by Sax Rohmer
The place seemed to be a small writing room. There was a bureau at the end near the window, closed, a square, Cubist-looking chair before it. The black and gold walls were bare. There was a closed bookcase, a low stool of Arab workmanship, and the narrow settee upon which I had been placed.
I contrived to get to the window.
It overlooked a neglected garden… and at the end of the garden I saw the Canal!
Dropping into the chair, I began to taste that most bitter of all draughts which poor humanity knows — despair. I remembered Nayland Smith’s story of the house at el-Khârga:… “A Buddhist-like resignation was threatening me more and more…”
Nayland Smith!
Whilst I sat here, a fiery furnace raging within, but nevertheless useless as any snared rabbit, he was walking into a death trap!
She would have no mercy. I had seen how she dealt with those who crossed her: I had read his sentence in her glittering eyes. This time, there would be no “sporting gesture.” And I… I should awake somewhere in China, as a male concubine of this Eastern Circe!
I bent down, resting my throbbing head on the bureau…
Then came sounds.
Somewhere a bell rang. There were voices. I heard movements — I divined that the house door had been opened and that some heavy burden had been carried in.
The sounds died away. Silence fell again.
How long I sat there, in a dreadful apathy, I had no means of judging. But suddenly the door was unlocked, and I started up.
Fah Lo Suee came in, carrying a long-bladed knife.
She stood watching me.
“Well?” I said. “What are you waiting for?”
She smiled, that one-sided voluptuous smile which was never reflected in her eyes; then:
“I am waiting,” she replied — her bell-like voice very soft— “to try to guess what you will do when I release you.”
She came forward, bent so that her small, shapely head almost rested on my shoulder, and cut the lashings which confined my wrists. Her left hand grasped my arm as she stooped. Dropping to her knees, with two strokes of the keen blade she cut away the ropes binding my ankles.
Then she stood upright, very near to me, and met my stare challengingly.
“Well?” she said in mockery.
My first impulse — for I had been thinking about Nayland Smith almost continuously — was to be read in my glance.
“It can never happen twice to me, Shan,” said Fah Lo Suee.
She called a name.
The door opened — and I saw the giant Nubian looking in.
Fah Lo Suee gave a brief order. The Negro retired, closing the door.
“Does no more subtle method occur to you?” she asked, her voice softer than ever. “I am as ready to be lied to as any other woman, Shan — by the right man — if he only tells his lies sweetly.”
And, face to face with this evilly beautiful woman, knowing, as I knew too well, that my own life was at stake, that possibly I could even bargain for that of Nayland Smith, I asked myself — why not? With her own lips she had reminded me of that old adage, “all’s fair in love and war.” With her it was love — or the only sort of love she knew; with me it was war. Perhaps, on a scruple, hung the fate of nations!
She drew a step nearer. The perfumed aura of her personality began to envelop me. Choice was being filched from the bargain. Those mad urgings which I had known in the green-gold room in Limehouse began to beat upon my brain.
I clenched my fists. I could possibly buy the safety of the Western world with a kiss! Tensed fingers relaxed. In another instant my arms would have been around that slender, yielding body; when:
“Greville!” came a distant cry. “Greville!”
And I knew the voice!
I sprang back from Fah Lo Suee as from a poised cobra. Her face changed. It was as though a mask had been dropped. I saw Kâli — the patronne of assassins…
She snapped her fingers.
Before I could move further, collect my scattered thoughts, the Nubian was on me!
I got in one straight right, perfectly timed. It didn’t even check him…
As his Herculean grip deprived me of all power of movement, Fah Lo Suee turned and went out. She hissed an order.
The Nubian threw me face downward on the settee. Never, in the whole of my experience of rough-houses, had I been so handled. I was helpless as a rat in the grip of a bull terrier. My knowledge of boxing as well as a smattering of jiu-jitsu were about as useful as botany!
I honestly believe he could have broken any normally strong man across his knee.
One of the ghastly Burmans, with the mark of Kâli on his forehead, came to assist. I was trussed up like a chicken, tossed onto the Negro’s mighty shoulder, and carried from the room.
This was the end.
I had played my hand badly. On me the ultimate issue had rested… and I had failed. That swift revulsion, at sound of my name — that sudden, irrational reversion to type — had sealed the doom of… how many?
Helpless, a mere inanimate bundle, I was carried down to the room where the image of Kâli sat on a lacquer cabinet.
The Nubian threw me roughly on the divan, so that I had no view beyond that of the lacquer cabinet and the wall against which it stood. He withdrew. I heard the closing of a door.
I turned…
In the big, carved chair which formerly I had occupied, Nayland Smith was firmly lashed! There were bloodstains on his collar.
“Sir Denis! How did you know I was here?”
He glanced down at the coffee table.
“You left your cigarette case!” he replied. “I shouted for you — but, a Dacoit” — he indicated the bloodstains— “silenced me.”
I stared at him. No words came.
