by Sax Rohmer
“Thank God you’ve saved him!” Gregory said, as he gripped the scientist’s limp hand. “But Smith, have you rescued Mignon?”
Nayland Smith slapped him on the shoulder. “We got her with two of Fu-Manchu’s henchmen who were trying to force her into a motor launch. I had her taken to my place.” As Gregory looked at him gratefully, he smiled that boyish grin. “She’s your responsibility now.”
Ten minutes later Gregory walked past a guard and into Nayland Smith’s large booklined study. Mignon sprang up from a chair near the window and ran to him, her eyes wild with terror.
“Gregory! You must compel them to let me go!” she cried “Fu-Manchu will kill my father if I do not return to him.”
She stared at Gregory in bewilderment. “Why do you smile?”
But Gregory was looking beyond her to the door, and Mignon turned. A sigh of joy escaped her as she ran to her father. “My child, my child,” Dr Breon muttered, awkwardly patting her shoulder. “The nightmare is finished, Mignon.”
“Oh, what they’ve done to you these past two years, my father,” she whispered.
Gregory crossed the room and stood at her side, his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll have him right in no time,” he promised. “All he needs is rest and the care we’ll give him.”
Mignon’s head came back, and the tears were gone. What was more, the look of infinite sadness he remembered from their first meeting was gone, too. In its place there was a sparkle that danced in the light of the lamps with swift invitation.
“I think it is quite safe for you now to love me, Gregory,” she said.
He took her into his arms.
THE WORD OF FU-MANCHU
Malcolm glanced aside at his companion, who drove the Jaguar both deftly and quickly. He studied the tall, lean man at the wheel, a clean shaven man, whose tanned skin and crisp, dark hair gave startling emphasis to the silver at his temples: he was sucking a briar pipe.
“I know what you’re thinking, Forbes.” The words were rapped out. “When I was a Commissioner at Scotland Yard, speed limits never troubled me. I formed bad habits.”
“Is there so much hurry, Sir Denis?”
Sir Denis Nayland Smith grunted and swung out to pass a taxi, then:
“There is!” he snapped. “I asked you to join me tonight because I want someone with me where we’re going. Also, as a young freelance journalist, you may be on the big story Fleet Street is waiting for.”
“What’s the story?”
“Dr Fu-Manchu. We’re going to see Sergeant Jack Kenealy, of the CID. He’s been on the case best part of the year. We have kept in touch. He called me an hour ago; said he had things to tell me which he couldn’t put on paper. Rather alarming. Hence the speed.”
“You think—”
“Nothing to think about until we get there.”
And Malcolm knew that Sir Denis didn’t want any further conversation to interfere with his urgent journey.
Ten minutes later they were skirting the north side of Clapham Common, a place of mysterious shadows this moonless night. He became aware of bottled-up excitement as Nayland Smith parked the car at a garage and took Malcolm’s arm.
“This is where we walk,” he announced.
They set out on the side opposite the Common. Sir Denis was silent, but Malcolm noted that he often glanced across at the shadowy expanse, as if, during his long battle against the Chinese genius who dreamed of becoming master of the world, he had learned that Fu-Manchu was a superman who might materialise from space anywhere, at any time. Malcolm’s excitement increased. They came to the next corner.
At which moment Nayland Smith, in the act of turning in, grabbed his arm again in a grip that hurt.
“Forbes, we’re too late. Look!”
They had not passed a single pedestrian so far. But now—this side street was crowded.
The crowd had assembled in front of a house not far from the corner. Malcolm recognised the magnet which had drawn it together—two police cars, an ambulance, and uniformed men on duty before the door.
“Is that where Kenealy lives, Sir Denis?”
Nayland Smith nodded grimly, and began to hurry.
They forced a path through the group of curious onlookers. Then, a police sergeant barred the way.
“No one can go in, sir.”
“Who’s in charge?” Nayland Smith snapped.
