by Sax Rohmer
Here was the theory demonstrated! He was in a trap: he hadn’t the remotest idea where he was. This ghastly place might be anywhere within a fifty mile radius of the house in Surrey. He must wait for a suitable opening; try to plan ahead.
He went on down the steps; the heat grew greater and greater. Dr. Fu-Manchu followed him.
“Stop!” the harsh voice directed.
And Sterling stopped.
One thing there was which gave him power to control his emotion, which gave him strength to temporize, patience to wait: Fleurette was alive!
Some wizardry of the Chinese physician had perverted her outlook. He, Sterling, had seen such cases before in households belonging to Dr. Fu-Manchu. The man’s knowledge was stupendous—he could play upon the strongest personality as a musician plays upon an instrument in an orchestra.
“You will presently observe something phenomenal,” the high voice continued, “something which has not occurred for several centuries. The mating of the elements. At the moment of transmutation, the fumes to which I have referred escape to a certain extent from the furnace.”
Sterling paused, looking down into the hot darkness.
“My facilities here are limited,” Dr. Fu-Manchu continued, “and I am using primitive methods. I am cut off from my once great resources—to a certain extent by the activities of your friend—” he stressed the word, speaking it upon a very high note—“Sir Denis Nayland Smith. But it is possible to light a fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, if your burning glass is absent or if one has no matches. The work is about to complete itself—” his voice rose to a key which Sterling had thought, before, indicated that Nayland Smith was right when he had declared Dr. Fu-Manchu to be a brilliant madman. “Note the fires of union!”
The heat of the place as they descended nearer and nearer to the furnace was becoming almost unendurable. But now came a loud and vicious crackling, the clang of metal, and the furnace door was thrown open.
A blaze of light from the white-hot fire poured across the floor below. Mummy-like figures moved in it to approach that miniature hell, now extending instruments resembling long narrow tongs.
From the white heat of the furnace they grabbed what looked like a ball of light, and lowered it to the floor.
The furnace doors were reclosed by two more mummy-like figures which appeared out of the shadows.
The scene became more and more fantastic. The incandescent globe was shattered. Where it had been, Sterling saw a number of objects resembling streaks of molten metal; their glow grew dim and more dim.
“This work,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “will engage your attention in the immediate future. You have grossly interfered with my plans in the past, and I might justly and perhaps wisely, kill you. Unfortunately, I am short of labor at the moment, and you are a physically strong man—”
“You mean,” asked Sterling, “that you are going to make me work down in that hell?”
“I fear it must be so—” the speaker’s voice was very sibilant. “Continue to the base of the stairs.”
And Sterling, descending, found himself at the bottom of the huge black shaft. The furnace was closed—the Inferno dimly lighted. Not one of the mummy-wrapped figures was to be seen. But the heat—
A tunnel sloped away on his right. Far down it, a solitary lantern appeared, as if to indicate its clammy extent—for, as he could see, this tunnel dripped with moisture and its floor was flooded in places. A grateful coolness was perceptible at the entrance to this unwholesome looking burrow.
“You will observe,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu—who invariably spoke as if addressing a class of students—“that the temperature is lower here than on the stairs. We are actually a hundred and twenty feet below the surface... We will return.”
The authority behind Dr. Fu-Manchu’s orders had a quality which created awe, without making for resentment. Sterling had experienced in the past this imposition of the Chinaman’s gigantic will. The power of Fu-Manchu’s commands lay in his acceptance of the fact that they would never be questioned.
He passed the Chinaman, stepped on to the narrow stair, and clutching the iron rail proceeded upwards.
“It may interest you to learn,” came the harsh voice from behind him, “that human flesh is excellent fuel in relation to this particular experiment...”
Sterling made no reply... the implication was one he did not care to dwell upon. He remembered that Dr. Fu-Manchu had said, “I had intended to incinerate your body.”
These stairs with their rusty hand-rails, seemed all but interminable. Descent had been bad enough, but this return journey, following on the spectacle below, was worse. Vague gleams from the pit fitfully lighted the darkness. From behind, Dr. Fu-Manchu directed a light upon the crude wooden steps...
Sterling found himself back again in a curiously high, narrow, brick corridor which led to the vault in which he had first awakened. He had just passed a low door, deep sunken in brickwork, when:
“Stop,” the imperious voice directed.
There came a sound of rapping on the door—that of a bolt shot free—a faint creaking.
“Step back a pace, lower your head, and go in.”
Sterling obeyed. He knew that the alternative was suicide. This place, he began to realize, in addition to its heat, had a vague but ghastly charnel-house odor...
He went ahead along a narrow passage; someone who had opened the door stood aside to allow him to pass. He found himself in a small, square brick chamber illuminated by one unshaded bulb hanging on a length of cable. He heard the outer door being bolted.
There was a camp bed, a chair and a table on which stood a glass and a bottle of water. This square brick chamber had never been designed for habitation; he was in the bowels of some uncompleted engineering plant...
The man who had admitted him—who had stood aside when he had entered—appeared now in the doorway—a huge Negro with a pock-scarred face.
