by Sax Rohmer
Silently, unprotestingly, the woman obeyed him, raising her gloved hands and lifting the veil from her face.
The features revealed were handsome in a hard fashion, but heavily made-up. Our captive was younger than I had hitherto supposed; a blonde; her hair artificially reduced to the so-called Titian tint. But, despite her youth, her eyes, with the blackened lashes, were full of a world weariness. Now she smiled cynically.
"Are you satisfied," she said, speaking unemotionally, "or," holding up her wrists, "would you like to handcuff me?"
Nayland Smith, glancing from the open grip and the appliance beside it to the face of the speaker, began clicking his teeth together, whereby I knew him to be perplexed. Then he stared across at me.
"You appear bemused, Petrie," he said, with a certain irritation. "Is this what mystifies you?"
Stooping, he picked up the metal contrivance, and almost savagely jerked open the top section. It was a telescopic ladder, and more ingeniously designed than anything of the kind I had seen before. There was a sort of clamp attached to the base, and two sharply pointed hooks at the top.
"For reaching windows on an upper floor," snapped my friend, dropping the thing with a clatter upon the carpet. "An American device which forms part of the equipment of the modern hotel thief!"
He seemed to be disappointed—fiercely disappointed; and I found his attitude inexplicable. He turned to the woman—who sat regarding him with that fixed cynical smile.
"Who are you?" he demanded; "and what business have you with the Si-Fan?"
The woman's eyes opened more widely, and the smile disappeared from her face.
"The Si-Fan!" she repeated slowly. "I don't know what you mean, Inspector."
"I am not an Inspector," snapped Smith, "and you know it well enough. You have one chance—your last. To whom were you to deliver the box? when and where?"
But the blue eyes remained upraised to the grim tanned face with a look of wonder in them, which, if assumed, marked the woman a consummate actress.
"Who are you?" she asked in a low voice, "and what are you talking about?"
Inactive, I stood by the door watching my friend, and his face was a fruitful study in perplexity. He seemed upon the point of an angry outburst, then, staring intently into the questioning eyes upraised to his, he checked the words he would have uttered and began to click his teeth together again.
"You are some servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu!" he said.
The girl frowned with a bewilderment which I could have sworn was not assumed. Then—
"You said I had one chance a moment ago," she replied. "But if you referred to my answering any of your questions, it is no chance at all. We have gone under, and I know it. I am not complaining; it's all in the game. There's a clear enough case against us, and I am sorry"—suddenly, unexpectedly, her eyes became filled with tears, which coursed down her cheeks, leaving little wakes of blackness from the make-up upon her lashes. Her lips trembled, and her voice shook. "I am sorry I let him do it. He'd never done anything—not anything big like this—before, and he never would have done if he had not met me… ."
The look of perplexity upon Smith's face was increasing with every word that the girl uttered.
"You don't seem to know me," she continued, her emotion growing momentarily greater, "and I don't know you; but they will know me at Bow Street. I urged him to do it, when he told me about the box to-day at lunch. He said that if it contained half as much as the Kûren treasure-chest, we could sail for America and be on the straight all the rest of our lives… ."
And now something which had hitherto been puzzling me became suddenly evident. I had not removed the wig worn by the dead man, but I knew that he had fair hair, and when in his last moments he had opened his eyes, there had been in the contorted face something faintly familiar.
"Smith!" I cried excitedly, "it is Lewison, Meyerstein's clerk! Don't you understand? don't you understand?"
Smith brought his teeth together with a snap and stared me hard in the face.
"I do, Petrie. I have been following a false scent. I do!"
The girl in the chair was now sobbing convulsively.
"He was tempted by the possibility of the box containing treasure," I ran on, "and his acquaintance with this—lady—who is evidently no stranger to felonious operations, led him to make the attempt with her assistance. But"—I found myself confronted by a new problem—"what caused his death?"
"His … death!"
As a wild, hysterical shriek the words smote upon my ears. I turned, to see the girl rise, tottering, from her seat. She began groping in front of her, blindly, as though a darkness had descended.
