by Sax Rohmer
“—I called up the inspector, and he told me to stand-by as you suggested, sir; there’s another man on my beat.”
“We’ll get the rest of the story from the night watchman,” growled Gallaho.
“He’s no friend of the Force, Inspector,” Ireland nodded. “He might talk more if you said you were newspaper men.”
“Bright lad!” growled Gallaho. He turned to Sir Denis. “Will you do the talking, sir?”
Nayland Smith nodded.
“Leave it to me.”
The hole in the road with its parapets of gravel and wood blocks protected by an outer defense of red poles from which lanterns were suspended, was certainly obstructing traffic. But at the moment that the party of three reached it, a temporary clearance had been effected, and the night watchman surveyed an empty street.
His quarters, a sort of tarpaulin cave constructed amidst a mass of large iron piping, housed a plank seat and some other mysterious items of furniture. A fire in a brazier glowed redly in the darkness, and added additional color to that already possessed by the night watchman.
This peculiar character, who favored a short gray beard but no mustache—his upper lip appearing to possess a blue tinge in contrast to the redness of his nose—wore the most dilapidated bowler hat which Nayland Smith had ever seen in his life, and this at an angle which startled even Inspector Gallaho. He also wore two overcoats; the outer garment being several inches shorter than the inner.
He was engaged at the moment upon the task of frying bacon in the square lid of a biscuit tin which he manipulated very adroitly with a pair of enormous pincers, obviously designed for some much less delicate task. He looked up as the three men paused, leaning on one of the red poles.
“Upon my word!” Nayland Smith exclaimed. Importing a faint trace of Cockney into his accent. “You blokes do get about, don’t you?” He turned to Gallaho. “Funny I should see this chap here, tonight. Last week I saw him down in Limehouse.”
“Did you, now?” said the watchman, evidently much gratified. “I’d say that’s funny; I’ll say more, I’ll say it’s bloody funny!”
He removed the biscuit tin skilfully, and tipped the rashers with their succulent fat on to a cracked enamel plate. He produced a knife and fork and a great chunk of bread. Standing up, he set a kettle on the fire, then sat down again, and, the plate on the plank beside him, began very composedly to eat his supper.
“Yes, it is funny,” Nayland Smith went on. “I was down there for my paper on the story of that raid in Chinatown. But all the suspects slipped away. It would be last Saturday night wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” said the night watchman, his mouth full of hot bacon. “That would be the night.”
He dropped some tea into a tin pot, set it on the ground beside him, and continued stolidly to eat his bacon.
“A night wasted,” Nayland Smith mused aloud. “And what a night it was! What ho! The fog.”
“It certainly were foggy.”
“The blooming coppers had something up their sleeve; they kept it to themselves.”
“You’re right, mister.” He spat out a piece of bacon rind, picked it up, contemplated it critically and then threw it on the fire. “Coppers is a lousy lot!”
“Wish I’d stopped for a chat with you, that night, and a spot over the fire.” Nayland Smith leaned across the rail and passed a flask to the night watchman. “Slip a gill in your tea. I’m homeward bound with a couple of pals. I shan’t need it.”
“Blimey!” cried the night watchman, unscrewed the flask and sniffed the contents. “Thanks, mister. This is a bit of all right.”
“Those blasted chinks,” Sir Denis continued, “slipped out of that place as though they’d been dissolved.”
“How many, guv’nor?”
“Four, I think they were looking for.”
Mingled with the sound of whisky trickling into a tin mug, came a muted rumbling which examination of the face of the night watchman might have suggested to an observer to be due to suppressed mirth; then:
“You might have done worse than stop for a chat with me, guv’nor,” said the man, re-screwing the flask and returning it to Sir Denis.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
NIGHT WATCHMAN’S STORY
“It was this way with me,” the night watchman continued, endeavoring to chuckle and eat bacon at the same time, “as I told the young scab of a copper down there what come walkin’ by. He says ‘You’ve ’ad one over the eight, haven’t you?’ he says. See what I mean, mister?”
