by Sax Rohmer
“The wise man fears only that which he knows,” crooned old Sam Pak, “since against the unknown there can be no defense.”
Dr. Fu-Manchu, long ivory hands motionless upon the table before him, studied the wizened face.
“The priest has sources of information denied to the Secret Service,” he said softly. “He has a following second only to our own. Salvaletti, whom I have tended as the gardener tends a delicate lily, must be guarded night and day.”
“It is so, Marquis. He has a bodyguard five times as strong as that which formerly surrounded Harvey Bragg.”
Silence fell for some moments. Dr. Fu-Manchu, from his seat behind the lacquer table, seemed to be watching the woodland prospect through half-closed eyes.
“Some reports indicate that he evades his guards.” Fu-Manchu spoke almost in a whisper. “These reports the woman, Lola Dumas, has confirmed. My Chicago agents are ignorant and obtuse. I await an explanation of these clandestine journeys.”
Sam Pak slowly nodded his wrinkled head.
“I have taken sharp measures, Master, with the Number responsible. He was the Japanese physician Shoshima.”
“He was?”
“He honorably committed hara-kiri last night…”
Silence fell again between these invisible weavers who wrought a strange pattern upon the loom of American history. This little farmstead in which, unsuspected, Dr. Fu-Manchu pursued his strange studies, and from which he issued his momentous orders, stood remote from the nearest main road upon property belonging to an ardent supporter of the League of Good Americans. He was unaware of the identity of his tenant, having placed the premises at the disposal of the league in all good faith.
Dr. Fu-Manchu sat motionless in silence, his gaze fixed upon the distant woods. Sam Pak resembled an image: no man could have sworn that he lived. A squirrel ran up a branch of a tree which almost overhung the balcony, seemed to peer into the room, sprang lightly to a higher branch, and disappeared. The evensong of the birds proclaimed the coming of dusk. Nothing else stirred.
“I shall move to Base 6, Chicago,” came the guttural voice at last. “The professor will accompany me; his memory holds all our secrets. It is essential that I be present in person on Saturday night.”
“The plane is ready, Marquis, but it will be necessary for you to drive through New York to reach it.”
“I shall leave in an hour, my friend. On my journey to Base 6 I may pay my respects to the Abbot Donegal.” Dr. Fu-Manchu spoke very softly. “Salvaletti’s address on Saturday means the allegiance of those elements of the Middle West hitherto faithful to the old order. We must silence the priest…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX. THE HUMAN EQUATION
Mark Hepburn could not keep still: impatience and anxiety conspired to deny him repose. He stood up from the seat in Central Park overlooking the pond and began to walk in the direction of the Scholar’s Gate.
Smith had started at dawn by air to reach the Abbot Donegal, whose veiled statements relative to the man and the movement attempting to remodel the Constitution of the country had electrified millions of hearers from coast to coast. A consciousness of defeat was beginning to overwhelm Hepburn. No charge, unless it could be substantiated to the hilt, could check the headlong progress of Paul Salvaletti to the White House.
And now, for the first time in their friendship, Moya Adair had failed to keep an appointment. Deep in his heart Hepburn was terrified. Lieutenant Johnson had traced Robbie’s Long Island playground, but Moya had begged that Mark would never again have the boy covered.
She had been subjected to interrogation on the subject by the President! Apparently her replies had satisfied him — but she was not sure.
And now, although a note in her own hand had been conveyed to him by Mary Goff, Moya was not here.
If he should be responsible for any tragedy occurring in her life he knew that he could never forgive himself. And always their meetings took place under the shadow of dreadful, impending harm. He walked on until he could see the gate; but Moya was not visible. His restlessness grew by leaps and bounds. He turned and began to retrace his steps.
He had nearly reached the familiar seat which had become a landmark in his life when he saw her approaching from the opposite direction. He wanted to shout aloud, so great was his joy and relief. He began to hurry forward. To his astonishment Moya, who must have seen him, did not hasten her step. She continued to stroll along looking about her as though he had not existed. His heart, which had leaped gladly at sight of her, leaped again, but painfully. What did it mean? What should he do? And now she was so near that he could clearly see her face… and he saw that she was very pale.
