by Sax Rohmer
I glanced down at my feet. Large ants, having glittering black bodies, were swarming up over the lashings of my overalls!
Stamping madly, I stooped, brushing the things off with my rubber gloves. I saw a centipede wriggling away from my stamping feet. Panic touched me. I ran through the room and out into a short passage beyond.
In that dimly lighted place, surrounded by windows behind which the insects lived, I saw that the doors of the cases were open. Some of the things still hovered about their nests, but many of the cases were empty.
There was no one in the passage beyond — which was even more dimly lighted; but I stepped upon some wriggling thing and heard the crunch of its body beneath my rubber-shod foot.
The sound sickened me.
I pressed on to the botanical research room. A glance showed that it had been partly stripped. I stared through the observation window into that small house where the strange orchids had been under cultivation. They had disappeared.
Looking about at the shelves, I realized that much of the apparatus had been taken away. The doors leading into the first of the big forcing houses were open.
I passed through, and immediately grasped the explanation of something which had been puzzling me: namely, that the escaped insects were scarcely represented here, whereas the corridors beyond were thick with them, flying and crawling.
A sharp change in the atmosphere offered an explanation.
Windows, as well as doors, were open here, admitting a keen night air borne by a wind from the Alps.
Those things were seeking warmth in the interior of the place. And already, so delicate are such plants, I saw that many of the tropical flowers about me were drooping — would soon be dead.
What did this mean?
It was probably part of a plan to destroy such results of those unique experiments as could not be removed.
With every step I advanced the air grew colder and colder — and destruction among the unique products through which I passed was such that I could find time for a moment of regret in the midst of my own engrossing troubles. The palm house, in common with every other place I had visited, was deserted. The doors leading into Dr. Fu-Manchu’s study were open... I could see light shining out.
Here was the crux of the situation. Here if anywhere I should meet with a check.
Despite the keenness of the air, I was bathed in perspiration, buckled up in my nearly airtight outfit.
I advanced slowly, step by step, until I could look into the study. Then I stood still, staring through the glass mask — which had grown very misty — at a room stripped of its exotic trappings!
The furniture alone remained. This destruction, then, which I had witnessed, was the handiwork of Dr. Fu-Manchu himself — or so I must suppose. For here was clear evidence that he had fled, taking his choicest possessions with him.
I paused there for only a few moments; then I ran out into the great radio research room.
Of the masses of unimaginable mechanisms which had cumbered the room, only the heaviest remained. The instruments had gone from the tables. Many shelves were bare. Three intricate pieces of machinery, including that which I had thought resembled a moving-picture camera, were there, but wrecked — shattered — mere mounds of metallic fragments upon a grey floor!
There were no insects visible in the big room, which was as cold as a cavern. Indeed, as Nayland Smith had pointed out, a cavern, practically, it was. Doors I had not known to exist were open in the glass walls, but I ran the length of the place and sprang up the stairs beyond.
The door did not close behind me. The whole of that intricate mechanism had been locked in some way.
Gaining the top corridor I glanced swiftly to the right.
A cold grey light — the light of dawn — was touching the terrace.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. SEARCH IN STE CLAIRE
Iran forward.
“Hands up!” came swiftly.
And even as I obeyed that order, I groaned, filled with such bitterness of spirit as I had rarely known.
On the very threshold — freedom in sight — I was trapped again! A group of semi-human figures surrounded me in the half-light: creatures goggle-eyed, with shapeless heads, to which were attached trunk-like appendages! I raised my hands, staring helplessly about at the ghoulish party closing in upon me.
“Search him!” came the same voice, staccato, but curiously muffled.
But now, hearing it, I grasped the truth!
The hideous headdresses of the men surrounding me were gas masks!
“Sir Denis!” I cried, and knew that my own voice was at least as muffled as his.
The leader of the party was Nayland Smith!
Something very like unconsciousness threatened me. I had not fully appreciated how wrought up I was until this moment. Sights and sounds merged into an indistinguishable blur. But presently, out of this haze, I began to apprehend that Nayland Smith was talking to me, his arm about my shoulders.
“Not a soul has left Ste Claire, Sterling; it’s covered from the land and from the sea. When your first message reached me—”
“I sent no message! But what was it?”
“You sent no message?”
“Not a thing! Nevertheless, I think I know who did. What did you take it to mean?”
“According to the system we had arranged, it meant that Petrie was there — but dead. There was a second, much later, which quite defeated me.”
“I don’t know who sent the second. But it’s true that Petrie is here — and, when I saw him last, was alive.”
“Sterling, Sterling! You are sure?”
“I spoke to him. And — by heavens! I had almost forgotten—”
I plunged a rubber-clad hand into the pocket of my overall, and pulled out the creased and folded sheet of paper.
“The formula for ‘654.’”
“Thank God! Good old Petrie! Quick! Give it to me.”
Nayland Smith had discarded his helmet temporarily, and I my glass mask. He dashed away down the steps, leaving me standing there, looking about me.