“I know those young coppers,” snapped Nayland Smith, glancing at Gallaho. “They’ve got no sense.”
“Sense!” the night watchman made a strong brew of tea. “What I want to know is: how do they get into the Force? Answer me that: how do they get into the Force? Well, this bloke I’m tellin’ you about...”
The dammed up stream of traffic was trickling slowly past the obstruction, under Constable Ireland’s direction. Things were going fairly well. But nevertheless it was difficult to hear the speaker, and Nayland Smith and Gallaho bent over the red barrier, listening intently. Petrie craned forward also, his hand resting on Gallaho’s shoulder.
“This bloke says to me,” the night watchman repeated, “’ad one over the eight, haven’t you?’ So I didn’t say no more to him, except, ‘Bloody good luck to me’ says I, ‘if I have’... and I adds, ‘Bloody bad luck to you if you ain’t.’ That was what I said.”
With all the care of a pharmacist preparing a prescription, he added a portion of the whisky from the tin cup to a brew of hot tea in a very cracked mug.
“I let him go—it’s silly talkin’ to coppers. He went away laughin’. But the laugh was mine, if I says so—but the laugh was mine! I’ll tell you what I told ’im, mate—I told him what I see.”
He swallowed a portion of bread and bacon.
“You’re a newspaper man. Well, you’d have got your story all right, if you stopped, like you wanted to do, that night. What story I don’t know, but a story. Here it is. I work for a firm, if you follow what I mean; I ain’t a Council man—that’s why I travels so much. Very well. The same firm what done this job ’ere was on the Limehouse job...”
He added sugar and condensed milk from a tired looking tin, to the brew in the mug, stirred it with a piece of wood and took an appreciative sip.
“Good ’ealth, mister. Where I’m workin’ in Limehouse is on West India Dock Road and not far from the corner of the old Causeway. That’s where you see me, if I heard you right.”
“That’s it,” said Smith patiently; “a grand fire you had.”
“I’d got some chestnuts,” chuckled the night watchman. “I remember as well as if it were an hour ago, and I’d roasted ’em and I was eating ’em. Did you notice me eating ’em?”
“No, he didn’t,” growled Gallaho; “at least he never told me he did.”
Nayland Smith grasped the speaker’s arm.
“Oh, didn’t he?” said the night watchman, lifting a tufted eyebrow in the direction of the detective. “Well, I was. And through the fog there, what did I see?...”
He drank from the mug. Rain had begun to fall; the roar of the passing traffic rendered it necessary to bend far over the red pole in order to hear the man’s words. He set down his mug and stared truculently from face to face.
“I’m asking a bloody question,” he declared. “What did I see?”
“How the hell do I know, mate?” Gallaho shouted, in the true vernacular, his voice informed by suppressed irritation.
The night watchman chuckled. This was the sort of reaction he understood.
“’Course you don’t know. That’s why I ask’ you... I see a trap what belongs to the main sewer open from underneath. Get that? It just lifted—and first thing I thought was: an explosion! It wasn’t no further from me than”—he hesitated—“that bus. It was lifted right off. There’s nobody about; it’s quiet on the pavement, and what did I see then?...”
He took anot
her sip from his mug; he had finished the bread and the bacon. Gallaho had sized up his witness, and:
“What did you see, mate?” he inquired.
“Here’s a story for the newspapers,” the watchman chuckled, as Nayland Smith reached across the barrier and offered him a cigarette from a yellow packet. “Thanks, mister—here’s a story!”
He succeeded in some mysterious way in lighting the cigarette from the fire in the brazier.
“A Chinaman popped up...”
“What!”
“You may well say ‘what’! But I’m tellin’ you. A Chinaman popped up out of the trap.”
“What kind of a Chinaman?”
Nayland Smith was the speaker, but in spite of his eagerness he had not forgotten to retain the accent.