"You did not say he was dead?" she whispered, "not dead!—not … "
The words were lost in a wild peal of laughter. Clutching at her throat she swayed and would have fallen had I not caught her in my arms. As I laid her insensible upon the settee I met Smith's glance.
"I think I know that, too, Petrie," he said gravely.
Chapter 14 THE GOLDEN POMEGRANATES
"What was it that he cried out?" demanded Nayland Smith abruptly. "I was in the sitting-room and it sounded to me like 'pomegranates'!"
We were bending over Lewison; for now, the wig removed, Lewison it proved unmistakably to be, despite the puffy and pallid face.
"He said 'the golden pomegranates,'" I replied, and laughed harshly. "They were words of delirium and cannot possibly have any bearing upon the manner of his death."
"I disagree."
He strode out into the sitting-room.
Weymouth was below, supervising the removal of the unhappy prisoner, and together Smith and I stood looking down at the brass box. Suddenly—
"I propose to attempt to open it," said my friend.
His words came as a complete surprise.
"For what reason?—and why have you so suddenly changed your mind?"
"For a reason which I hope will presently become evident," he said; "and as to my change of mind, unless I am greatly mistaken, the wily old Chinaman from whom I wrested this treasure was infinitely more clever than I gave him credit for being!"
Through the open window came faintly to my ears the chiming of Big Ben. The hour was a quarter to two. London's pulse was dimmed now, and around about us that great city slept as soundly as it ever sleeps. Other sounds came vaguely through the fog, and beside Nayland Smith I sat and watched him at work upon the Tûlun-Nûr box.
Every knob of the intricate design he pushed, pulled and twisted; but without result. The night wore on, and just before three o'clock Inspector Weymouth knocked upon the door. I admitted him, and side by side the two of us stood watching Smith patiently pursuing his task.
All conversation had ceased, when, just as the muted booming of London's clocks reached my ears again and Weymouth pulled out his watch, there came a faint click … and I saw that Smith had raised the lid of the coffer!
Weymouth and I sprang forward with one accord, and over Smith's shoulders peered into the interior. There was a second lid of some dull, black wood, apparently of great age, and fastened to it so as to form knobs or handles was an exquisitely carved pair of _golden pomegranates!_
"They are to raise the wooden lid, Mr. Smith!" cried Weymouth eagerly.
"Look! there is a hollow in each to accommodate the fingers!"
"Aren't you going to open it?" I demanded excitedly—"aren't you going to open it?"
"Might I invite you to accompany me into the bedroom yonder for a moment?" he replied in a tome of studied reserve. "You also, Weymouth?"
Smith leading, we entered the room where the dead man lay stretched upon the bed.
"Note the appearance of his fingers," directed Nayland Smith.
I examined the peculiarity to which Smith had drawn my attention. The dead man's fingers were swollen extraordinarily, the index finger of either hand especially being oddly discolored, as though bruised from the nail upward. I looked again at the ghastly face, then, repressing a shud
der, for the sight was one not good to look upon, I turned to Smith, who was watching me expectantly with his keen, steely eyes.
From his pocket the took out a knife containing a number of implements, amongst them a hook-like contrivance.
"Have you a button-hook, Petrie," he asked, "or anything of that nature?"
"How will this do?" said the Inspector, and he produced a pair of handcuffs. "They were not wanted," he added significantly.
"Better still," declared Smith.
Reclosing his knife, he took the handcuffs from Weymouth, and, returning to the sitting-room, opened them widely and inserted two steel points in the hollows of the golden pomegranates. He pulled. There was a faint sound of moving mechanism and the wooden lid lifted, revealing the interior of the coffer. It contained three long bars of lead—and nothing else!
Supporting the lid with the handcuffs—
"Just pull the light over here, Petrie," said Smith.
I did as he directed.
"Look into these two cavities where one is expected to thrust one's fingers!"
Weymouth and I craned forward so that our heads came into contact.
"My God!" whispered the Inspector, "we know now what killed him!"