Six or eight men were by the open door, their heads hidden in gas equipment, and I realized now that they must be French police. I felt very much below par, but the keen night air was restoring me, and after an absence of no more than two or three minutes, Sir Denis came running back.
“I don’t think, Sterling,” he said in his rapid way, “that the doctor’s campaign was ripe to open. It depended, I believe, upon climatic conditions. But in any event, ‘654’ will be in possession of the medical authorities of the world tonight.”
“Petrie’s wish is carried out!”
“I should have raided an hour ago, Sterling, if I had had the foresight to equip the party suitably. We were here before I realized the nature of the death trap into which I might be leading them. I once saw a party of detectives in a Limehouse cellar belonging to Dr. Fu-Manchu die the most dreadful deaths...
“The Chief of Police was at the main gate, and I consulted with him. He quite naturally wanted to waive my objections; but I persisted. The delay was caused by the quest for gas masks, of which there is not a large supply in the neighbourhood. When they were obtained, the men on duty here reported that the door had been opened from the inside but that none had come out. I had rejoined them only a few minutes when you appeared.”
“Yet the place is deserted!”
“What?”
“Part of it is infested with plague flies and other horrors, but there is no trace of a human being anywhere.”
“Come on!” he snapped, and readjusting his helmet. “Are you fit, Sterling?”
“Yes.”
I buttoned myself up in my grim equipment. Followed by the police party, I found myself again in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
Unhesitatingly I began to run towards the green lamp at the end of the corridor which marked the position of Fleurette’s room — when all the lights went out!
“What’s this?” came a muffled
exclamation.
The ray of a torch cut the darkness; then many others. Every member of the party was seemingly provided. Someone thrust a light into my hand and I went racing along to the door of Fleurette’s room.
One glance showed me that it was empty.
“I forgive you, Sterling,” came hoarsely, “but you are wasting time.”
The party tore down the stairs, Nayland Smith and I leading.
“Petrie’s room!” came huskily; “that first...”
We dashed across the dismantled radio research laboratory, eerie in torchlight, through the empty study where Dr. Fu-Manchu, wrapped in a strange opium dream, had sat in his throne-chair, and on through those great forcing houses where trees, shrubs, and plants, to which Dame Nature had never given her benediction, wilted in the keen air sweeping through open doors.
Hoarse exclamations told of the astonishment experienced by the police party following us as we dashed through those exotic mysteries. Then, mounting the stair and coming to the corridor with its white, numbered doors, I became aware of a crunching sound beneath my feet.
I paused, and shone the light downward.
The floor was littered with dead and comatose insects, swift victims of this change of temperature! The giant spider had succumbed somewhere, I did not doubt; yet even now I dreaded the horror, dreaded those reasoning eyes.
“We turn right here!” I shouted, my voice muffled by the mask.
I ran along the passage and in at the open door of that room in which I had seen Petrie.
The room was empty!
“They have taken him!” groaned Nayland Smith. “We’re too late. What’s that?”
A sound of excited voices reached me dimly. Then came a cry from the rear. The men under the local Chief of Police had joined us; they had come in by the main entrance.
Yet neither group had discovered a soul on the premises!
“Spread out!” cried Nayland Smith. “Parties of two! There’s some Chinese rathole. A big household doesn’t disappear into thin air. Come on, Sterling! Our route is downward, not up.”
We pressed our way through the throng of men behind us, Nayland Smith and the Chief of Police repeating the orders.
Sir Denis beside me, I raced back along the way we had come; and although every door appeared to be open, there was seemingly none in that range of rooms other than those I knew. We searched the big forcing houses, meeting only other muffled figures engaged upon a similar task.
But apparently the doors leading into Dr. Fu-Manchu’s study and those which communicated with the botanical research room were the only means of entrance or exit!
Out into the big, dismantled laboratory we ran. There were two open doors in the wall opposite our point of entrance.
“This one first!” came in a muffled voice.
Sir Denis and I ran across to an opening in the glass wall.
“The Chinaman who arrived in the speedboat went this way,” he shouted.
Shining our torches ahead, we entered — and found a descending stair. Our light failed to penetrate to the bottom of it.
“Stop, Sir Denis!” I cried.
Wrenching off the suffocating glass mask, I dropped it on the floor, for I saw that in the darkness he had already discarded his gas helmet.
“We must assemble a party — we may be walking into a trap.”
He pulled up and stared at me; his face was haggard.
“You are right,” he rapped. “Get three or four men, and notify Furneaux — he’s in charge of the police — which way we have gone.”
I ran back across the great empty hall from which that curious violet light had gone, and shouted loudly. I soon assembled a party, one of whom I despatched in search of the Chief of Police, and, accompanied by the others, I rejoined Nayland Smith.
We left one man on duty at the door.
Nayland Smith leading, and I close behind him, we began to descend the stairs into the subterranean mystery of Ste Claire.