“Weymouth and Yale,” he went on, and the tone of his voice struck the death-knell of lingering hope, “are watching the wrong house. I have made my last mistake, Greville.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
LORO OF THE SI-FAN
“I thought I had found a secret base of operations,” said Nayland Smith. “It’s one I have used before — the house of Dr. Murray who bought Petrie’s practice years ago. Evidently it’s been known for some time past that I employed it in this way. I discovered — too late — that a parlormaid in Murray’s service is a spy. She doesn’t know the real identity of her employers, but she has been none the less useful to them…
As he spoke, he was studying every detail of the room in which we lay trapped. Apparently he had accepted his fastenings as immovable; and evidently divining my thoughts:
“These lashings are the work of a Sea-Dyak,” he explained— “palpably a specialist. Though seemingly simple, no one except the late Houdini could hope to escape from them.”
“A fellow with the mark on his forehead? He tied me up! I mistook him for Burmese!”
Nayland Smith shook his head irritably.
“A member of the murder group — yes. But no Burman. He belongs to Borneo… The story of my stupidity, Greville, for which so many may be called upon to pay a ghastly price, is a short one. Yale brought me a clue today. Its history doesn’t matter — now. It was a fake. But it consisted of fragments of torn-up correspondence written in Chinese and a few cipher notes in another hand. I grappled with it: no easy task. But by about four o’clock I saw daylight. I phoned Weymouth to stand by between six and seven.”
“He told me so.”
“Yale also was in touch. At six o’clock I had got all the facts — including an address in Finchley Road; and at six-thirty I called Weymouth at the Park Avenue giving him full instructions. I arranged to meet him outside Lord’s at half-past nine tonight.
“By a sheer accident, ten minutes later, I caught Palmer, the parlormaid, at the telephone. Murray was in his consulting room, and there was nothing in itself remarkable about the girl’s presence at the phone. She makes appointments and receives patients.
“But I heard my own name mentioned!<
br />
“I taxed her — and she got muddled. She was clever enough to wriggle out of the difficulty, verbally; but I had become gravely suspicious. Bearing this in mind, Greville, it’s all the less excusable that I should have fallen into the trap planted for me.
“Murray’s house overlooks a common, and it’s usually safe to trust to picking up a taxi on the main road, although sometimes one has to wait. During dinner I said nothing about Palmer, being still in two minds as to her complicity. But when I left, I made a blunder for which I should certainly condemn the rawest recruit.
“The door of Murray’s house opens on a side turning — and as I came out a taxi, proceeding slowly in the direction of the common, passed me. The man looked out as I came down the steps, and slowed up. I counted it a stroke of luck, said ‘Lord’s cricket ground — main entrance’ — and jumped in.”
Nayland Smith smiled. It was not the genial, revealing smile that I knew.
“End of story!” he added. “The windows were unopenable. As I closed the door, which locked automatically, a charge of gas was puffed into the interior. That taxi, Greville, had been waiting for me!”
“Then Weymouth and Yale—”
“Weymouth and Yale, with a Flying Squad party, are covering the house of some perfectly harmless citizen in Finchley Road! What they’ll do when I fail to turn up, I can’t say. But they haven’t a ghost of a clue to this place — wherever it is!”
“It’s beside the Regent Canal,” I replied slowly. “That’s all I know about it.”
“Quite sufficient,” he rapped. “In your amazing interview with Li King Su I detect our only ray of hope…”
An interruption came. Dimly, for sounds were muffled in this room, I heard the ringing of a bell. I saw Nayland Smith start. We both listened. We had not long to wait for the next development.
Into the room the huge Nubian came running — followed by the man whom I knew now to be a Dyak. They swept down upon Nayland Smith!
I became tongue-tied. Horror had robbed me of speech.
The man with the mark of Kâli on his brow bent swiftly. I tugged at my bonds. Nayland Smith caught my glance.
“Don’t worry, Greville,” he said. “A hasty removal of prisoners is evidently—”
The Nubian clapped a huge black hand over the speaker’s mouth!
I saw Nayland Smith, released from the chair, but rebound by the Dyak expert, lifted in the grasp of the giant Negro. He carried Sir Denis as he might have carried a toy dog under one arm — but he kept his free hand pressed to the captive’s mouth.
There came a breathless interval. That dim ringing was renewed. The devotee of Kâli considered me, his eyes lascivious with murder. Then, as the ringing persisted, he grasped my bound ankles, jerked me to the carpet, and dragged me out of the room!
Where, formerly, I had been carried up, now I was hauled down and down, until I knew I was in the cellars of the house.
That I arrived there without sprained wrists or a cracked skull was something of a miracle. Arms fastened behind me, I had nevertheless done all I could to protect my head as I was dragged down many steps to the basement.
Into some dark, paved place, I was finally bundled. I divined, rather than knew, that Nayland Smith lay beside me.
“Sir Denis,” I gasped.
Wiry fingers gripped my throat, squeezing me to silence; but:
“Here!” Smith replied.
The word was cut off shortly — significantly.
There came a stirring up above — a sound of voices — of movement… shuffling.
My brain began to work rapidly, despite all the maltreatment my skull had received. This was an unexpected visit of some kind! The house was being cleared of its noxious elements, of its prisoners; made presentable for inspection!
Possibly — the thought set my heart hammering — Weymouth, after all, had secured some clue which had led him here.