An almost imperceptible movement of her head, a quick lowering of her lashes, conveyed the message:
“Don’t speak to me!”
His brow moist with perspiration, he passed her, looking straight ahead. Very faintly the words reached him:
“There’s someone following. Keep him in sight.”
Mark Hepburn walked on to where the path forked. A short thick-set man passed him at the bend but did not pay any attention to him. Hepburn carried on for some ten or twelve paces, then dodged through some bushes, skirted a boulder and began to retrace his steps.
The man who was covering Moya was now some twenty yards ahead. Hepburn kept him in view, and presently he bore right, following a path which skirted the pond. In the distance Moya Adair became visible.
A book resting on her knee, she was watching a group of children at play.
The man passed her, making no sign. And in due course Hepburn approached. As he did so, Moya bent down over her book. He went on, keeping the man in sight right to the gate of the park. When he saw him cross towards the plaza, Mark Hepburn returned.
Moya looked up. She was still very pale; her expression was troubled.
“Has he gone?” she asked rather wearily.
“Yes, he has left the park.”
“He has gone to make his report.” She closed her book and sighed as Mark Hepburn sat down beside her. “I seem to be under suspicion. I think the movements of everybody in the organization are checked from time to time. There has been some tremendous upset. Probably you know what it is? Frankly — I don’t. But it has resulted in an enormous amount of mechanical work being piled up on my shoulders. I receive hundreds of messages, apparently quite meaningless, which I have to take down in shorthand and repeat if called upon.”
“To whom do you repeat them, Moya?”
“To someone with a German accent. I have no idea of his identity.” Her gloved fingers played nervously with the book. “Then there is the Salvaletti-Dumas wedding. Old Emmanuel Dumas and myself have been made responsible for all arrangements. Lola, as you know, is with Salvaletti. It’s terribly hard work. Of course, it’s sheer propaganda and we have plenty, of assistance. Nothing is being neglected which might help Salvaletti forward to the Presidency.”
“The murder of Harvey Bragg was a step in that direction,” said Hepburn grimly; “but—”
He checked his words. A party operating under his direction had located Dr. Fu-Manchu and the man known as Sam Pak, in a farmhouse in Connecticut! Even now it was being surrounded. Lieutenant Johnson was in charge…
Moya did not answer at once; she sat staring straight before her for a while and then:
“That may be true,” she replied in a very quiet voice. “I give you my word that I don’t know if it is true or not. And I’m sure you realize” — she turned to him, and he looked into her beautiful, troubled eyes— “that if I had known I should not have admitted it.”
He watched her for a while in silence.
“Yes, I do,” he said at last, in his unmusical, monotonous voice. “You play the game, even though you play it for the most evil man in the world.”
“The President!” Moya forced a wan smile. “I sometimes think he is above good or evil — he thinks on a plane which we simply can’t understand. Has that ever occurred to you, Ma
rk?”
“Yes.” Mark Hepburn nodded. “It’s Nayland Smith’s idea, too. It simply means that he’s doubly dangerous to the peace of the world. You are such a dead straight little soul, Moya, that I can’t tell you what I have learned about the man you call the President. It’s a compliment to you, because I think if you were asked what I had said, you would feel called upon to answer truthfully.”
Moya glanced at him, then looked aside.
“Yes,” she replied slowly, “I suppose I should. But” — she clenched her hands— “quite honestly, I don’t care very much today who gets control of the country. In the end, all forms of government are much alike, I believe. I am frightfully, desperately worried about Robbie.”
“What’s the matter, Moya?”
Hepburn bent to her. She continued to look aside: there were tears on her lashes.
“He’s very ill.”
“My dear!” In the most natural way in the world his arm was around her shoulders; he held her to him. “Why didn’t you tell me at first? What’s wrong? Who is attending him?”
