The Mask of Fu-Manchu

by Sax Rohmer

  He paused so suddenly, staring obliquely across the street at a high window, that automatically I turned and looked in the same direction. And as I looked, I saw what he had seen.

  From the window of a native house—for Shepheard’s borders closely upon the Oriental city—a woman was leaning out, apparently watching us where we sat on the step. She withdrew from the window immediately, but as she did so I turned and met a piercing glance from Sir Denis.

  “Was I right, Greville?”

  I nodded.

  “I think so.”

  Even without his confirmation I should have been certain that Fah Lo Suee had been watching us from across the street!

  I jumped up.

  “Let’s search the house!” I cried. “I know you have powers, Sir Denis!”

  My excitement had attracted attention, and I suddenly realised with embarrassment that a number of people were looking at me.

  “Sit down, Greville,” was the quiet reply. “Your tactics are as bad as Barton’s.”

  I dropped back in my chair and met his steady gaze—not, I believe, with too great an amiability.

  “What the devil’s all this about?” growled the chief. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Outside your particular province,” Nayland Smith returned, “you rarely do see anything. Petrie, with his stolid mentality, is worth both of you put together when it comes to grasping facts. If I hadn’t been here last night, Barton, all Cairo would know now that Rima was missing.”

  “Why shouldn’t all Cairo know?”

  “Because it would result in her being smuggled away. If you can’t see that, you can see nothing.”

  Nevertheless, I could not refrain from glancing up at that high window at which, I was assured, Fu-Manchu’s daughter had been stationed—watching us. And Nayland Smith suddenly detected this.

  “For heaven’s sake!” he snapped irritably, “pretend you didn’t see her.” He pulled out pouch and pipe and threw them down on the table. “I must smoke!”

  As he began to load the cracked old briar:

  “What I want to know—” Sir Lionel began.

  “What you want to know,” Sir Denis took him up, “is why I selected so strange a meeting place. If you’ll be good enough not to interrupt me, I’ll explain. Ah! here’s Petrie.”

  I saw the doctor, who had just come up the steps, looking about in search of us, and standing up I waved my hand. He nodded, and threading his way among the tables, joined us.

  “Sit down, Petrie,” said Nayland Smith; “here’s a chair. You will notice that, anticipating your arrival, I thoughtfully ordered a drink for you.”

  “Tell me, Smith,” Petrie began eagerly, “have you come to terms? For God’s sake, say that you have.”

  “I have, old man,” Nayland Smith replied, laying his hand upon the speaker’s arm, and squeezing it reassuringly. “But neither Barton nor Greville seems to appreciate my purpose.”

  “Fah Lo Suee—” I began, glancing towards that window across the street.

  “Greville!” snapped Sir Denis, “there will be plenty of time later; at the moment I wish to explain the position to Petrie.”

  His manner was overbearing to the point of rudeness. I felt like a recruit in the hands of a company sergeant major. But I suffered it and took out my cigarette case.

  “I have arranged,” he continued, “with Mr. Aden—who is, as you suspected, Petrie, a brother of the lamented Samarkan—”

  “I knew it!” Petrie cried.

  “You were right,” Nayland Smith admitted, “and I am indebted to you for the clue. But, as I was saying, I have arranged that the relics of the Masked Prophet—which God knows have caused sufficient misery already—shall be handed over to those who demanded them, and Rima returned to us tonight at twelve o’clock in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.”

  Probably no more perfect registration of astonishment could have been achieved by any Hollywood star than that now displayed by Dr. Petrie. He stared from face to face in positive bewilderment, and:

  “You think what I think, Petrie,” the chief shouted; “that it’s stark raving lunacy!”

  Sir Denis began to light his pipe.

  “Frankly, I don’t know what to think,” Petrie confessed. “It sounds fantastic to a degree. Really, Smith, in the circumstances…”

  Sir Denis, having failed to light up with the first match, turned irritably to the speaker.

