by Sax Rohmer
“Their bite is certainly deadly!” rapped Nayland Smith. “An attack by two or more evidently results in death within three minutes—also a characteristic vivid scarlet rash. You knew, now, what was in the cardboard box which James Richet opened in the taxi-cab! No doubt he had orders to open it at the moment that he reached the hotel. One of the Doctor’s jests. I take it they are tropical?”
“Beyond doubt.”
“Once exposed to the frosty air, and their deadly work done, they would die. You know, now, why I provided myself with that”—he pointed to the syringe. “I have met other servants of Fu-Manchu to whom a stone-faced building was a grand staircase.”
“Good God!” Mark Hepburn said hoarsely. “This man is a fiend—a sadistic madman—”
“Or a genius, Hepburn! If you will glance at the receptacle which our late visitor deposited on my pillow, you will notice that it is made from a common cigar box. One side lifts shutterwise: there is a small spring. It was controlled, you see, by this length of fine twine, one end of which still rests on the window ledge. This hook on top was intended to enable the Doctor’s servant to lift it into the room on the end of the telescopic rod. The box is lightly lined with hay. You may safely examine it. I have satisfied myself that there is nothing alive inside…”
“This man is the most awful creature who has ever appeared in American history,” said Hepburn. “The situation was tough enough, anyway. Where does he get these horrors? He must have agents all over the world.”
Nayland Smith began to walk up and down, twitching at the lobe of his ear.
“Undoubtedly he has. In my experience I have never felt called upon to step more warily. Also, I begin to think that my powers are failing me.”
‘“What do you mean?”
“For years, Hepburn, for many years, a palpable fact has escaped me. There is a certain very old Chinaman whose records I have come across in all parts of the world; in London, in Liverpool, in Shanghai, in Port Said, Rangoon and Calcutta. Only now, when he is in New York (and God knows how he got here!), have I realized that this dirty old bar-keeper is Dr. Fu-Manchu’s chief of staff!”
Mark Hepburn stared hard at the speaker, and then:
“This accounts for all the men at work in Chinatown,” he said slowly. “The man you mean is Sam Pak?”
“Sam Pak—none other,” snapped Nayland Smith. “And the truth respecting this ancient reprobate”—he indicated the writing-table—“reached me in its entirety only a few hours ago. If you could see him you would understand my amazement. He is incredibly old, and—so much for my knowledge of the East—I had always set him down as one step above the mendicant class. Yet, in the days of the empress, he was governor of a great province; in fact, he was Dr. Fu-Manchu’s political senior! He was one of the first Chinamen to graduate at Cambridge, and he holds a science degree of Heidelberg.”
“Yet in your knowledge of him he has worked in slums in Chinatown—been a bar-keeper?”
“It might occur in Russia tomorrow, Hepburn. There are princes, grand dukes—I am not speaking of gigolos or soi-disant noblemen—spread about the world who, the right man giving the word, would work as scavengers, if called upon, to restore the Tsars.”
“That’s true enough.”
“And so, you see, we have got to find this aged Chinaman. I suspect that he has brought with him an arsenal of these unpleasant weapons which the Doctor employs so successfully—Hullo! there’s the phone. We are wanted to identify the climber…”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE SCARLET BRIDES (CONCLUDED)
Old Sam Pak was performing his nightly rounds of Base 3. Two Chinese boys were in attendance.
Up above, political warfare raged; the newspapers gave prominence to the Washington situation in preference to love, murder, or divorce. Dr. Orwin Prescott was reported to be “resting up before the battle.” Harvey Bragg was well in the news. Other aspirants to political eminence might be found elsewhere: “Bluebeard of the Backwoods” was front-page stuff. America was beginning to take its Harvey Bragg seriously.
But in the mysterious silence of Base 3, old Sam Pak held absolute sway. Chinatown can keep its secrets. Only by exercise of a special sense, which comes to life after years of experience in the ways of the Orient, may a Westerner know when something strange is afoot. Sidelong glances; sudden silences; furtive departures as the intruder enters. Police officers in Mott Street area had been reporting such trivial occurrences recently. Those responsible for diagnosing Asiatic symptoms had deduced the arrival in New York of a Chinese big-shot.