Visible, in either little cavity against the edge of the steel handcuff, was the point of a needle, which evidently worked in an exquisitely made socket through which the action of raising the lid caused it to protrude. Underneath the lid, midway between the two pomegranates, as I saw by slowly moving the lamp, was a little receptacle of metal communicating with the base of the hollow needles.
The action of lifting the lid not only protruded the points but also operated the hypodermic syringe!
"Note," snapped Smith—but his voice was slightly hoarse.
He removed the points of the bracelets. The box immediately reclosed with no other sound than a faint click.
"God forgive him," said Smith, glancing toward the other room, "for he died in my stead!—and Dr. Fu-Manchu scores an undeserved failure!"
Chapter 15 ZARMI REAPPEARS
"Come in!" I cried.
The door opened and a page-boy entered.
"A cable for Dr. Petrie."
I started up from my chair. A thousand possibilities—some of a sort to bring dread to my heart—instantly occurred to me. I tore open the envelope and, as one does, glanced first at the name of the sender.
It was signed "Kâramaneh!"
"Smith!" I said hoarsely, glancing over the massage, "Kâramaneh is on her way to England. She arrives by the Nicobar to-morrow!"
"Eh?" cried Nayland Smith, in turn leaping to his feet. "She had no right to come alone, unless——"
The boy, open-mouthed, was listening to our conversation, and I hastily thrust a coin into his hand and dismissed him. As the door closed—
"Unless what, Smith?" I said, looking my friend squarely in the eyes.
"Unless she has learnt something, or—is flying away from some one!"
My mind set in a whirl of hopes and fears, longings and dreads.
"What do you mean, Smith?" I asked. "This is the place of danger, as we know to our cost; she was safe in Egypt."
Nayland Smith commenced one of his restless perambulations, glancing at me from time to time and frequently tugging at the lobe of his ear.
"Was she safe in Egypt?" he rapped. "We are dealing, remember, with the Si-Fan, which, if I am not mistaken, is a sort of Eleusinian Mystery holding some kind of dominion over the eastern mind, and boasting initiates throughout the Orient. It is almost certain that there is an Egyptian branch, or group—call it what you will—of the damnable organization."
"But Dr. Fu-Manchu——"
"Dr. Fu-Manchu—for he lives, Petrie! my own eyes bear witness to the fact—Dr. Fu-Manchu is a sort of delegate from the headquarters. His prodigious genius will readily enable him to keep in touch with every branch of the movement, East and West."
He paused to knock out his pipe into an ashtray and to watch me for some moments in silence.
"He may have instructed his Cairo agents," he added significantly.
"God grant she get to England in safety," I whispered. "Smith! can we make no move to round up the devils who defy us, here in the very heart of civilized England? Listen. You will not have forgotten the wild-cat Eurasian Zarmi?"
Smith nodded. "I recall the lady perfectly!" he snapped.
"Unless my imagination has been playing me tricks, I have seen her twice within the last few days—once in the neighborhood of this hotel and once in a cab in Piccadilly."
"You mentioned the matter at the time," said Smith shortly; "but although I made inquiries, as you remember, nothing came of them."
"Nevertheless, I don't think I was mistaken. I feel in my very bones that the Yellow hand of Fu-Manchu is about to stretch out again. If only we could apprehend Zarmi."
Nayland Smith lighted his pipe with care.
"If only we could, Petrie!" he said; "but, damn it!"—he dashed his left fist into the palm of his right hand—"we are doomed to remain inactive. We can only await the arrival of Kâramaneh and see if she has anything to tell us. I must admit that there are certain theories of my own which I haven't yet had an opportunity of testing. Perhaps in the near future such an opportunity may arise."
How soon that opportunity was to arise neither of us suspected then; but Fate is a merry trickster, and even as we spoke of these matters events were brewing which were to lead us along strange paths.
With such glad anticipations as my pen cannot describe, their gladness not unmixed with fear, I retired to rest that night, scarcely expecting to sleep, so eager was I for the morrow. The musical voice of Kâramaneh seemed to ring in my ears; I seemed to feel the touch of her soft hands and to detect, as I drifted into the borderland betwixt reality and slumber, that faint, exquisite perfume which from the first moment of my meeting with the beautiful Eastern girl, had become to me inseparable from her personality.