“Inspector Wensley is here. But—”
“Wensley? My name is Nayland Smith—Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”
“Sorry, Sir Denis,” the sergeant answered. “I didn’t recognise you, sir. Go ahead.”
Sir Denis and Malcolm went up the short path to the open front door. Inside an elderly woman was trying to pacify a girl who was weeping in her arms: “There, there dear, I know how you feel. But orders are orders, and they have orders to let nobody see him.”
“I shall die if I came too late!” the girl moaned.
Nayland Smith pulled up. “Madame—” he addressed the older woman—“please tell me, is this your house?”
“It is, sir. Mrs Sefton is my name; and my top floor was let to Mr Kenealy—as nice a young man as I’d wish to meet. Even now, I can’t believe it’s happened.”
“What did happen, Mrs Sefton?”
“I was sitting sewing, not more than half an hour ago, when I heard him cry out. It echoed through the place. It was terrible. It was more of a scream than a cry. I knew he had nobody with him but I was alone in the house and so frightened I had to force myself to go up to his sitting-room. I called to him. But he didn’t answer. So I tried to open the door. It was locked.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I ran downstairs and out to the street meaning to ask the first man who came along to force Mr Kenealy’s door. As luck would have it, the first one was a policeman.”
While this conversation went on, Malcolm was watching the girl. She had persistently kept her face pressed to Mrs Sefton’s shoulder. But now she turned suddenly, and cast a swift glance of amber eyes at himself and Nayland Smith. She was a strikingly pretty brunette and appeared to be in a state of terror rather than sorrow.
“The door was forced by the policeman and you found Kenealy,” Nayland Smith said. “Tell me—”
“He was dead, sir!”
The dark girl turned and faced Sir Denis.
“So I understand,” he said. “Details I’ll gather for myself. And now, Mrs Sefton, who is this young lady?”
The girl fixed her strange, but beautiful eyes upon Nayland Smith as Mrs Sefton replied, “It’s Miss Rostov, sir, a friend of Mr Kenealy’s, who often called. She came to see him ten minutes ago, and the police wouldn’t let her go up.”
“Miss Rostov—” Sir Denis met the fixed regard of the girl’s eyes—“how did you know Jack Kenealy was dead?”
“I didn’t know!” she cried. “I didn’t know! How could I know?”
“Was he expecting you?”
“Yes. But I was late.”
“How long have you known him?”
“For a long time. Three or four months.”
“When did you see him last?”
“The day before yesterday.”
“Where?”
“At the restaurant.”
“What restaurant?”
Momentarily, she hesitated, then: “The Café Stambul.”
“And you haven’t seen him or spoken to him since?”
“No.”
Nayland Smith considered her for a while, and the amber eyes evaded him.
“Very well, Miss Rostov. You have all my sympathy. I’m afraid we shall want you as a witness.” He turned to Mrs Sefton. “Please look after her. She mustn’t leave at present. Just a moment, Forbes.”
He went to the street door.
“I’m so sorry, my dear.” Mrs Sefton put her arm round the girl, and included Malcolm in the invitation: “Come into my sitting-room and make yourselves comfortable.”
Malcolm found himself seated in a
small, cosy room, overcrowded with antique furniture, facing Miss Rostov, who reclined upon a couch which might have dated back to Queen Victoria. Mrs Sefton bustled out to “make a nice cup of tea”. The girl’s eyes, in which he read fear, were turned upon him.
“I don’t know your name,” she said softly; she had a slight, unfamiliar accent. “But I feel I can trust you. Why am I to be kept here? Please tell me. Are you of the police?”
“No.” Malcolm felt embarrassed. “But I can only tell you what Sir Denis told you—that you’ll be required as a witness.”
“Sir Denis—who is he?”
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith, a former Commissioner of Scotland Yard.”
“Oh! But shall I be allowed to go when he has talked to me again?”
“Of course.”
She sighed, stretching out her slim body languorously. She had removed a black coat with a wide astrakhan collar; under it she wore a dark green dress. A striped silk scarf concealed nearly all her hair. Malcolm became uncomfortably conscious of her beauty.