  “Have you ever had occasion to observe, Petrie,” he inquired acidly, “that my average behaviour tends to the absurd?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Very well.” He struck a second match. “I will quote, from memory, the terms of the agreement to which Barton and I have set our hands, witnessed by Greville, here.”

  The second match failed also. Laying his pipe upon the table:

  “The phrasing doesn’t matter,” he went on, “but the hub of the thing is this:

  “Dr. Fu-Manchu’s agent was authorised to propose that at a meeting place to be mutually agreed on, but one not less than half a mile from any inhabited dwelling, no more than two persons should present themselves with the relics of the Prophet. Of the other part it was agreed that no more than two persons should be with Rima. Rima having been accepted on our side, and the relics on the other, all should be permitted to depart unmolested.”

  “Well?” said the chief, leaning across the table; “it was playing into our hands!”

  “Listen,” Nayland Smith’s even voice continued: “Knowing with whom I was dealing, I made a further condition. It was this: that after the interchange of valuables (pardon me, Greville, but I don’t quite know how otherwise to express myself) there should be a ten minutes’ truce. Note the time—ten minutes.”

  “I still remain in the dark,” I confessed.

  “So do I,” said Petrie.

  “Wait!” the chief growled, watching Nayland Smith intently. “I begin to see—I think I begin to see.”

  “Good for you, Barton,” was the reply. “I naturally anticipated an ambush. If Fu-Manchu can secure what he wants and at the same time dispose of two people in the world who know much of himself and his methods, this would be a master stroke. I looked for loopholes in the agreement. While the doctor would not hesitate to murder any of us, he is incapable of dishonouring his bond. I played for safety.”

  “Hopeless!” I exclaimed. “It appears to me that tonight we are walking with our eyes open right into a trap.”

  “Wait!” With a third match the speaker got his pipe going. “By the courtesy of Mr. Aden it was left to me to suggest this meeting place. And I selected the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. It was a momentary inspiration, and I may have been wrong. But consider its advantages.”

  He paused, and now we were all watching him intently.

  “Apart from the condition that we shall be represented by no more than two persons at the meeting place, there is no clause in the agreement prohibiting our being covered by as many persons as we care to assemble!

  “Police headquarters are advised. Tonight at twelve o’clock Gizeh will be deserted; there’s no moon. A cordon will be drawn around the Pyramid. Nothing in my agreement with Mr. Aden prohibits this. When Rima is brought there from whatever place they have her in hiding, the fact will be reported to me.”

  “By heaven!” cried the chief, and banged the table so violently that Petrie’s glass was upset; but, as if not noticing the fact. “By heaven! This is sheer genius. Smith. Your pickets will get her on the way?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Sir Lionel laughed boisterously and clapped his hands for a waiter.

  “They won’t even get—” he began—and then paused.

  I saw Sir Denis watching him, and I realised that he, as well as I, had noticed that schoolboy furtiveness creeping over Sir Lionel’s face. The arrival of the waiter interrupted us temporarily, but then:

  “You see, Greville,” said Sir Denis, turning to me eagerly, “even if they s
lip past the pickets, and we have to enter the Pyramid, those inside will be at our mercy. Because the police will close around the entrance behind us, and—”

  “And there’s only one entrance!” I concluded. “I see it all! We can’t fail to regain the relics!”

  “This would be playing into our hands,” cried the chief, “if Fu-Manchu agreed to it. We began cheering too soon! I admit the brilliancy of the scheme, Smith; I can see your point, now. But when a meeting place half a mile from any inhabited dwelling was suggested, Fu-Manchu hadn’t thought about the Great Pyramid! He’s a devil incarnate and could probably work conjuring tricks almost anywhere else within the terms of the agreement. But the Pyramid! He’ll veto the whole thing when the slimy Aden reports.”

  “I had fully anticipated it,” Nayland Smith admitted, “but only ten minutes ago, just before I joined you, the arrangement was confirmed on the telephone.”

  “By whom?” I asked.

  “By the only voice of its kind in the world—by the voice of Dr. Fu-Manchu.”

  “Good God!” I exclaimed—“then he’s here, in Cairo!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE GREAT PYRAMID

  We set out at eleven-thirty in Petrie’s car.