“Looked like a Chinese sailor, as much as I could see of ’im through the fog—not that there was a lot of fog at the time; but there was some—there ’ad been more. He took a look round. I sat quiet by my fire because, as I told that lousy cop what laughed at me, I thought for a minute I was dreamin’. Then he bent down and ’elped another Chinese bloke to come up. The second Chinese bloke was old. He was an old Chinee, he were...”
“What did he wear?” Smith inquired, pulling out a notebook and pencil, casually.
“Ho, ho!” chuckled the watchman. “I thought you’d want to make some notes. He wore a kind of overcoat and a tweed cap. But although I couldn’t see his face, I know it was a very funny face— very old and ’aggard, and he were very tall—”
“Very tall?”
“That’s what I said—Very tall. Another bloke come up next—”
“Also a Chinaman?”
“Likewise Chinese, wearin’ a old jersey and trousers with his ’ead bare. He bent back like the first bloke had done, and ’auled up another Chinese—”
“Not another one,” growled Gallaho, acting up to the situation.
“Another one!” the watchman repeated truculently, fixing a ferocious glare upon the speaker, whom instinctively he disliked— “and another old ’un—” challengingly, the glare unmoved from Gallaho—“and another old ’un!...”
Nayland Smith was apparently making rapid notes; now: “Was the other old one tall?” he inquired.
“He were not, he was just old.”
“Did you notice what he wore?”
“Listen...” The night watchman puffed his cigarette and then stood up slowly—“you’re not suggestin’ I’m barmy, are you?”
“You bet I’m not,” snapped Nayland Smith cheerfully. “You’ve given me a grand paragraph.”
“Oh, I see. Well, he wore a seedy kind o’ suit like I might wear, and an old soft hat.”
“What did they do?”
“The two younger chinks put the trap back and stamped it down. Then they all crossed the road behind my ’ut, and that’s all I know about it.”
“Didn’t you see where they went?”
“Listen, mister...” The watchman sat down again on his plank seat, refilling his mug from the pot and adding the remainder of the whisky to its contents. “There was nobody about. I ain’t as young as I used to be. If you saw chinks—two of ’em tough lookin’ specimens— come up out of a sewer... see what I mean? Do you know what I done? I pretends to be fast asleep! And now, I’m goin’ to ask you a question. In the circs,—what would you ’ave done?”
“That’s sense,” growled Gallaho.
“But you reported it to the constable on the beat when he came along?” said Nayland Smith.
“As you say, mister. And he not only give me the bird, he told me I was barmy or blind-oh. It’ll be a long time before I gives information to the bloody police again, whatever I sees—whatever I sees.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“I AM CALLING YOU”
Fleurette knew that Alan must not be out after dusk in this misty weather. He had developed an unpleasant cough as a result of the injuries he had received; but Fleurette had found a faith almost amounting to worship in the wisdom of Dr. Petrie, her father so newly discovered, but already deeply loved.
He had assured her that this distressing symptom would disappear when the lesion was healed.
She had not wanted Alan to go. Her love for him was a strange thing, impossible to analyze. It had come uncalled for, unwanted; she almost resented the way she felt about Alan.
The curious but meaningless peace of her previous life, her fatalistic acceptance of what she believed to be her destiny, had been broken by this love for Alan. He had represented storm; the discovery of her father had represented calm.
She knew, but nevertheless experienced no resentment of the fact, that she had been used as a pawn in the game of the brilliant man who had dominated her life from infancy. Even now, after her father and Sir Denis had opened her eyes, gently, but surely, to the truth—or what they believed to be the truth—about the Prince (for she always thought of him as the Prince) Fleurette remained uncertain.
Sir Denis was wonderful; and her father—her heart beat faster when she thought of her father—he, of course, was simply a darling. In some way which she could not analyze, her allegiance, she knew, was shared between her father and Alan. It was all very new and very confusing. It had not only changed her life; it had changed her mode of thought—her outlook—everything.
Curled up in the big armchair before the fire, Fleurette tried to adjust her perspective in regard to this new life which opened before her.