“Dr. Burnett. It’s diphtheria! He contracted it on his last visit to the garden. I have heard, since, there’s a slight epidemic over there.”
“But diphtheria, in capable hands—”
“Something seems to have gone wrong. I want another opinion. I must hurry back now.”
Mark Hepburn cursed himself for an obtuse fool, for Moya knew that he was a doctor of medicine.
“Let me see him!” he said eagerly. “I know that sounds egotistical; I mean I’m a very ordinary physician. But at least I have a deep interest in the case.”
“I wanted you to see him,” Moya answered simply. “Really, that was why I came today. I only learned last night what was the matter…”
* * * *
Nayland Smith hurried down from the plane and ran across the floodlighted dusk of the flying ground to a waiting car. The door banged; the car moved off. To the other occupant:
“Who is it?” he snapped.
“Johnson.”
“Ah, Johnson, a recruit from the navy, I believe, as Hepburn is a recruit from the army? I have been notified that Dr. Fu-Manchu and the man Sam Pak have been traced to a farmhouse in Connecticut. The latest news?”
“Dr. Fu-Manchu left by road a few minutes ago, before I and my party could intercept him.”
“Damnation!” Nayland Smith drove his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “Too late — always too late!”
“He was heading for New York. Every possible point en route is watched. I returned by air to meet you.”
“However disguised,” said Smith, “his height alone makes his a conspicuous figure. Tell me where to drop you. Keep in touch with the Regal.”
A police car preceded them on the lonely road and another brought up the rear. But a third car, showing no lights and traveling at sixty-five to seventy, passed.
A torrent of machine-gun bullets rained upon them! A violent explosion not five yards behind told of a wasted bomb!
The murder party roared away ahead — a Z-car, with Rolls engines built for two hundred miles per hour…
The heavy windows had splintered in several places — but not one bullet had penetrated!
Johnson sprang out on to the roadside as they pulled up. “Everything right in front?”
“O.K., sir.”
Men were running to them from the leading car and jumping out of that which followed, when, leaning from the open door:
“Back to your places!” Nayland Smith shouted. “We stop for nothing…”
In the covered car park of the Regal-Athenian Smith alighted and ran in. The door was still swinging when Wyatt, a government man, came out from the reception office.
“I have a message from Captain Hepburn,” he said.
Nayland Smith, already on his way to the elevator, paused, turned.
“What is it?”
“He does not expect to be here at the time arranged, but asks you to wait until he calls you.”
Upstairs, in their now familiar quarters, Fey prepared a whisky.
“What’s detaining Captain Hepburn?” Nayland Smith demanded. “Do you know?”
“I don’t, sir, but I think it’s something to do with the lady.”
“Mrs. Adair?”
“Yes, sir. Mary Goff — a very excellent woman who has called here before — brought a note for Captain Hepburn this morning, just after you left, sir. Captain Hepburn has been out all day, but he returned an hour ago, collected up some things from his laboratory, and went out again.”
Nayland Smith set down his glass and irritably began to load his pipe.
This was a strange departure from routine, and Mark Hepburn was a man of routine. Smith did not understand. Admittedly he was ahead of time, but he had counted upon finding Hepburn here. In such an hour of crisis as this, the absence of his chief of staff was more than perturbing. Every minute, every second, had its value. Dr. Fu-Manchu had thwarted them at point after point. Despite their sleepless activity that cold, inexorable genius was carrying his plans to fruition…
The phone bell rang. Fey answered. A moment he listened, then, looking up:
“Captain Hepburn, sir,” he said.
* * * *
“How is he, Dr. Burnett?”
Moya’s voice was breathlessly anxious — her eyes were tragic. Dr. Burnett, a young man with charming manners and a fashionable practice, shook his head, frowning thoughtfully.
“There’s really nothing to worry about, Mrs. Adair,” he replied. “Nevertheless I am not entirely satisfied.”