  I suppose, of all the dark hours I have known, this was as black as any. I rested upon Sir Denis Nayland Smith as upon a rock... If he should fail me—all was lost.

  That his singular plan was a good one I had accepted as a fact; failing this acceptance, I should have been in despair. Perhaps it was the aftermath of drugs to the influence of which I had been subjected; but I was in an oddly muted frame of mind. Frenzy had given place to a sort of Moslem-like resignation; a fatalistic, deadening recognition of the fact that if Rima, who was really all that mattered to me in the world, should have come to harm, life was ended.

  At the village, where few lights were burning when we passed, a British policeman was on duty. Nayland Smith checked Petrie, and leaning out of the car:

  “Anything passed?” he asked rapidly.

  “Nothing much, sir. Two or three hotel parties. I’ve noticed a lot of funny-looking Bedouins about here tonight, but I suppose that’s nothing to do with the matter.”

  “Making for Gizeh?”

  “No, sir. They all went that way—into the village.”

  “Go ahead, Petrie.”

  As we swung around onto that long, straight tree-lined avenue which leads to the Plateau of Gizeh, I counted three cars which passed us, bound towards Cairo. There was nothing ahead, and nobody seemed to be following. As the hotel came into view:

  “We have time in hand,” said Petrie, “shall I drive right ahead?”

  “Pull up,” Nayland Smith directed sharply.

  An Egyptian, who might have been a dragoman, had sprung from the shadow of the wall bordering the gardens of Mena House, where during the day a line of cars and camels may be seen. Nayland Smith craned out.

  “Who is it?” he asked impatiently.

  “Enderby, Sir Denis. You met me at headquarters today.”

  “Right! What have you to report?”

  “Not a thing! I have four smart gyppies watching with me, and we have checked everybody. There’s absolutely nothing to report.”

  “Leave the car here, Petrie,” said Nayland Smith, “we have time to walk. It may be better.”

  Petrie backed the car in against the wall, and we all got out. The “Arab” whose name was Enderby, and whom I took to be a secret service agent, conversed aside with Sir Denis for some time. Then, saluting in the native manner, he withdrew and disappeared into the shadows again.

  “Queer business,” said Nayland Smith, pulling the lobe of his ear. “A gathering of the heads of the many orders of dervishes is taking place in the Village tonight. As a rule they don’t mix… And why at Gizeh?”

  “Don’t like the sound of it myself,” the chief growled; but:

  “D’you mind grabbing the case, Greville?” said Nayland Smith tersely.

  With ill-concealed reluctance, Sir Lionel passed his leather suitcase into my possession; and we started up the sandy slope.

  I had abandoned speculation—almost abandoned hope; having, in fact, achieved acceptance of the worst. Diamond stars gleamed in an ebony sky. The Great Pyramid, most wonderful, perhaps, of the structures of man, blotted out a triangle of the heavens. Our feet crunched on the sandy way. We were sombrely silent.

  At one point, as we turned the bend at the top of the road, I remember that I wondered, momentarily, what the others were thinking about; and particularly if Sir Denis’s confidence remained unimpaired. My own, alas, had long since deserted me…

  And dervishes were assembling at Gizeh. That certainly was odd. Why, as Nayland Smith had asked, at Gizeh?

  Just as we were topping the slope a man appeared, apparently from nowhere, and so suddenly that I was startled out of my confused reverie. Petrie, who was beside me, grabbed my arm; and then:

  “You’re early, Sir Denis,” said a voice.

  I knew it at once: it was that of Hewlett, Acting Superintendent of Police.

  “Not so loud,” snapped Nayland Smith. “What’s the news?”

  “None, I regret to say, sir.”

  “You mean no one has entered The Pyramid?”

  “Not a soul—if I can rely on my men!”

  My heart sank—went down to zero. The scheme, the fantastic scheme, had failed. He was dealing with a super-mind, and Fu-Manchu was laughing at him. It was unthinkable that the Chinese doctor should have exposed any of his agents to a danger so obvious.