CHAPTER FORTY. THE SECRET DOCK
“This is where the Chinaman went,” he said. “It speaks loudly for the iron rule of the doctor, Sterling, that although this man had presumably brought important news, not only did he avoid awakening Fu-Manchu, but he even left the doors of the palm house open. However, where did he go? That’s what we have to find out.”
A long flight of rubber-covered stairs descended ahead of us. The walls and ceiling were covered with that same glassy material which prevailed in the radio research room. I counted sixty steps and then we came to a landing.
“Look out for traps,” rapped Nayland Smith, “and distrust every foot of the way.”
We tested for doors on the landing, but could find none. A further steep flight of steps branched away down to the right.
“Come on!”
The lower flight possessed the same characteristics as the higher, and terminated on another square landing. A long corridor showed beyond — so long that the light of our torches was lost in it.
“One man to stand by here,” came the crisp order, “and keep in contact with the man at the top.”
We pressed on. We were now reduced to a party of four. There were several bends in the passage, but its general direction, according to my calculations, was southerly.
“This is amazing,” muttered Nayland Smith. “If it goes on much farther, I shall begin to suspect that it is a private entrance to the Casino at Monte Carlo!”
Even as he spoke, another bend unmasked the end of this remarkable passage. Branching sharply down to the right, I saw a further flight of steps — rough wooden steps; and the naked rock was all about us.
“What’s this?”
“We must be down to sea level.”
“Fully, I should think.”
Sir Denis turned; and:
“Fall out another man,” he directed; “patrol between here and the end of the passage. Keep in contact with your opposite number, a shot to be the signal of any danger. Come on!”
A party of three, we pressed on down the wooden steps. There was a greater chilliness in the air, and a stale smell as of ancient rottenness. Another landing was reached, wooden planked; roughly hewn rock all about us. More wooden stairs, inclining left again.
These terminated in an arched, crudely octagonal place which bore every indication of being a natural cave. It was floored with planks, and a rugged passage, similarly timbered, led yet farther south — or so I estimated.
“Stay here,” Nayland Smith directed tersely. “Keep in touch with the man at the top.”
And the last of the police party was left behind.
Sir Denis and I hurried on. Fully a hundred yards we went — and came to a yawning gap, which our lights could not penetrate. Moving slowly now, we reached the end of the passage.
“Careful!” warned Sir Denis. “By heavens! What’s this?”
We stood on a narrow wharf!
Tackle lay about; crates, packing cases, coils of rope. And the sea — for I recognized that characteristic smell of the Mediterranean — lapped its edge!
But not a speck of light was visible anywhere. The water was uncannily still. One would not have suspected it to be there.
“Lights out!” snapped Sir Denis.
We extinguished our lamps. Utter darkness blanketed us: we might have stood in a mine gallery.
“Don’t light up!” came his voice. “I should have foreseen this. But even so, I don’t see how I could have provided against it... My God! What’s that?”
A dull sustained note, resembling that of a muted gong, vibrated eerily through the stillness... In fact, now that he had drawn my attention to it, I believed that it had been perceptible for some time, although hitherto partly drowned by the clatter of our rubber soles upon wooden steps.
For one moment I listened — and knew...
“You were right, Sir Denis,” I said; “this place isn’t deserted. Someone is closing the section doors!”
“Quick! For your life! Back to the st
airs...”
We turned and ran into the wooden-floored tunnel; our feet made a drumming sound upon the planks. The man left on duty at the foot of the stairs was missing. Up we went helter-skelter, neither of us doubting the urgency. We met with no obstruction and, breathing hard, began to race up the higher flight.
Neither patrol was to be seen. I suspected that they had gone back along the corridor to establish contact with the man at the farther end.
In confirmation of my theory came the sound of a shot, curiously muffled and staccato, from some point far ahead.
We pulled up, panting and — staring.
A section door was descending, cutting us off from the corridor! It was no more than three feet from the ground, and falling — falling — inch by inch...
“We daren’t risk it!” groaned Nayland Smith. “If we did, and weren’t crushed, we should be shut in between this and the next.”
I heard shouting in the corridor beyond; a sound of racing feet. But even as I listened and watched, the dull grey metal door was but fifteen inches above floor level, and:
“We must try back again,” I said hoarsely. “There must be some way out of that place, even if we have to swim for it.”
“There’s no way out,” Sir Denis rapped irritably. “The entrance is below sea level.”
“What!”
“You saw the patches of oil on the wharf?”
“I did. But—”
“Nevertheless, we’ll go back. There may be some gallery communicating with another exit.”
We began to descend again.
I was trying to think, trying to see into the future. An appalling possibility presented itself to my mind: that this might be the end of everything! So tenacious is the will to live in all healthy animals that predominant above every other consideration at the moment towered that of how to escape from this ghastly cavern.
Nayland Smith’s torch — he was leading by a pace — shone upon the oil-stained planking of the wharf.
“Lights out!”
In complete darkness we stood there. That warning note which indicated the closing of the section doors had ceased.
They were closed.