For one breathless moment Alan Sterling stared, not daring to believe what he saw—then:
“Ali Oke!” he whispered.
The expression on the black face of the man so oddly named defied definition—but it resolved itself into a grin. Ali Oke raised a finger to his lips in warning—and closed the heavy door. Sterling heard the sound of a bolt being shot...
Ali Oke! It was all but incredible!
Ali—called “Oke” because this term was his equivalent for “I understand” or “very good, sir”—had been Sterling’s right-hand man on his Uganda expedition! He found it hard to believe that the faithful Ali, pride of the American Mission School, could be a servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu...
Complete silence. Even that queer dim roaring had ceased...
Yet—Sterling reflected—better men than Ali Oke had slaved for the Chinese doctor. He stared at the massive wooden door. A faint, sibilant sound drew his gaze floorward.
A piece of paper was being pushed under the door!
Sterling stooped and snatched it up. It was a fragment from the margin of a newspaper, and on it in childlike handwriting was written in pencil:—
Not speak. Somebody listen. Write something. Can send somebody.
Ali.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TUNNEL BELOW WATER
Investigations in Surrey brought some curious points to light.
It was late in the afternoon when Gallaho came to Sir Denis’s apartment to make his report. To be on duty for twenty-four hours was no novelty to the C.I.D. man, but he was compelled to admit to himself that he felt extremely tired. Sir Denis, who wore a dressing-gown, but who was fully dressed beneath, simply radiated vitality. He was smoking furiously, and his blue-gray eyes were as keen as if, after a long and dreamless sleep, he had emerged fresh from his bath.
Gallaho, who guessed Sir Denis to be ten years his senior—as a matter of fact, he was wrong—found a constant source of amazement in Nayland Smith’s energy.
He reported that the mews to which Sir Bertram Morgan’s car h
ad been driven was known to have accommodated a Ford lorry belonging to a local contractor.
Nayland Smith laughed shortly, pacing up and down the carpet.
“When it comes to making important engagements in an unoccupied house, but one with which in the past—and he never forgets anything—the Doctor has been familiar; when, above all, he condescends to travel in a decorator’s lorry...”
He laughed again, and this time it was a joyous, boyish laugh, which magically lifted the years and showed him to be a young man.
“It’s all very funny,” Gallaho agreed, “especially as Sir Bertram, according to his own statement, examined an ingot of pure gold which this Chinese magician offered to sell to him!”
Nayland Smith turned, and stared at the speaker.
“Have you ever realized the difficulty of selling gold, assuming you had any—I mean, in bulk?”
Gallaho scratched his upstanding hair, closed one eye, and cocked the other one up at the ceiling.
“I suppose it would be difficult, in bulk,” he admitted; “especially if the gold merchant was forced to operate under cover.”
“I assure you it would,” said Nayland Smith. “No further clues from Rowan House, I suppose?”
“Nothing. It’s amazing. But it accounts for an appointment at half-past two in the morning. They just dressed the lobby and two rooms of the house like preparing a stage-set for a one-night show.”
“Obviously they did, Gallaho—and it is amazing, as you say. I remember the place very well; I was there on many occasions during the time Sir Lionel Barton occupied it. I remember, particularly, the Chinese Room, with its sliding doors and lacquer appointments. Those decorations which were not Barton relics—I refer to the preserved snakes, the chemical furnace, and so forth—were imported for Sir Bertram Morgan’s benefit.”
“That’s where the Ford lorry came in!”
Nayland Smith dashed his right fist into his left palm.
“Right! You’re right! That’s where the lorry came in! The missing caretaker?”
“He’s just described by local tradesmen as ‘an old foreigner’—”
“Someone employed by, or bought by, Fu-Manchu. We shall never trace him.”
Gallaho chewed invisible gum.
“Funny business,” he muttered.
“Rowan House has known even more sinister happenings in the past. However, I will look it over myself—some time today if possible. What about the lorry?”
“I have seen the former owner.” Gallaho pulled out a book and consulted some notes. “He sold it on the fourteenth instant. The purchase price was thirty pounds. The purchaser he describes as ‘a foreign bloke.’ I may say, sir—” looking up at Sir Denis—“said contractor isn’t too intelligent; but I gather that the ‘foreign bloke’ was some kind of Asiatic. It was up to the purchaser to remove the lorry at his convenience.”
“How was payment made?”
“Thirty one-pound notes.”
“Very curious,” murmured Sir Denis. “Very, very curious. I am wondering what the real object could be in the purchase of this lorry. Its use last night was an emergency measure. I think we may take that for granted. Have you traced it?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
“Has any constable reported having seen it?”
“No one.”
“What about the Morris out of the yard in Limehouse?”
“I have a short report about that,” Gallaho growled, consulting his notes. “It’s the property of Sam Pak, as we surmized, and various birds belonging to his queer aviary seem to drive it from time to time. My own idea is that he uses it to send drunks home. But it’s for hire, and according to Murphy, who has been on the job down there, it was hired last night, or rather, early in the morning, by a lady who had dined on board a steamer lying in West India Dock.”
“You have the name of the steamer, no doubt?”
“Murphy got it.”