“If I have to go to court,” she murmured, “I hope you will come with me. I have, now, no friends in London.”
Before he could think of a reply, Nayland Smith came in.
“Come along, Forbes.”
Malcolm met a lingering glance of amber eyes and followed Sir Denis from the room. As they went upstairs:
“I gave her a chance,” Nayland Smith said shortly. “Did she try the glamour treatment?”
Malcolm felt his colour rising. “I rather think,” he confessed, “that she did. She’s really a beauty, isn’t she?”
“All Fu-Manchu’s women are beauties.”
“‘Fu-Manchu’s women’? You mean, you suspect this girl to be one?”
“We shall see… Hullo, Inspector! I had an appointment with Kenealy tonight, but unfortunately arrived too late…”
* * *
Sergeant Kenealy lay on a couch. Evidently a good-looking man in his early thirties, his present appearance made Malcolm shudder. This gruesome shell might be that of one dead, not for less than an hour, but for more than a week. The divisional surgeon, Dr Abel, was examining the body.
“We’ve ruled out the possibility of homicide, Sir Denis,” Inspector Wensley declared. “The window, which overlooks the street, was fastened. The door was locked. I have checked every possibility, and I’ll stake my job on it—no one else was in this room when he died.”
A fire burned in a small grate, and the room was insufferably hot. Nayland Smith twitched the lobe of his ear, a trick of his when concentrating.
“Poor Kenealy had an enemy, Inspector, who uses strange allies—not necessarily human. You have searched the rooms, furniture closets—wherever any living thing could hide?”
Inspector Wensley looked troubled. “We’ve searched the place of course, sir. I don’t think anything that moved could have escaped us.”
“There seems to be a quantity of charred paper on the fire and in the hearth?”
“He had evidently been burning every bit of paper in his possession,” the inspector told him. “In fact, we shouldn’t have known his identity if West here—’” he indicated a plain clothes man talking to the doctor—“hadn’t recognised him. I was shocked to learn that he was one of us.”
Nayland Smith glanced at Malcolm. “We’re in very deep waters.” He crossed to the couch; Malcolm followed.
Dr Abel looked up at Sir Denis.
“Are there any marks on his body, Doctor, to suggest that he had been bitten by a reptile, for instance?”
“There are no such marks, sir. I cannot imagine why there should be.”
“He was murdered. I’m here to find out how.”
“Murdered! I disagree.”
“Then what’s the diagnosis?” Sir Denis demanded.
Able shook his head angrily. “A sudden seizure of some kind. But look at his colour. Feel the rigidity of the body.”
Kenealy’s features were of a uniform leaden grey, his limbs stiff as if he had been dead for hours. The features were frozen in an expression of horror.
“Cerebral haemorrhage?” Malcolm suggested.
“My dear sir!” Dr Abel snorted. “Look at his colour—look at his eyes.”
“Heart?”
“What kind of heart? Only an autopsy can help us there. But I may add that I never knew a heart case, except angina, where the patient cried out at the moment of the attack. What’s more, this muscular rigidity doesn’t fit. A powerful electric shock might have accounted for it. But he was sitting in that easy chair when I arrived, and no contact was possible. This strange rigor had already set in. The man might have been struck by lightning…”
Nayland Smith turned away, his expression grim. “Show me what was found on him.”
“Here you are, Sir Denis.” Detective West drew his attention to a number of objects on a small table. “He must have had some other base he’d been working from. Mrs Sefton says he was often away for two or three days. There isn’t a thing here to prove his identity.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Nayland Smith said. “I see you have explored his bureau.”
“Complete search, sir,” Wensley assured him. “Nothing to help.”
Sir Dennis glanced over the exhibits. “Where did you find this automatic?”
“Drawer in a bedside cabinet,” West told him. “It’s fully charged.”
“H’m. And what about this?”
He was holding up a disc of some dull metal attached to a thin broken chain.
