by Sax Rohmer
“He’s tricked us, Smith!” he shouted. “He’s tricked us! But, by God, I’ve tricked him!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FACTS AND RUMOURS
The story of the second Masked Prophet, although extreme precautions were taken by the British secret service and by Sir Denis Nayland Smith, nevertheless leaked out and into the newspapers of Europe and America. It is well known today to everybody, so far as externals go.
Journalistic espionage triumphed even before the prophet appeared in Egypt. That ominous disturbance moving from Afghanistan down through Persia was paragraphed in the London Daily Telegraph, in the Times of New York and in Le Temps of Paris. The Indian papers had fairly long accounts.
When that strange rumour, hitherto unsupported by tangible evidence, reached Egypt, a special correspondent of the Daily Mail interviewed prominent Moslems. With one exception these denied all knowledge of the matter. The one—a learned imam whose name I have forgotten, but which may be found in the files of the newspaper in question—admitted that news of this movement had come to him. But, he informed his interviewer, it was confined to members of certain unorthodox sects; therefore he was not in a position to express any opinion regarding it.
This interview must have taken place, I suppose, at about the time that we reached Cairo. It was not prominently featured; but later came a column account by the same correspondent, of a second gathering of Wise Men, numbering not three, but according to his estimate, seventy; and a story of the apparition on the Great Pyramid which closely corresponded to the truth.
Since no other newspaper carried this story, I can only suppose that the correspondent of the Daily Mail was staying at Mena House.
Throughout these exacting days I lived in a state of unrelieved suspense. The watch on the Pyramid had had no results; the place was opened again to the public. Rima, who narrowly escaped a serious breakdown, was not fit to be moved for some time. Indeed, during the first forty-eight hours, Dr. Petrie was unable to conceal his anxiety.
The chief remained at Shepheard’s awaiting the return of Ali Mahmoud with the heavy baggage; but I had moved to the hotel by the Pyramids in order to be near Rima. She suffered from a strange delusion that I was dead, and my presence was frequently required to reassure her. Later, I learned the origin of this obsession, which at the time puzzled me, as it puzzled Petrie.
Acting partly, I think, upon that one memory which remained to me of the hiatus preceding Rima’s abduction, Sir Denis had proceeded in a Royal Air Force plane to Damascus.
The chief during this period was wrapped in one of his most impossible moods. A score of times I tried to discuss the mystery of Fu-Manchu’s disappearance; and:
“Your measurements were wrong, Greville,” was his invariable conclusion.
Characteristically, he did not question his own!
He referred, of course, to the investigation which we had carried out there, based upon his conviction that there were other chambers in the Great Pyramid. Sceptical as I had been at the time, I was disposed now to believe that Sir Lionel’s extraordinary imagination had not misguided him.
Failing the existence of other chambers, and, more astounding still, of another exit, the escape of Dr. Fu-Manchu was susceptible of no material explanation. The later apparition of the Masked Prophet at an inaccessible point on the northern slope, might have been accounted for by daring trickery.
But these were trying days indeed. Knowing, as everyone knows who has spent much time among Orientals, that news travels among them faster than radio can carry it, I killed many idle hours in the native quarter, listening to the talk of shopkeepers, peddlers and mendicants.
In this way, thanks to my knowledge of vernacular Arabic, I kept abreast of the Mokanna movement. Probably I knew, before Nayland Smith and the British intelligence service knew, that the threat of that uprising grew less day by day. It had proved abortive; something had gone wrong. I used to report to the chief such scraps of rumour as reached me. They seemed to afford him matter for amusement.
“We’ll sail in the next P. & O., Greville,” he said one night. “Rima should be fit enough by then. It’s high time we were out of Egypt. I’m only waiting for Ali Mahmoud…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
RIMA’S STORY
And then at last came a day when Petrie announced to me privately that Rima was ready, was anxious, to be questioned; to tell her own story.