  “How many men have you here?”

  “Sixty. The place is entirely surrounded.”

  “What does this mean, Smith?” Petrie asked urgently. He turned to Hewlett, whom he evidently knew well, and: “How long have you been covering the Pyramid?” he added.

  “Since the guides knocked off,” was the reply. “If anybody’s smuggled through in the interval, he must have been invisible.”

  “It’s a booby trap,” said the chief shortly. “You’ve ruled me out, Smith, and perhaps it doesn’t matter. But, by heaven—”

  “Disappear, Hewlett,” Nayland Smith directed tersely; and as Hewlett obediently merged into the shadows: “I don’t know what this means, Petrie,” he went on, “any more than you do. From the evidence, and I count it pretty sound, nobody has gone into the place tonight since sunset. But three of us have signed an agreement with an enemy I would strangle with my own hands if I had the opportunity, but with an enemy who has one redeeming virtue: he always keeps his word. We must keep ours.”

  “He’s spotted the cordon,” Sir Lionel growled, “and he’s called his men off.”

  “We have stuck strictly to the terms of the understanding. He must have anticipated that we should do our utmost to arrest his agents immediately the ten-minute truce ended.”

  “Then he finds he can’t cope with the situation. He’s backed out—”

  “My God!” I groaned, “where’s Rima? She can’t possibly be here!”

  “Wait and see!” snapped Nayland Smith.

  His words were spoken so savagely that I recognized the tension under which he was labouring and regretted my emotional outburst.

  “I’m sorry, Sir Denis,” I said. “It’s vital to me, and—”

  “It’s equally vital to me! I’m not risking Rima’s life for any pet theory, Greville. I’m doing my damnest to make sure she’s returned safely.”

  His words made me rather ashamed of myself.

  “I know,” I replied. “I’m terribly worked up.”

  “Barton,” came a tense order, “get in touch with Hewlett, and stand by, here. You too, Petrie.”

  “I hate you for this,” said the chief violently. “Hate on! You are too damned impetuous for the job before us…”

  Together, he and I set out.

  I glanced back once, and Sir Lionel and Dr. Petrie presented a spectacle which might have been funny had my sense of humour been properly a
lert. Dimly visible, for the night was velvety dark, they stood looking after us like schoolboys left outside a circus...

  And presently I found myself alone with Nayland Smith at the foot of that vast, mysterious building which has defied the researches of Egyptologists and exercised the imaginations of millions who have never seen it. Personally, I had lived down that sense of mystery which claims any man of average intelligence when first he confronts this architectural miracle.

  Sir Lionel had carried out an inquiry here in 1930, just prior to our excavations on the site of Nineveh. I knew the Great Pyramid inside out, remembering the job more vividly because Rima had been absent in England during the time, the chief having given her leave of absence which he refused to grant to me.

  We had reached the steps which led to the opening; and:

  “You’re in charge now,” said Nayland Smith. “Lead, and I’ll follow. Give me the case.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  INSIDE THE GREAT PYRAMID

  In that little bay in the masonry which communicates with the entrance we stood and, turning, looked back.

  Sixty men surrounded us; but not one of them was in sight. At some point there in the darkness, Sir Lionel and Dr. Petrie were probably watching. But in the absence of moonlight we must have been very shadowy figures, if visible at all. I looked down upon the mounds and hollows of the desert, and I could discern away to the left those streets of tombs whose excavation had added so little to our knowledge. There were two or three lighted windows in Mena House...

  “Go ahead, Greville,” said Nayland Smith. “From this point onward I am absolutely in your hands.”

  I turned, switching on the flash lamp which I carried, and began to walk down that narrow passage, blocked at its lower end, which leads to the only known entrance to the interior chambers. Familiar enough it was, because of the weeks I had spent there taking complicated measurements under Sir Lionel’s direction— measurements which had led to no definite results.

  We came to the end where the old and new passages meet. Our footsteps in the silence of that densely enclosed place aroused most eerie echoes; and in the flattened V where the ascent begins: