“Yes. An unusual hour for a consultant. I suppose he is fitting me in when he has no other appointments.”
“Between the cocktails and the soup, I should guess. Certainly, Miss Navarre. Why ask?”
“Well”—Camille hesitated—”I know you plan to work late tonight, and I’m often wanted to take notes—”
“Forget it. Proceed from the learned professor’s straight to your sleeping-sack. We make an early start tomorrow morning.”
“That’s very kind of you. Dr. Craig, and I am grateful But when I took this appointment I knew what the hours would be. I shall certainly come back.”
Camille went into her room, quietly closing the door. All her m
ovements were marked by a graceful composure.
* * *
At a quarter to eight, when Camille set out, Craig was crouched over his work, a formula like a Picasso landscape pinned to a corner of the board and a pen in his mouth.
“I expect to return in an hour. Dr. Craig.”
Craig raised his hand in a gesture of dismissal and said something that might have been “Go to bed.”
Camille pressed the button of the private elevator, and when it arrived, opened the door with her pass-key and went down to the thirty-second floor. She closed the door there—they were all self-locking—and crossed the big office, in which a light was always left on, to a similar door on the other side. She knew the second elevator would be below, for Regan had gone down at four o’clock, when Mr. Shaw had relieved him.
She pressed the button, and when the signal light glowed, unlocked the door and descended to the main floor. There was a small, dark lobby which opened directly onto the street, a means of private entry and exit used only by the laboratory and Michael Frobisher. At the moment that Camille stepped out of the elevator and as the door closed behind her, she knew that someone was in this lobby.
She stood quite still.
“Who’s there?” she asked in a low voice
“Don’t be alarmed.” A flashlamp came to life. “It’s only me—or I, if you’re a purist!”
“Oh!” Camille whispered. “Sir Denis Nayland Smith—”
She could see his face now, framed in the upturned collar of a fur-lined coat. It was a very grim face.
“Wondering how I got in? Well, I’ll explain the great illusion. I have a duplicate key! Craig up there?”
“Yes, Sir Denis—and very busy.”
“Are you off for the night?”
“Not at all. I hope to be back in an hour.”
“Good girl!” That revealing smile swept grimness from his face as swiftly as a mask removed. “I have excellent reports of your keenness and efficiency.”
He patted her shoulder, passed her, and put his key in the elevator door.
Camille found herself standing on the street without quite knowing how she got there. Two men who gave her searching glances were lounging immediately outside, but, although her heart was racing, she preserved her admirable poise, waiting with apparent calm until a cruising taxi came along.
She gave the address, Woolton Building, and then tried to carry out advice printed on a card before her, “Sit back and relax.”
Useless to ignore the fact that she had reached a climax in her affairs. The tangled threads of her existence had tripped her at almost every turn. True, she had snapped one. But Camille found herself thinking of Omar’s words, “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ—”
Morris must be told. She had made up her mind to tell him tomorrow. Her crowning dread was that he would find out from someone else. She wanted him to learn the truth from her own lips . . .
Only one elevator remained in service at the Woolton Building. Most of the office staffs had left. Camille told the bored operator, “Professor Hoffmeyer.”
“Hoffmeyer? Top.”
She stepped out on an empty corridor. Directly facing her was a door marked, “Professor Hoffmeyer. Inquiries.”
It proved to be a well-appointed reception office.
No one was there.
Camille sat down on a cushioned divan. A clock above the desk told her that she was three minutes ahead of time. Morris’s words flashed through her mind, “Between the cocktails and the soup.”
On the stroke of eight, a Chinese girl came in through a doorway facing that by which visitors entered. She wore national dress and had a grace of movement which reminded Camille of a gazelle. Clasping her hands on her breast, she bowed.
“If you will be pleased to follow me,” she said.
Camille followed her, across a large salon decorated with miniature reproductions of classic statuary and paintings of flawless nudity. There were richly cushioned settees, desks provided with the latest periodicals, softly shaded lamps. She began to understand that Professor Hoffmeyer was a luxury reserved for the wives and concubines of commercial sultans, and to wonder if Mrs. Frobisher had any idea of her salary.
From here they passed along a tiled corridor between cubicles resembling those in a Pompeian bath. There were medical odors mingling with all those perfumes peculiar to a beauty parlor.
There had been no one in the salon, and there was no one in any of the cubicles.
The journey ended in an office which, unlike the other apartments, conformed with Camille’s idea of what a consultant’s establishment should be. There was a large, neat desk. One of the drawers was open, as if someone had been seated there only a moment before. A number of scientific books filled a heavy mahogany case. On the right of this was an opening which evidently communicated with another room.
Camille’s Chinese guide clasped her hands on her breast, bowed, and retired.