It seemed that sleep had but just claimed me when I was awakened by some one roughly shaking my shoulder. I sprang upright, my mind alert to sudden danger. The room looked yellow and dismal, illuminated as it was by a cold light of dawn which crept through the window and with which competed the luminance of the electric lamps.
Nayland Smith stood at my bedside, partially dressed!
"Wake up, Petrie!" he cried; "you instincts serve you better than my reasoning. Hell's afoot, old man! Even as you predicted it, perhaps in that same hour, the yellow fiends were at work!"
"What, Smith, what!" I said, leaping out of bed; "you don't mean——"
"Not that, old man," he replied, clapping his hand upon my shoulder; "there is no further news of her, but Weymouth is waiting outside. Sir Baldwin Frazer has disappeared!"
I rubbed my eyes hard and sought to clear my mind of the vapors of sleep.
"Sir Baldwin Frazer!" I said, "of Half-Moon Street? But what——"
"God knows what," snapped Smith; "but our old friend Zarmi, or so it would appear, bore him off last night, and he has completely vanished, leaving practically no trace behind."
Only a few sleeping servants were about as we descended the marble stairs to the lobby of the hotel where Weymouth was awaiting us.
"I have a cab outside from the Yard," he said. "I came straight here to fetch you before going on to Half-Moon Street."
"Quite right!" snapped Smith; "but you are sure the cab is from the Yard? I have had painful experience of strange cabs recently!"
"You can trust this one," said Weymouth, smiling slightly. "It has carried me to the scene of many a crime."
"Hem!" said Smith—"a dubious recommendation."
We entered the waiting vehicle and soon were passing through the nearly deserted streets of London. Only those workers whose toils began with the dawn were afoot at that early hour, and in the misty gray light the streets had an unfamiliar look and wore an aspect of sadness in ill accord with the sentiments which now were stirring within me. For what
ever might be the fate of the famous mental specialist, whatever the mystery before us—even though Dr. Fu-Manchu himself, malignantly active, threatened our safety—Kâramaneh would be with me again that day—Kâramaneh, my beautiful wife to be!
So selfishly occupied was I with these reflections that I paid little heed to the words of Weymouth, who was acquainting Nayland Smith with the facts bearing upon the mysterious disappearance of Sir Baldwin Frazer. Indeed, I was almost entirely ignorant upon the subject when the cab pulled up before the surgeon's house in Half-Moon Street.
Here, where all else spoke of a city yet sleeping or but newly awakened, was wild unrest and excitement. Several servants were hovering about the hall eager to glean any scrap of information that might be obtainable; wide-eyed and curious, if not a little fearful. In the somber dining-room with its heavy oak furniture and gleaming silver, Sir Baldwin's secretary awaited us. He was a young man, fair-haired, clean-shaven and alert; but a real and ever-present anxiety could be read in his eyes.
"I am sorry," he began, "to have been the cause of disturbing you at so early an hour, particularly since this mysterious affair may prove to have no connection with the matters which I understand are at present engaging your attention."
Nayland Smith raised his hand deprecatingly.
"We are prepared, Mr. Logan," he replied, "to travel to the uttermost ends of the earth at all times, if by doing so we can obtain even a meager clue to the enigma which baffles us."
"I should not have disturbed Mr. Smith," said Weymouth, "if I had not been pretty sure that there was Chinese devilry at work here: nor should I have told you as much as I have, Mr. Logan," he added, a humorous twinkle creeping into his blue eyes, "if I had thought you could not be of use to us in unraveling our case!"
"I quite understand that," said Logan, "and now, since you have voted for the story first and refreshments afterward, let me tell you what little I know of the matter."
"Be as brief as you can," snapped Nayland Smith, starting up from the chair in which he had been seated and beginning restlessly to pace the floor before the open fireplace—"as brief as is consistent with clarity. We have learnt in the past that an hour or less sometimes means the difference between——"