Their diagnosis was correct. By this tune every Chinaman from coast to coast knew that one of the Council of Seven, controlling the Si-Fan, most dreaded secret society in the East, had entered America.
Sam Pak pursued his rounds. The place was a cunning maze of passages and stairs; a Chinese rabbit warren. One narrow passage, below the level of the room of the seven-eyed goddess, had a row of six highly painted coffins ranged along its wall. They lay on their sides. Lids had been removed and plate glass substituted. This ghastly tunnel was vile with a smell of ancient rottenness.
One of Sam Pak’s attendant Chinamen switched on a light. The old mandarin, who had known nearly a century of vicissitudes, carried a great bunch of keys. In his progress he had tried door after door. He now tested the small traps set in the sides of the six coffins. In the sudden glare, insidious nocturnal things moved behind the glass…
There was a big iron door in the wall; it possessed three locks, all of which proved to be fastened. Here at once was part of that strange arsenal which Nayland Smith suspected to have been imported, and a secret sally-port the existence of which police headquarters would have given much to know about. It communicated with an old subterannean passage which led to the East River…
On a floor above, Sam Pak opened a grille and looked into a neatly appointed bedroom. Dr. Orwin Prescott lay there sleeping. His face was very white.
A dim whirring sound broke the underground silence. Sam Pak handed the bunch of keys to one of the boys and shuffled slowly upstairs to the temple of the green-eyed goddess. It was in semi-darkness; the only light came through the colored silk curtain draped before one of the stone cubicles.
Sam Pak crossed, drew the curtain aside, and spoke in Chinese:
“I am here, Master.”
“You grow old, my friend,” the cold, imperious tones of Dr. Fu-Manchu replied. “You keep me waiting. I regret that you have refused to accept my offer to arrest your descent to the tomb.”
“I prefer to join my ancestors, Marquis, when the call reaches me. I fear your wisdom. While I live I am with you body and soul in our great aims. When my hour comes I shall be glad to die.”
Silence fell. Old Sam Pak, withered hands tucked in wide sleeves, stooping, waited…
“I will hear your own report on the matter which I entrusted to you.”
“You know already, Master, that the man, Peter Carlo, failed. I cannot say what evidence he left behind. But your orders regarding the other, Blondie Hahn, were carried out. He brought the man Carlo to Wu King’s Bar, and I interviewed them in the private room. I instructed Carlo, and he set out. I then paid Hahn his price. It was waste of good money, but always I obey. Ah Fu and Chung Chow did the rest… there are now only three Scarlet Brides left to us…”
* * *
It was an hour after dawn when Nayland Smith and Mark Hepburn stood looking down at two stone slabs upon which two bodies lay.
One of the departed in life had been a small but very muscular Italian with uncommonly large, powerful hands. He presented a spectacle, owing to his many injuries, which must have revolted all but the toughest. There was a sound of dripping water.
“You have prepared your report, Doctor?” said Nayland Smith, addressing a plump, red-faced person who was smiling amiably at the exhibits as though he loved them.
“Certainly, Mr. Smith,” the police doctor returned cheerily. “It is quite clear that Number O
ne, here (I call him Number One because he was brought in an hour ahead of the other), died as the result of a fall from a great height—”
“Very great height,” rapped Nayland Smith. “Fortieth floor of the Regal Tower.”
“So I understand. Remarkable. He has two bullet wounds: one in his right hand and one in his shoulder. These would not have caused death, of course. It was the fall which killed him—quite naturally. I believe he was wearing black silk gloves. An electric torch and a telescopic rod of very light metal were found near the body.”
Nayland Smith turned to a police officer who stood at his elbow.
“I am told, Inspector, that you have now checked up on this man’s history: there is no doubt about his identity?”