The place possessed a faint, sweetish smell. It awakened some dormant memory. Then a voice spoke, the voice of someone in the dimly lighted room beyond.
“Be so good as to enter.”
Camille’s mind, her spirit, rose in revolt. Suddenly she was fired by one impulse only—to escape. But she seemed to be incapable of attempting escape. Those words were a command she found herself helpless to disobey.
Slowly, with lagging steps, she walked in. Her movements made no sound on a thick carpet. It was an apartment Orientally furnished. There were arched openings in which lanterns hung. She saw painted screens, lacquer. But these were sketchy, a pencilled background for a figure seated behind a long, narrow table.
He wore a yellow robe; his chin rested on his hands, his elbows on the table. And his glittering green eyes claimed and owned her.
Camille stifled a scream, turned—and the opening through which she had come in was no longer there; only a beautifully wrought lacquer panel. She twisted back, fighting down hysteria. Her glance took in the whole room.
“Yes,” the sibilant voice assured her, “you are not mistaken. Miss Navarre . . . you have been here before.”
Chapter XI
“The greatest compliment ever paid to me,” said Nayland Smith grimly. “Dr. Fu Manchu considers I am more useful alive than dead!”
Morris Craig, seated, back to the desk, watched that lean, restless figure parading the office. Smith’s hat and topcoat lay on the settee, his pipe bubbled between his small, even teeth. He looked gaunt, but his steps were springy, his eyes clear.
“I can only repeat—it’s a miracle you’re alive.”
“I suppose it is. Mysterious news of the pending raid on Huan Tsung’s led to a postponement of the treatment prescribed. Otherwise, I should have been found, certifiably dead, in that ghastly coffin. Failing the raid, I should by now be on my way to China.”
“Do you think the headquarters of this thing are in China?”
“No,” rapped Smith. “In Tibet. In a completely inaccessible spot. Lhasa is not the only secret city in Asia—nor Everest the highest mountain. But leave that. I want certain facts.”
Craig lighted a cigarette which he had been holding for some time between his fingers.
“You shall have them. But there are certain facts I want, too. I’m not immune from human curiosity, even if I have harnessed a force new to physics. When the police found you last night, what about this fellow, Huan Tsung?”
Nayland Smith smiled. It was a smile of pure enjoyment. He pulled up, facing Craig.
“Huan Tsung, ex-governor of a Chinese province , and a prominent member of the Council of Seven, I had met before. He blandly denied any recollection of the meeting. As I had clearly been delivered at his shop during the evening in a crate, and taken into an adjoining cellar, Harkness and the commissioner proposed to arrest him.”
“I should have proposed ditto.”
“On what charge?” rapped Smith. “There are witnesses—including a police officer—to testify that he was
not at home during the time I was being interviewed by Dr. Fu Manchu—”
“But you tell me he doubled with Fu Manchu—”
“Undoubtedly he did. But how can we prove it? A scholarly, elderly gentleman who claims to be French Canadian occupies the apartment on lower Fifth Avenue which Huan Tsung visited last night. They are old friends, it seems. They were discussing the political situation in China, and Huan Tsung returned to Pell Street for some correspondence bearing on the subject.”
“But Smith—you were found in his cellar!”
“It isn’t his cellar, Craig. Remember, the police broke into it. And the man to whom it really belongs is out of town! Lastly, the shopman, a cultured liar, produced an invoice for the contents of the crate in which I was brought there from wherever I had been before!”
“But you say you recognized Huan Tsung?”
“Certainly. But he blandly assures me I am mistaken. He had the impudence to point out that to the Western eye, Chinese faces look much alike. Had he had the privilege of meeting me before, he said, such an honor couldn’t possibly have escaped his memory!”
“Do you mean to say he’s going to get away with it?”
“For the time being, I’m afraid he is. Mr. La Fosse of lower Fifth Avenue, who is undoubtedly in Fu Manchu’s employ, declares that he never even heard of such a person. Of course, the police will watch them closely, as astronomers watch a new comet. Their lines are tapped already.”
“And what about those damned injections? Do you feel no ill effects?”
“None whatever. You must accept the fact, Craig, that Dr. Fu Manchu has a knowledge of medicine which is generations ahead of anything known to Western science. And now, waste no more of my time. Listen—”
The big clock above the desk sounded its single note. Eight o’clock. The office door opened and Regan came in. His dour face wore an odd expression.
“I may be mistaken,” he said, “but I fancy I saw a pair of tough-looking lads loafing outside the private door, downstairs.”
Nayland Smith laughed. “Part of my bodyguard!”
“Oh,” said Regan. “That’s it, is it?”
“We are invested,” murmured Craig. “A beleaguered garrison. Look well to your armour, gentlemen, and let your swords be bright.”