Moya turned as Mark Hepburn came into the sitting-room. His intractible hair was more than normally untidy. He was acutely conscious of the danger of the situation, for he knew now that his presence would be reported by those mysterious watchers whose eyes missed nothing. He had made a plan, however. If Moya should be in peril, he would declare himself as a Federal agent who had forced his way in to interrogate her.
“Dr. Burnett,” said Moya, “this is” — for the fraction of a second she hesitated— “Dr. Purcell, an old friend. You don’t mind if he sees Robbie?”
Dr. Burnett bowed somewhat frigidly.
“Not at all,” he replied; “in fact, I was about to suggest another opinion — purely in the interests of your peace of mind, Mrs. Adair. I had thought of Dr. Detmold.”
Dr. Detmold had the reputation of being the best consulting physician in New York, and Mark Hepburn, as honest with himself as with others, experienced a moment of embarrassment. But finally:
“The boy’s asleep,” said Dr. Burnett, “and I am anxious not to arouse him. But if you will come this way, Dr. — er — Purcell, I shall be glad to hear your views.”
In the dimly lighted bedroom, Nurse Goff sat beside the sleeping Robbie; her appearance indicated, correctly, that she had known no sleep for the past twenty-four hours. She looked up with a gleam of welcome in her tired, shrewd eyes as Hepburn entered.
He beckoned her across to the open window, and there in a whisper:
“He looks very white, nurse. How is his pulse?”
“He’s failing, sir! The poor bairn is dying under my eyes. He’s choking — he can swallow nothing! How can we keep him alive?”
Mark Hepburn crossed to the bed. Gently he felt the angle of the boy’s jaw: the glands were much enlarged. Slight though his touch had been, Robbie awoke. His big eyes were glassy. There was no recognition in them.
“Water,” he whispered. “Froat… so sore!”
“Poor bonnie lad,” murmured Mary Goff. “He’s crying for water, and every time he tries to swallow it I expect him to suffocate. Oh, what will we do! He’s going to die!”
Hepburn, who had hastily collected from the Regal those indispensable implements of his trade, a stethoscope, a thermometer and a laryngeal mirror, began to examine the little patient. It was a difficult examination, but at last it was completed…
Although painfully aware of her danger, h
e hadn’t the heart to deter Moya when, her face a mask of sorrow, she crossed to the boy’s bed. He beckoned to Dr. Burnett, and outside in the sitting-room:
“I fear the larynx is affected,” he said; “I am not equipped for a proper examination in this light. But what is your own opinion?”
“My opinion is, Dr. Purcell, that the woman Goff, although she is a trained nurse, has a sentimental attachment to the patient and is unduly alarming Mrs. Adair. The action of the antitoxin, admittedly, has been delayed, but if normal measures are strictly carried out I can see no cause for alarm.”
Mark Hepburn ran his fingers through his untidy hair.
“I wish I could share your optimism,” he said. “Do you know Dr. Detmold’s number? I should like to speak to him.”
* * * *
“The human equation — forever incalculable,” muttered Nayland Smith.
He hung up the telephone and crossing, stared out of the window.
The night had a million eyes: New York’s lights were twinkling… Admittedly the situation was difficult; he put himself mentally in Hepburn’s place: and Hepburn had asked only to be allowed to remain until the famous consultant arrived.
Nayland Smith stared at the decapitated trunk of the Stratton Building. There were lighted rooms on the lower floors, but the upper were in darkness. The great explosion at the summit had wrought such havoc that even now it was possible the entire building would be condemned. That explosion had been the personal handiwork of Dr. Fu-Manchu!
Their escape from the catastrophe prepared for them fell nearly within the province of miracles. Yet to this very hour Dr. Fu-Manchu remained at large, his wonderful brain weaving schemes beyond the imagination of normal men…
Could anything, short of the destruction of that apparently indestructible life, prevent the triumph of Paul Salvaletti? The puzzle was maddeningly insoluble. The League of Good Americans began frankly to assume the dimensions of a Fascist movement, with the dazzling personality of Salvaletti at its head. On Wednesday next, at eight o’clock (if he lived), Abbot Donegal would tell the country the truth. What would the reaction be?