“None at all,” drawled the inspector, who was chewing gum. “He’s Peter Carlo, known as ‘The Fly’—one of the most expert upper-story men in New York. He could have climbed the outside of the Statue of Liberty if there’d been anything worth stealing at the top. He always wore a black silk mask and silk gloves. The rod was to reach into rooms he couldn’t actually enter. He was so clever he could lift a lady’s ring from a dressing-table fifteen feet away!”
“I don’t doubt it,” muttered Mark Hepburn. “So much for Peter Carlo. And now…”
He turned to the second slab.
Upon it lay the body of a huge blond man of Teutonic type. His hands were so swollen that two glittering diamonds which adorned them had become deeply embedded in the puffy fingers. Soddened garments clung to his great frame. Scarlet spots were discernible on both of the hairy hands, and there was a scarlet discoloration on his throat. The glare of his china-blue eyes set in that bloated caricature of what had been a truculently strong face afforded a sight even more dreadful than that of the shattered body of Peter Carlo.
“Brought in from the river just north of Manhattan Bridge ten minutes before you arrived,” explained Inspector McGrew, chewing industriously. “May be no connection, but I thought you’d like to see him.”
He glanced around, meeting a curiously piercing glance from Federal Agent Smith as he did so. Federal Agent Smith had steely eyes set in a sun-browned face framed, now, in the fur collar of his topcoat; a disconcerting person, in Inspector McGrew’s opinion.
“Now, here,” explained the smiling police surgeon, “we have a really mysterious case! Although his body was hauled out of East River, he was not drowned—”
“Why do you say so?” Smith demanded.
“It’s obvious.” The surgeon became enthusiastic and, stepping forward, laid a finger on the bloated, discolored skin. “Note the vivid scarlet urticarial rash which characterizes the edema. This man died from some toxic agency: he was thrown into the river. A post-mortem examination will tell us more, but of this much I am sure. And I understand, Inspector”—glancing over his shoulder—“that he, also, is well known to the police?”
“Well known to the police!” echoed Inspector McGrew, “he’s well known all over New York. This is Blondie Hahn, one of the big shots of the old days. He was booking agent for ’most all the gunmen that remain in town. These times, I guess he had a monopoly. He ran a downtown restaurant, and although we knew his game, he had strong political protection.”
“You are prepared to make your report, Doctor?” said Smith rapidly. “I examined Carlo shortly after he was found. I presume we can now search the person and garments of Hahn.”
“That’s been done already,” Inspector McGrew replied. “The stuff is on the table inside.”
The gray-blue eyes of Federal Agent Smith glared out from the haggard brown mask of his face. Inspector McGrew was a hard man, but he found himself transfixed by that icy stare.
“Those were not my orders!”
“It had been done before Federal instructions came through.”
“I want to know by whose authority!” The speaker’s piercing glance never left McGrew’s face. “I won’t be interfered with in this way. You are dealing, Inspector, not with the operations of a common, successful crook, but with something bigger, vastly bigger than you even imagine. Any orders you receive from me must be carried out to the letter.”
“I’m sorry,” said the inspector, an expression he had not used for many years, unless possibly to his wife; “but we didn’t know you were interested in Hahn, and the boys just went through with the routine.”
“Show me these things.”
Inspector McGrew opened a door, and Nayland Smith walked through to an inner room, followed by Hepburn and the inspector. In the doorway he turned, and addressing a grim-looking man in oilskins:
“I understand,” he said, “that you were in charge of the boat which recovered the body. I shall want to see you later.”
On a large, plain, pine table two sets of exhibits were displayed. The first consisted of a nearly empty packet of Lucky Strike cigarettes, a lighter, a black silk mask, black silk gloves, a quill tooth-pick, three one-dollar bills, and an eight-inch metal baton—which contained fifteen feet of telescopic rods. Smith examined these, the sole possessions found on Fly Carlo, quickly but carefully. He had seen them already.
“You understand,” McGrew explained, “Hahn had only just been brought in—our ordinary routine was interrupted.”
“Forget your ordinary routine,” came rapidly. “From now on your routine is my routine.”
