by Sax Rohmer
“I listened to him, Hepburn. Utterly out of sympathy as I am with the subject of his eloquence, I must confess that I never heard a more moving speech.”
“No—it was wonderful. But now—er—Smith, I am worried about this projected expedition of yours.”
Nayland Smith paused in his promenade and stared, pipe gripped between his teeth, at Mark Hepburn.
“No more worried than I am regarding yours, Hepburn. You know what Kipling says about a rag and a bone and a hank of hair…”
“That’s hardly fair, Smith. I quite frankly admitted to you that I’m interested in Mrs. Adair. There’s something very strange about a woman like that being in the camp of Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
Nayland Smith paused in front of him, reached out and grasped his shoulder.
“Don’t think I’m cynical, Hepburn,” he said—“we have all been through the fires—but, be very careful!”
“I just want time to size her up. I think she’s better than she seems. I admit I’m soft where she’s concerned, but maybe she’s straight after all. Give her a chance. We don’t know everything.”
“I leave her to you, Hepburn. All I say is: be careful. I’d gamble half of the little I possess to see into the mind of Dr. Fu-Manchu at this moment! Is he as baffled as I am?”
He resumed his promenade.
“However… we have a heavy day before us. Learn all you can from the woman. I am devoting the whole of my attention to Fu-Manchu’s Chinatown base.”
“I am beginning to think,” said Hepburn, with his almost painful honesty, “that this Chinatown base is a myth.”
“Don’t be too sure,” rapped Nayland Smith. “Certainly I saw the late secretary of Abbot Donegal disappear into a turning not far from Wu King’s Bar. Significant, to say the least. I have spent hours, in various disguises, exploring that area and right to the water fronts on either side of it.
“I worry myself silly whenever you delay at—”
“My own Chinatown base?” Nayland Smith suggested.
He burst out laughing—and his laughter seemed to lift a load of care from his spirits…
“You should congratulate me, Hepburn. In the character of a hard-drinking deck-hand sacked by the Cunard and trying to dodge the immigration authorities until I find a berth, I have made a marked success with my landlady, Mrs. Mulrooney of Orchard Street! I have every vice from hashish to rum, and I begin to suspect she loves me!”
“What about the rag and a bone and a hank of hair?” Hepburn asked impishly.
Nayland Smith stared for a moment; and then laughed even more heartily.
“A hit to you,” he admitted; “but frankly, I feel that my inquiries are not futile. The Richet clue admittedly has led nowhere; but my East River investigations are beginning to bear fruit.”
He ceased laughing. His lean brown face grew suddenly grim.
“Think of the recovery by the river police of the body of the man Blondie Hahn.”
“Well?”
“All the facts suggested to me that he did not die on the water front or even very near to it. I may be wrong, Hepburn… but I think I have found Dr. Fu-Manchu’s water-gate!”
“What!”
“We shall see. The arrival in New York this morning of the Chinese general, Li Wu Chang, has greatly intrigued me. I have always suspected Li Wu Chang of being one of the Seven.”
“Who are the Seven?”
Nayland Smith snapped his fingers.
“Impossible to go into that now. I have much to do today if our plans are to run smoothly tonight. Your post is in Chinatown. We both have plenty to employ us in the interval. Should I miss you, the latest details will be on the desk”—he pointed—“and Fey will be here in constant touch…”
* * *
Mark Hepburn, from his seat overlooking the pond in Central Park, watched the path from the Scholar’s Gate. Presently he saw Moya Adair approaching.
It was a perfect winter’s day; the air was like wine, visibility remarkable. Because his heart leapt his dour training reproached him. He had abandoned the cape, property of an eccentric artist friend, and now his bearded chin stuck out from an upturned fur collar.
On the woman’s side this meeting was a move in a fight for freedom. But Mark Hepburn, starkly honest, knew that on his side it was a lover’s meeting. It was unfair to Nayland Smith that this important investigation, which might lead to control of a bridge to the enemy’s stronghold, should have been left in his hands. Moreover, it was torture to himself…
He loved the ease of her walk, the high carriage of her head. There was pedigree in every graceful line. Her existence in this gang of super-thugs, who now apparently controlled the whole of the American underworld, was a mystery which baulked his imagination.