Was she a traitor to those who had reared her, so tenderly and so wonderfully, in breaking with the code which had almost become part of herself? Was she breaking with all that was true, and plunging into a false world? Her education, probably unique for a woman, had endowed her with a capacity for clear thinking. She knew that her thoughts of Alan Sterling were inspired by infatuation. Would her esteem for his character, although she believed it to be fine, make life worth while when infatuation was over?
In regard to her father, there was no doubt whatever. Her discovery of him had turned her world upside down. She resettled herself in the chair.
The Prince was fighting for her.
That strange hiatus in her life, about which the doctor had been so reticent, meant that he still had power to claim her. Now, they said he was dead.
It was unbelievable.
Fleurette found it impossible to grasp this idea that Dr. Fu-Manchu was dead. She had accepted the fact—it had become part of her life—that one day he would dominate a world in which there would be no misunderstanding, no strife, no ugliness; nothing but beauty. To this great ideal she had consecrated herself, until Alan had come.
“Little Flower... I am calling you!”
It was his voice—speaking in Chinese!
And Fleurette knew that ancient language as well as she knew French and English.
She sat bolt upright in the armchair. She was torn between two worlds. This normal, clean room, with its simple appointments, its neatness, its homeliness—the atmosphere which belonged to Sir Denis, that generous, boyish-hearted man who was her father’s trusty friend; and a queer, alluring philosophy, cloying, like the smoke of incense, which belonged to the world from which Nayland Smith had dragged her.
Fleurette wrenched her gaze away from the fire.
“Little Flower—I am calling you.”
In the burning logs, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu was forming. She sprang to her feet, and pressed a bell beside the mantelpiece.
There was a rap on the door.
“Come in.”
Fey entered. He brought Western reason, coolness, to her racing brain.
“You rang, miss?”
Fleurette spoke rather wildly; and Fey, although his manner did not betray the fact, was studying her with concern.
“You see, Fey, I arranged to wait dinner until my father and Sir Denis came back. As a matter of fact, I am rather hungry.”
“Quite, miss. Perhaps a little snack? Some caviar and a glass of wine?”
“Oh, no, Fey. Nothing q
uite so fattening. But if you would get me just two tiny egg sandwiches with a layer of cress—you know what I mean—and perhaps, yes, a glass of wine...”
Fey went out.
“Certainly, miss, in a moment.”
Fleurette pulled the armchair around, so that she did not face the fire. It was a gesture—but a defensive one.
That voice—that voice which could not be denied—“Little Flower I am calling you”—had sounded, she knew, in her subconscious mind only. But because she knew this... she feared. If she had not known how this voice had reached her, she would have surrendered, and not have been conquered. Because she did know, and was not prepared to surrender, she fought.
They thought he was dead... He was not dead.
She heard Fey at the telephone giving terse orders. She was really hungry. This was not merely part of a formula designed to combat the subconscious call which had reached her; but it would help. She knew that if she wanted Alan, that if in future she wished to live in the same wholesome world to which her father belonged, she must fight—fight.
She wandered across to a bookshelf and began to inspect the books. One watching her would have said that she smiled almost tenderly. Nayland Smith’s books betrayed the real man.
Those works which were not technical were of a character to have delighted a schoolboy. Particularly Fleurette was intrigued by a hard-bitten copy of Tom Sawyer Abroad which had obviously been read and reread. Despite his great brain and his formidable personality, what a simple soul he was at heart!
Fleurette began to read at random.
“...But I didn’t much care. I am peaceable and don’t get up no rows with people that ain’t doing nothing to me. I allowed if the paynims was satisfied I was. We would let it stand at that...”
She read other passages, wondering why her education had not included Mark Twain; recognizing by virtue of her training that the great humorist had also been one of the world’s great philosophers.
“Your sandwiches, miss.”
Fleurette started.
Fey was placing a tray upon a small table set beside the armchair. Removing the silver cover he revealed some delicately cut sandwiches. With a spoon and fork he adroitly placed two upon a plate, removed a half-bottle of wine from an ice-bucket, uncorked it and poured out a glassful.