Federal Officer Smith transferred his attention to the second set of exhibits. These were more numerous than interesting. There was a very formidable magazine pistol of German manufacture; a small pear-shaped object easily identified as a hand grenade; a gold cigar-case decorated with a crest; a body-belt, the pockets of which had been emptied of their contents: ten twenty-dollar gold pieces; an aluminium lighter; two silk handkerchiefs; a diamond pin; a bunch of keys; a packet of chewing gum; and a large shagreen wallet, the contents of which had been removed. These were: a number of letters, and a photograph soddened by immersion. There was, lastly, a limp carton which had once contained playing cards, and two thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.
“Where was the diamond pin?” snapped Nayland Smith.
“He always wore it in his coat like a badge,” Inspector McGrew replied.
“Where were the dollar bills?”
“Right in the card-holder.”
“Can you think of any reason,” Smith asked, “why a man should carry money in a card-holder?”
“No,” the inspector admitted; “I can’t.”
“Assuming that this money had just been sent to him, can you think of any reason why it should be sent in such a way?”
“No.” Inspector McGrew shook his head blankly, staring in a fascinated way at the speaker.
“Yet the card-holder,” Nayland Smith continued, “is the solution of the mystery of Blondie Hahn’s death.” He turned abruptly—he seemed to move on springs—the man’s nervous tension was electrical. “I want all these exhibits to go with me in the car.”
He rested his hand on Mark Hepburn’s shoulder. Hepburn looked very pale in the gray light.
“Note the two thousand dollars in the card case,” he said in a low voice. “There was something else in there as well. Dr. Fu-Manchu always settles his debts… sometimes with interest…”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“BLUEBEARD”
Moya Adair closed her eyes as those green eyes opened. The man behind the table spoke, in that imperious, high-pitched voice.
“I accept your explanation,” he said. “None of us is infallible.”
Mrs. Adair raised her lashes and tried to sustain the speaker’s regard, but failed, turning her glance aside.
The face of Dr. Fu-Manchu sometimes reminded her of a devil mask which hung upon the wall of her father’s study in Ireland.
“You serve me admirably. I regret that your service is one of fear. I prefer enthusiasm. You are a beautiful woman; for this reason I have employed you. Men are creatures of wax which white fingers can mold to their will—to my will. For always, Moya Ad
air, your will must be my will—or, we shall part…”
The blue eyes were turned swiftly in his direction; and then swiftly away again. Mrs. Adair was perfectly dressed, perfectly groomed and apparently perfectly composed. But her composure was a brave pretense. This awful Chinaman who had taken command of her life held in his grasp all that made life dear to her. Her gloved hand rested motionless upon the chair-arm, but she turned her head aside and bit her lip.
The air of the small, quiet room was heavy with a smell of stale incense.
“I am an old man,” the compelling voice continued; “older than your imagination would permit you to believe.” Those jade-green eyes were closed again—the speaker seemed to be thinking aloud. “I have been worshiped, I have been scorned; I have been flattered, mocked, betrayed, treated as a charlatan—as a criminal. There are warrants for my arrest in three European countries. Yet, always, I have been selfless.” He paused. He was so still, so seemingly impassive, that he might have been a carven image…
“My crimes, so termed have been merely the removal from my path of those who obstructed me. Always I have dreamed of a sane world, yet men have called me mad; of a world in which war should be impossible, disease eliminated, overpopulation checked, labor found for all willing hands—a world of peace. Save only three, I have found no human soul, of my own race or another, to work wholly for that goal. And now my most implacable enemy is upon me…”
Suddenly the green eyes opened. Long, slender yellow hands with incredibly pointed nails were torn from the sleeves of the yellow robe. Dr. Fu-Manchu stood upright, raising those evilly beautiful hands above him. A note of exaltation came into his voice. Mrs. Adair clutched the arms of the chair in which she sat. Never before had her eventful life brought her in touch with inspired fanaticism.
“Gods of my fathers”—pitched so high that strange voice laid a queer stress on sibilants—“masters of the world! Are all my dreams to end in a prison cell, in the death of a common felon?”