“That was fastened around his neck,” Wensley explained. “I thought it was a religious emblem. We could find no way of unfastening it, so I had the chain filed. The loop was too small to go over his head.”
Nayland Smith studied the disc with keen interest.
“There’s some sort of hieroglyphic stamped on the metal,” Malcolm pointed out. “I wonder what it means?”
“I think I know,” Sir Denis answered. “With your permission, Inspector, I’ll take this thing with me for expert examination. There’s nothing more to be done here, Forbes. First score to Dr Fu-Manchu. A further chat with your charming acquaintance, Miss Rostov, might bring a little light on things.”
* * *
In Mrs Sefton’s sitting room the dark girl reclined on the sofa as they had left her. She was alone. A cup of tea stood on a table near her. She raised her eyelids languidly but otherwise did not move.
“I’m sorry to have detained you.” Nayland Smith spoke drily. “But I thought you might be able to give me some information about this.”
He extended the metal disc on his open palm.
The effect was electrical. The girl sprang up in one lithe movement, her remarkable eyes widely opened.
“Ah! It is mine! Thank you very much.”
“Yours?” Nayland Smith snapped. “Then why was it chained about his neck?”
“There is a way to unfasten the chain. It is mine. Please give it to me.”
“If that is the case, you shall have it—but not yet. What is it?”
“It is an Eastern charm. To me—” suddenly her eyes were brimming with tears—“it means so much. To you it can mean nothing.”
“H’m, very interesting.” He dropped the disc back into his pocket. “I should be obliged, Miss Rostov, if you would give Mr Forbes your address while I go and arrange for you to be driven home.”
Nayland Smith went out, closing the door. And at the same moment that he did so, the girl moved forward and clutched Malcolm, raising tearful appealing eyes to him.
“Listen to me,” she whispered. “You must listen to me! Persuade him to give me my amulet.”
Malcolm tried, gently, to detach her hands. “I assure you, Sir Denis will do so. He—”
“My name is Nadia. Be my friend. I have no one but you to help me.”
Malcolm’s natural chivalry, and Nadia’s beauty, might have conquered discretion if he had had it in his power to do as she asked. But she asked the impossibl
e.
“I’d gladly help you, Nadia, but Sir Denis wouldn’t listen to me.”
She drooped against him, her head on his shoulder. Her hair had a subtle fragrance.
“I am sorry. I think you would help me, if you could.”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Nadia drew back.
Malcolm pulled out a note-book awkwardly, and tried to force his mind back to normality.
“Please give me your address now, Nadia.”
“Eighty-five Westbourne Terrace,” she told him in a toneless voice.
The door opened and Nayland Smith came in, followed by West.
“Mr West will drive you home, Miss Rostov. You have the address, Forbes?”
* * *
On the way back from Clapham, Sir Denis said: “I hoped your friend, Nadia, might give something more away to you if I offered her the chance, but as a Don Juan you’re fired, Forbes! She’s some sort of Eurasian, and although devilishly attractive, I don’t believe for a moment that there was any real attachment between her and Kenealy. We have what she came tonight to recover—the disc.”
“That’s clear, Sir Denis. But have you any idea what it is?”
“Except that it’s stamped with the sign of the Si-Fan, none whatsoever”
“Sign of the Si-Fan? What is the Si-Fan?”
Nayland Smith laughed shortly. “It’s a world-wide secret society of which Dr Fu-Manchu is president.”
“Then why did Kenealy—?”
“The disc chained around his neck? Top marks to a brave man. He had joined the Si-Fan.”
“Good heavens!”
“He had brains and nerve. But he must have slipped up. He was expecting another visitor tonight. And it wasn’t Nadia. To the end, he hoped to bluff it out. Hence his destruction of all evidence against him. Is this clear to you, Forbes?”
“Yes—now it is. And it’s horrible.”
“The ways of Dr Fu-Manchu are always horrible.”
The door of Nayland Smith’s flat in Whitehall Court was opened by a manservant whose prominent jaw and grim expression inspired confidence.