I listened intently.
Short, regular breathing almost in my ear warned me that the slightest sound on my part would result in that strangle grip being renewed.
Yes! It was the police!
There were heavy footsteps in the lobby above — deep voices.
Those sounds died away.
I told myself that the search party had gone up to explore the higher floors — and I wondered who was posing as owner of the house — and what had been done with the body of Li King Su.
The cellar in which I lay possessed drum-like properties. I distinctly heard heavy footsteps on the stairs — descending.
Perhaps the searchers had been satisfied! Perhaps they were about to go!
Louder grew the footsteps… louder…
Then, I heard, and recognized, a deep voice —
Weymouth!
At that, I determined to risk all.
A significant choking sound which came from the darkness behind might have warned me — for, even as I opened my mouth, a lean, oily smelling hand covered it — a steely grip was on my throat!…
“I trust you are satisfied, Inspector?” I heard, in a quavering female voice. “If there is anything else—”
“Nothing further, madam, thank you!”… Weymouth!… “Evidently she didn’t come here. I can only apologize for troubling you.”
Receding footsteps… murmurs of conversation.
The bang of a street door!
My head dropped back limply as the deathly grip was removed; a whisper came out of the darkness:
“A divine accident — wasted!”
Nayland Smith was the speaker… and I knew that that indomitable spirit was very near to despair.
What possibly could have led Weymouth here? Clearly, he had no information to justify a detailed search; no warrant. “Evidently she didn’t come here…” In those words the clue lay. And who was the old woman of the quavering voice?
Rapidly, these reflections flashed through my mind — but uppermost was a sense of such bitter, hopeless disappointment as I had never known before.
Truly, it was Fate.
Perhaps, as Fah Lo Suee believed, as Li King Su had believed, the day of the West was ended; perhaps we were obstacles in the way of some cataclysmic change, ordained, inevitable — and so must be brushed aside.
When presently we found ourselves back in that room where the figure of Kâli sat, immutable, on a lacquer dais, I told myself that nothing which could happen now could stir me from this dreadful apathy into which I was fallen. And, as had been the case so often in my dealings with this fiendish group, I was wrong.
From my place on the divan I stared across at Nayland Smith where he sat limply in the armchair. Then I looked quickly around.
Some time before I had suspected the tall lacquer cabinet — because of its resemblance to one I remembered at Abbots Hold — of being a concealed door. I had imagined that the figure of Kâli which surmounted it was moving. I had been right.
The masked door opened and Fah Lo Suee came in.
She wore black gloves, carried a white silk shawl, a lace cap, and a pair of spectacles!… Her smile was mocking.
I might have known — from her uncanny power of mastering languages and dialects — who the “old woman” had been!
“A difficult moment, Shan,” she said composedly. “Something I had not foreseen or provided for. A keener brain — such as yours, Sir Denis — might have challenged the gloves, even in the case of a very eccentric old lady!”
She began to pull them off, revealing those beautiful, long, feline hands.
“But my hands are rather memorable,” she added, without hint of vanity and simply as a statement of fact. “A late but expected guest was traced here. Fortunately, the taxi driver upon whose evidence the visit, was made was uncertain of the number. But it was very clever of the superintendent — following a telephone call from the lady’s last address — to find the man who had driven her from the station.”
She turned her long, narrow eyes in Nayland Smith’s direction… and I saw his jaw harde
n as he clenched his teeth. I know, now, that already he understood.
“I respect you so much, Sir Denis,” she went on, “that I know your removal is vital to my council. But I promise you it shall be swift.”
Nayland Smith remained silent.
“A traitor has already paid the price which we demand. When Li King Su and yourself are found together — the inference will be obvious. And I have arranged for you to be found at the Limehouse end of the Canal.”
Then Sir Denis spoke.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You wear the cloak of your lamented father gracefully.”
Perhaps some shade of emotion passed swiftly across the impassive face of Fah Lo Suee; perhaps I only imagined it. But she continued without pause:
“For you, Shan, I have pleasant duties in China — where I must return immediately, my work here undone.” Again she stared at Nayland Smith. “But I am not greedy, Shan, and you shall not be lonely.”
She clapped her hands.
The door from the lobby opened…
And Rima was pushed into the room by the Nubian!
Over those first few moments that followed, I must leave a veil. Exactly what took place I shall never know. The shock of it stupefied me.
“… They said you were ill, Shan… I came right away without waiting to speak to a soul…”
Those words reached me through a sort of drumming in my head. Now I saw Rima’s grave eyes turn to Fah Lo Suee in such a look of loathing horror as I had never seen in them before.
But Fah Lo Suee met that glance without animosity. In her own strange eyes of jade green there was no glint of feminine triumph, no mockery. Only a calm consideration. She had mocked Nayland Smith, she had mocked me: we were her active potent enemies, and she had outwitted us. Rima she regarded with something strangely like a cold compassion.
That God had ever given life to a woman so far above the weaknesses of her sex as Fah Lo Suee was something I could never have believed without convincing evidence. Even her curious infatuation for myself was a mere feline fancy, ordered and contained. She would have sacrificed nothing to it; nor would it long outlast its realization.