“Only you and I, Greville,” he stipulated. “It remains dangerous ground, and Barton is liable to prove an irritant…”
We had tea with her, Petrie and I, on the balcony of her room overlooking the Pyramids. It was Sunday. The tourist season now was in nearly full flower. Camels with grotesquely poor riders paced up the slope to that little plateau which contains two of the wonders of the world: the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. There were many cars. In the garden, smart Egyptians and their women occupied the best tables, regarding English, French, and American tourists with thinly veiled amusement.
Rima looked almost ethereal after her strange nervous illness, but so utterly desirable that I felt a savage urge to take her in my arms and stifle her with kisses. But, now that the fear phase had passed, I saw that she regarded me with a queer aloofness.
When her story was told, I understood...
“Of course, Shan, Dr. Petrie has made it all clear to me. You should be grateful to him, dear. I think he has saved me from…
“It was that night when you called for me at Shepheard’s—but of course, I’m forgetting; you know nothing about it! You see, Shan, after your disappearance on the evening of our arrival, I was simply in a frenzy. They kept it from me for a long time—Uncle and Sir Denis and the doctor. But at last they had to tell me, of course.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself. I began to think that my crazy behaviour was attracting attention—and I rushed up to my room. I hadn’t been there more than five minutes when one of the servants bought me a note—from you!”
“It was a forgery!” I cried. “It must have been!”
“Don’t interrupt, Greville,” said Petrie quietly. “These are the facts. Remember that they relate to a period during which your own evidence is not available.”
Good heavens! it was true. A great part of that night was a blank to me…
“It was from you,” Rima went on. “You asked me to tell no one, but to come out at once and join you… I couldn’t wait for the lift: I simply raced downstairs and out onto the terrace. An Egyptian chauffeur in a blue uniform met me and showed me where you were waiting—”
“I was waiting! Where?”
“Just opposite the hotel, beside a French landaulet. Of course, I ran across to you. Shan! you simply hauled me in! You were grim to the nth degree! But I was so utterly happy that at first I thought of nothing except that I had found you again.
“Then, Shan—oh, heavens… Shan!”
“Don’t let the memory upset you, Rima,” said Petrie. “It’s all passed and done with. You know, my dear, he’s the third victim, as I have told you. All three of us, Greville, at various times, have had similar experiences at the hands of our Chinese friend.”
“I understand,” I replied, watching Rima; “I begin to understand. Go on, darling.”
“It came to me, my dear, that you were mad! I saw, in a flash, what had happened—because something like it had once happened to me. I fought with you—oh, my God, how I fought; it was terrible! Then, when I realised it was useless, I tried to will you to know what you were doing.
“We passed through Gizeh Village and were out on the causeway to here when the driver pulled up suddenly. A tall man dressed in black was standing in the roadway. He came forward to the right of the car—and I recognized him—
“It was Dr. Fu-Manchu!”
“Rima!”
“I began to collapse. I couldn’t stand much more. He spoke to you. I didn’t hear the words; but—Shan... you fell back on the seat as though you were—dead...
/> “It was the last straw. I believe I made a fool of myself—or they may have drugged me; but I passed away.
“When I opened my eyes again, after a thousand years of nightmare, I found myself in a strange but delightful room. I was lying on a couch wrapped in a silk dressing gown; and an old negress sat sewing near me…
“It turned out to be part of a suite in a house which must have been right outside Cairo; because all I could see from the little windows in the mushrabiyeh screens was miles and miles of desert. I suppose the negress was a servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu, but she was certainly a sweet old thing.
“My first waking thought, Shan, was about you! But the old woman could tell me nothing. She merely said over and over again, ‘Don’t fret, honey child; it will sure be all right.’
“I spent a whole day in those three small rooms. It was quite impossible to get out, and the old negress never left me. No one else came near us. She did all she could to make me comfortable, but I refused to touch food. I have never passed through such a day in my life. I felt myself to be slowly going mad with suspense. Once, a long way over the desert, I saw some camels; that was towards evening. Otherwise, I saw nothing…
“At sunset the negress lighted the lamps; and she had only just done so when I heard the sound of a gong somewhere in the house below.