She smiled as he stood up to meet her. He allowed the mad idea that they were avowed lovers—that he had a right to take her in his arms and kiss her—to dazzle his brain for one delirious moment. Actually, he said:
“You are very punctual, Mrs. Adair.”
She sat down beside him. Her composure, real or assumed, was baffling. There was a short silence, an uneasy one on Mark Hepburn’s side; then:
“I suppose,” he said, “the death of Harvey Bragg means a change of plan?”
Moya shook her head.
“For me, no,” she replied. “I am continuing my work at Park Avenue. The League of Good Americans is to go on, and Paul Salvaletti has taken charge.”
She spoke impersonally, a little wearily.
“But you must regret the death of Harvey Bragg?”
“As a Christian, I do, for I cannot think that he was fit to die. As a man”—she paused for a moment, staring up at the cold, blue sky—“if he had lived, I don’t know what I should have done. You see”—she turned to Hepburn—“I had no choice: I had to go to him. But my life there was hell.”
Mark Hepburn looked away. He was afraid of her eyes. Nayland Smith’s injunction. “Be very careful,” seemed to ring in his ears.
“Why did you have to go to him?” he asked.
“Well—although I know how hard this must be for you to understand—Harvey Bragg, although he never knew it, was little more than a cog in a wheel. I am another cog in the same wheel.” She smiled, but not happily. “He never really controlled the League of Good Americans, nor the many other organizations of which he was the nominal head.”
“Then who does control them?” he questioned harshly.
“When I say that I don’t know, I am literally speaking the truth. But there’s someone far bigger than Harvey Bragg working behind the scenes. Please believe that I dare not tell you any more now.”
Hepburn clenched his fists, plunged deep in the pockets of his topcoat.
“Was Harvey Bragg’s murder in accordance with the”—he hesitated—“revolutions of this wheel?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that it is not to be allowed to interfere with the carrying on of the objects of the league.”
“What are these objects?”
Moya Adair paused for a moment. “I think, but I am not sure, to introduce a new form of government into the United States. Truly”—she stood up—“it is impossible for me to tell you any more. Mr. Purcell, you made a bargain with me, and our time is very short. When you understand more about my position you will see how hard it is to answer some of your questions.”
Mark Hepburn stood up also, and nodded. His middle name (his mother’s) was Purcell, and as Purcell he had introduced himself to Mrs. Adair.
“Which way do we go?”
“This way,” said Moya, and side by side they walked in the direction of the Sherman equestrian statue; Hepburn was silent, sometimes glancing aside at his equally silent companion. She made no attempt to break this silence until they had passed the end of the bridle path, when:
“Shall we want a taxi?” Hepburn asked.
“Yes, but not a Lotus.”
“Why?”
They came out through the Scholar’s Ga
te.
“I have my reasons. Look! This one will do.”
As the taxi moved off to a Park Avenue address of which he made a careful mental note:
“I understand,” said Hepburn dryly, “that Harvey Bragg was a director of the Lotus Transport Corporation?”
“He was.”
The immensity of the scheme was beginning to dawn upon him. Vehicles belonging to the Lotus Corporation, of one kind or another, ranged practically over the whole of the States. All employees belonged to the League of Good Americans: so much he knew. Assuming that they could be used, if necessary, as spies, what a network lay here at command of the master mind! As the countless possibilities presented themselves he turned and stared at Moya Adair. She was watching him earnestly.
“When we arrive at the apartment to which we are going,” she said, “I shall have to ask you to play the part of an old friend. Do you mind?”
Mark Hepburn clenched his teeth. Moya’s gloved hand rested listlessly upon the seat beside him. He grasped and held it for a moment.
“I sincerely wish I were,” he replied.
She smiled; and he thought that her smile, although passionless, was almost affectionate.
“Thank you. I mean, we must address each other by our Christian names. So you have my permission to call me Moya. What am I to call you?”
Suddenly that alluring coquetry which had delighted and then repelled him at the Tower of the Holy Thorn made her eyes dance. A little dimple appeared at the left corner of her mouth.
“Mark.”
“Thank you,” said Moya. “I think very soon you will find yourself christened ‘Uncle’ Mark.”
* * *
Dr. Fu-Manchu pressed a button on his table, and in a domed room where the Memory Man, as a result of many hours of patient toil, had nearly completed another of those majestic clay heads, the making of which alone relieved the tedium of his life, the amber light went out.
“Give me the latest report,” came a curt, guttural order, “from the Number in charge of Mott Street patrol.”
“To hand at 3.10 p.m. Report as follows: Strength of government agents and police in this area doubled since noon. Access to entrances one and two impossible. A government agent, heavily guarded and so far unidentified, in charge. Indications point to a raid pending. This report from Number 41.”
Amber light prevailed again in the Gothic room, and the sculptor, Egyptian cigarette in mouth, proceeded delicately to accentuate the gibbous brow of his subject…
Dr. Fu-Manchu, who had produced this change of light by the pressure of a button, sat for a while with closed eyes. The first steps in his campaign had been successfully taken. The next step was by far the most difficult. The atmosphere of that strange study must have been unbreathable by an average man. A graying pencil of smoke arose from an incense burner set upon one corner of the table. Dr. Fu-Manchu had his own methods of inducing mental stimulation. Presently he touched a switch, and two points of light appeared. A moment he waited, and then:
“Attend carefully to the orders I am about to give,” he directed: he spoke in Chinese.
“I am listening, Master,” the voice of old Sam Pak replied.
“A plot is brewing to set the dogs upon us, my friend. Listen with great care. No one is to enter or to leave Base 3 until further instructions are received from me. Doors leading to street entrances are to remain locked. Our visitors tonight will enter by the river-gate. Their safety rests with you. All are important; some are distinguished. I shall keep you informed…”
* * *
“That is the reason… Mark (I must get used to calling you Mark while you are here), why I am so helpless.”
Through uncurtained french windows Mark Hepburn looked out from the penthouse apartment on to a roof garden. The vegetation of the rock plants was scanty at this season; a little fountain was frozen over. But he could imagine that in spring and summer this was a very pleasant spot. In the frosty sunlight a small, curly-haired boy was romping with a nurse, a capable-looking woman nearing middle age. Her habitual expression Hepburn assumed to be grim, but now she was laughing gayly as she played with her little charge.
Her gaiety was not forced—that of a dutiful employee; it radiated real happiness. With the aid of a pile of cushions set beside the wall the small boy was making strenuous endeavors to stand on his head. His flushed face, every time that he collapsed and looked up at her, reduced the nurse to helpless laughter. He gave it up after a while and sat there grinning.
“God bless us, bairn, you’ll bring all the blood to your daft little head if you keep on,” she exclaimed, speaking with a marked Scottish accent.
“Is there blood in my head, Goofy?” the boy inquired, wide-eyed. “I fought it only came up to here”—he indicated his throat.
“Where d’you think it comes from when your nose bleeds?”
“Never fought of that, Goofy.”
Mark Hepburn, watching the mop of red-brown curls—ruffled by the breeze, the dear blue eyes, the formation of the child’s mouth, the roundness of his chin, experienced an unfamiliar sensation of weakness compounded of pity and of swift, intense affection. He turned his head slowly, looking at Moya Adair.
Her lips trembled, but her eyes were happy as she smiled up at him and waited.
“There’s no need for me to ask,” he said. His harsh voice seemed to have softened slightly. He was recalling the details of Mrs. Adair’s record which he had been at such pains to secure. “I should have remembered.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “My big son. He’s just four…”
* * *
When, presently, Mark Hepburn met Robbie Adair, the boy registered approval save in regard to Hepburn’s budding beard. He was a healthily frank young ruffian and took no pains to disguise his distastes. He had a disarmingly cheerful grin.