“Did any lady dine on board?”
“The ship mentioned in my notes, sir,” Gallaho replied ill-humoredly, “pulled out when the fog lifted. We have no means of confirming.”
“I see,” snapped Nayland Smith, his briar bubbling and crackling as he smoked furiously. “But the driver?”
“A man called Ah Chuk—he’s a licensed driver; he’s been checked up—who hangs about Sam Pak’s when he’s out of a job. His usual work is that of a stevedore.”
“Has anyone seen this man?”
“Yes—Murphy. He says, and Sam Pak confirms it, that he took the car down to the gates of West India Dock and picked up a lady who was in evening dress. He drove her to the Ambassadors’ Club—” Gallaho was reading from his notes—“dropped her there and returned to Limehouse.”
“Where is the car now?”
“Back in the yard.”
Nayland Smith walked up and down for some time, and then:
“A ridiculous, but a cunning story,” he remarked. “However, Ah Chuk will probably come into our net. Anything of interest in the reports of the men who trailed customers leaving Sam Pak’s?”
“Well—” Gallaho’s growl grew deeper—“those that left were just the usual sort. Funny thing, though, is, that some of the customers you reported seeing inside didn’t leave at all!”
“What!”
“Murphy reported seven people, six men and a woman, in the ‘Sailors’ Club.’ Only three—two men and the woman—had come out at seven o’clock this morning!”
“Very odd,” Nayland Smith murmured.
“There are two things,” said Gallaho, “that particularly worry me, sir.”
He closed his note-book.
“What are they?”
“That funny light, which I had heard of but never seen; and... Mr. Sterling.”
He stared almost reproachfully at Sir Denis. The latter turned, smiling slightly.
“I can see that you are worrying,” he said, “and quite rightly. He is a splendid fellow—and he was very unhappy. But an individual described by the hall-porter as a loafer, left this note for me an hour ago.”
He crossed to the writing-table, took up an envelope and handed it to Chief Detective-inspector Gallaho. The latter stared at it critically. It was an envelope of poor quality, of a kind which can be bought in packets of a dozen at any cheap stationer’s and upon it in what looked like a child’s handwriting, appeared:—
Nayland Smith
No 7 Westminster Court
Whitehall
The inscription was in pencil. Gallaho extracted the contents—a small sheet of thin paper torn from a pocket-book. Upon this, also in pencil, the following message appeared:—
To:—Nayland Smith
No 7 Westminster Court
Whitehall
In hands of Fu-Manchu. In some place where there is a deep pit, a furnace, and a tunnel below water. I know no more. Do your best.
Alan Sterling.
By the same hand which had addressed the envelope, one significant word had been added below the signature:
Limehouse
Gallaho stared across at Sir Denis. Sunshine had temporarily conquered the fog. The room was cheerful and bright. Gallaho found himself looking at a puncture in one of the windows, through which quite recently a message of death had come but had missed its target.
“Is this Mr. Sterling’s writing?”
“Yes.” Nayland Smith’s eyes were very bright. “What do we know about tunnels, Gallaho?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AT THE BLUE ANCHOR
The man with the claret colored nose was becoming quarrelsome. His unshaven friend who wore a tweed cap with the brim pulled right down over his eyes, was drunk also, but in a more amiable way.
John Bates, the landlord of The Blue Anchor, shirt-sleeved behind the bar, watched the pair inquiringly. The man with the claret nose came in at longish intervals, and was usually more or less drunk. Bates supposed that he was a hand in one of the coasting steamers which sailed from a near-by d
ock. His friend was a stranger, nor did he look like a sailor.
The Blue Anchor had only just opened and there were no other customers in the private bar, which was decorated with sporting prints and a number of Oriental curiosities which might have indicated that the landlord, or some member of his family, had traveled extensively in the East. John observed with satisfaction that the phenomenal fog which had lifted during the day, promised to return with the coming of dusk.
From long experience of dockland trade, John had learned that fog was good for business. He lighted a cigarette, leaning on the bar and listening to the conversation of the singular pair.
“I bet you half a quid as it was above Wapping.”
The claret-nosed man was the speaker, and he emphasized his words by banging his fist upon the table before him. John Bates was certain now that he was a sailor and that he had a pay-roll in his pocket. The other man stolidly shook his head.
“You’re wrong, Dick,” he declared, thickly. “It was somewhere near Limehouse Basin.”
“Wapping.”
“Limehouse.”
“Look here.” Claret Nose rose unsteadily to his feet, and approached the bar. “I’m goin’ to ask you to act as judge between me and this bloke here. See what I mean, guv’nor?”
John Bates nodded stolidly.
“It’s a bet for half a quid.”
Bates liked bets; they always led up to rounds of drinks, and:
“Put your money on the counter,” he directed; “I’ll hold the stakes.”
Claret Nose banged down a ten shilling note and turning:
“Cover that!” he shouted, truculently.
The other man, who proved to be tall and thin when he stood up, extracted a note from some inner pocket and placed it upon that laid down by the challenger.
“Right.” John Bates inverted a tumbler upon the two notes. “Now, what’s the bet about?”