“By this time I was in a state of suppressed frenzy, and when I heard that sound I wanted to shriek. The old woman gave me a warning glance, whispered, ‘Don’t fret, honey child; it will sure be all right,’ and went and stood by the door.
“I heard footsteps outside; the door was unlocked—and Dr. Fu-Manchu came in!
“He was dressed as I remembered him in London—but the horrible thing was that he seemed to be much younger! I must have been nearer to crashing than I knew at the time; for I can’t recall one word that he said to me, except that he made me understand, Shan, that your life depended upon me.
“Evidently he saw that I was likely to collapse at any moment. He spoke to the old negress in some language I had never heard—and then forced me to drink a glass of some rather sweet white wine.
“After that I remember him watching me very intently and speaking again. His voice seemed to fade away, and his awful eyes to grow larger and larger—”
“Like a green lake!” I burst in, “which swallowed you up! I know. I know!”
“How do you know?” Petrie asked sharply. “When did you derive that curious impression?”
He was studying me keenly: and at once I grasped the significance of my words. They echoed some submerged memory of the hiatus! But, in the moment of uttering them, that memory slipped back again into the limbo of the subconscious.
“No good, Doctor,” I said, shaking my head. “You were right— but it’s gone! Go on, Rima.”
Rima, who seemed intuitively to have seized upon the purpose underlying Petrie’s question, looked at me pathetically, and then:
“I know you know, Shan dear,” she went on. “But you can’t remember—nor can I. Because I woke in a gloomy stone chamber, lighted by a round green lamp—”
“The King’s Chamber, Greville,” Petrie interpolated. “Rima had never seen it before, it seems.”
“Dr. Fu-Manchu was sitting by a small table, and there was a big stone sarcophagus just behind him. I was standing in front of him. There was no one else there; and the silence was dreadful.
“‘Behind this coffer,’ he said, and pointed with an incredibly long finger, ‘you will find a mattress and cushions. Lie there, whatever happens, and make no sign—until I clap my hands. Then stand up. Shan Greville’s life depends upon you. This is your part of the bargain.’
“I heard a gong—somewhere a long way off.
“‘To your place,’ said Dr. Fu-Manchu in that voice which seems to make every word sound like a command, ‘and remember, when I clap my hands… ’
“What happened after that, Shan, you know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ORDERED HOME
On the following night Rima returned to Cairo. I remember, as Sir Lionel and I sat in the lounge waiting for her to join us for dinner, that my mind was more nearly at ease than it had been for many days. When presently Rima appeared, although she looked perhaps rather more than normally pale, she had nevertheless contrived to efface any signs of her recent ordeal.
“In the absence of Dr. Petrie,” I said, “I prescribe a champagne cocktail.”
The patient approved of the prescription.
“What about you, Chief?”
“Whisky and soda,” Sir Lionel growled, staring towards the entrance door. “Where the devil’s Petrie?”
“A busy medical man,” I replied, summoning a waiter, “is always excused social appointments. Isn’t he, Chief?”
“Has to be, I suppose.”
As I gave the order I found myself thinking about the doctor’s earlier days, when, a struggling suburban practitioner in London, he had first found himself involved in the web of Dr. Fu-Manchu. His published journals of those singular experiences which he had shared with Sir Denis, had created such world-wide interest that today, as I knew, he was independent of the proceeds of his profession. But he was, as someone had said of him, a born healer; and he had the most extensive practice of any English physician in Cairo. Evidently my thoughts were reflected upon my face; for:
“What are you grinning about?” the chief demanded.
“I was wondering,” I replied, “if Sir Denis will allow me to publish an account of the story of the Masked Prophet.”