“I like you, Uncle Mark, all ’cept your whiskers,” was his summary.
This dislike of beards, so expressed, produced a shocked protest from Nurse Goff and led to further inquiries by Moya, frowning, although her eyes danced with laughter. Interrogation brought to light the fact that Robbie associated beards and untidy hair with a peculiar form of insanity.
“There’s someone I know, up there,” he explained, pointing vaguely apparently towards heaven; “his hair blows about in the wind all in a mess like yours. And he’s got funny whiskers too. He makes heads. He holds ’em up, and then he smashes ’em. So you see, Uncle Mark, he is mad.”
Robbie grinned.
“Whatever are you talking about, Robbie?” Moya, kneeling on a cushion, threw her arm around the boy’s shoulders and glanced up at Mark Hepburn. “Do you know what he means?”
Mark shook his head slowly, looking into the beautiful eyes upraised to his, so like, yet so wonderfully different from, the eyes of the boy. He became aware of the fact that he was utterly happy; a kind of happiness he had never known before. And down upon this unlawful joy (for why should he be happy in the midst of stress, conflict, murder, black hypocrisy) he clapped the icy hand of a Puritan conscience. Nurse Goff had gone into the apartment, leaving the three together.
Some change in Hepburn’s expression made Moya turn aside. She pressed her cheek against Robbie’s curly head.
“We don’t know what you mean, dear,” she said. “Won’t you tell us?”
“I mean,” said Robbie stoutly, turning and staring into her face from a distance of not more than an inch away, “there’s a man who is mad; he has whiskers; and he lives up there!”
“Where exactly do you mean, Robbie?”
She glanced aside at Mark Hepburn. He was watching her intently.
The boy pointed.
“On the very top of that tall tower.”
Mark Hepburn stared in the direction which Robbie indicated. The building in question was the Stratton Tower, one of New York’s very high buildings, and the same which formed a feature of the landscape as viewed from the apartment he shared with Nayland Smith. He continued to s
tare in that direction, endeavoring to capture some memory which the sight of the obelisk-like structure topped by a pointed dome sharply outlined against that cold, blue sky, stirred in his mind.
He stood up, and walked to the wall surrounding the roof garden and took his bearings. He realized that he stood at a level much below that of the fortieth floor of the Regal Tower, but in point of distance much nearer to the building the boy indicated.
“He always comes out at night. On’y sometimes I’s asleep and don’t see him.”
It was the word “night,” which gave Hepburn the clue, captured a furtive memory—a memory of three lighted windows at the top of the Stratton Tower which he had seen and speculated about on the night when, with Nayland Smith, he had waited for the coming of Fly Carlo.
He turned and stared at Robbie with new interest.
“You say he makes heads, young fellow?”
“Yes. I seen him up there, making ’em.”
“At night?”
“Not always.”
“And then you say he smashes them?”
“Yes, he always smashes ’em.”
“How does he smash them, dear?” Moya asked, glancing up at the earnest face of Mark Hepburn.
According to the boy’s graphic description, this notable madman hurled them down on to the dome below, where they were shattered into fragments.
Hepburn, conquered again by the picture of the charming mother kneeling with one arm round Robbie’s shoulders, stooped and succumbed to the temptation of once again ruffling the boy’s curly head.
“You seem to have quite a lot of fun up here, Robbie!” he said.
Later in the cosy sitting-room delicately feminine in its every appointment, Mark Hepburn sat looking at Moya Adair. She smiled almost timidly.
“I suppose,” she said, “it’s hard for you to understand, but—”
The door opened, and a curly head was thrust into the room, followed by a grin.
“Don’t go, Uncle Mark,” Robbie cried, “till I say good-bye.”
He disappeared. Mark Hepburn, watching Moya as with mock severity she signaled the boy to run away, wondered if there was anything more beautiful in nature than a young and lovely mother.