“You published an account, as you term it,” Rima interrupted, “of what happened in the Tomb of the Black Ape and afterwards. I didn’t think it was too flattering to me, but I know you made a lot of money out of it. I don’t really think, Uncle—” turning and snuggling up against Sir Lionel—“that it’s quite fair, do you? Shouldn’t we have a share?”
“Yes.” The chief stared at me with smothered ferocity. “You’ve written me up in a painfully frank way, Greville, now I come to think about it… Ah! Here’s Petrie!”
As he spoke, I saw the doctor come in from the terrace at a brisk pace. There was urgency in his manner, and when, sighting us, he hurried forward I realised that he was ill at ease.
His first thought, however, was for his patient; and dropping into a chair beside Rima, he looked at her in that encompassing manner which comes to a man who for many years has practised as a physician.
“Quite restored, I see,” he said, and glanced critically at the cocktail. “Only one, Rima. Excitants are not desirable… yet.”
Seeing me about to call a waiter:
“As I’m rather late, Greville,” he went on, “let’s go in to dinner; if possible, find a quiet table, as there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Knew it!” said the chief loudly, watching the speaker. “Got something on your mind, Petrie. What is it?”
“You’re right,” Petrie admitted, smiling slightly. “I don’t quite know what to make of it.”
“Nor do I,” Sir Lionel replied, “unless you tell me what it is.”
“A long message from Smith in Damascus. It was relayed over the telephone. That’s what detained me. But don’t let us talk about it now.”
We stood up and walked along the corridor, which is a miniature jewel bazaar, to the dining room. I had arranged for a quiet table at the farther end, and presently, when we were all seated and the chief, who was host, had given his orders:
“This message is disturbing, in a way,” said Petrie. “There’s a Dutch steamer of the Rotterdam Lloyd Line, the Indramatra, leaving Port Said tomorrow night for Southampton; and Smith insists that, baggage or no baggage, you must all leave in her!”
“What!” Sir Lionel cried so loudly that many heads were turned in our direction. “He must be mad. I won’t budge an inch—not one inch—until Ali Mahmoud arrives with the gear.”
Dr. Petrie looked grave.
“I have the message here,” he continued; “
and when I have read it to you, possibly you may change your mind… Dr. Fu-Manchu has been in Damascus. He has disappeared. Smith has every reason to believe that he is on his way here—to Cairo. His mission, Barton is to see you!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
NAYLAND SMITH COMES ABOARD
The Indramatra lay off the pontoon, opposite the Custom House at Port Said; and it was a night sailing. Ali Mahmoud had arrived in the nick of time; I could see him now from where I stood, supervising the shipment of the heavy baggage.
That curious sustained murmur, a minor chord made up of human voices, audible whenever cargo is being worked in this odd portal of the East, came to my ears, as I craned out watching the pontoon. I had left Rima, a stewardess, and two coolies busily unpacking trunks; for Rima had something of her uncle’s gift for making people work enthusiastically in her interests. Part other personal baggage had been deposited in her cabin, and, having explored the first of her trunks:
There isn’t a thing that’s fit to wear!” she had declared…
I had considered it prudent to join the chief.
That experienced old traveller had secured a suite with bath, at the Cairo office. Admittedly, the ship was not full, but, nevertheless, someone else had been pencilled in for this accommodation ahead of him. The someone else (a Member of Parliament, he turned out to be) was reduced to an ordinary double cabin, and the purser was having a bad quarter of an hour.
Sir Lionel, armed with a whisky and soda, was sprawling on the little sofa in his sitting room, his feet resting upon a stout wooden chest. He reminded me of an old buccaneer, gloating over ill-gotten treasure; and:
“Has Smith arrived?” he demanded.
“No. I’m just going up to make inquiries, chief…”
And so, now, I found myself craning out and watching the pontoon. It would be nearly an hour before the Indramatra sailed, but I could not imagine, since Sir Denis had missed us in Cairo, how he hoped to reach Port Said before we left. Nevertheless, he had advised us to expect him.
