by Sax Rohmer
“And I spend my time looking for Ardatha!”
“Why not? She is a most valuable ally. I am concerned about her almost as deeply as you are. A link with the enemy is not lightly to be broken.”
“Utterly fantastic, Smith, but true, that her safety, her very existence, may depend on the life of that wretched little animal—”
“The Doctor’s marmoset? Yes, Barton says the creature cannot last much longer unless he can discover something it will consent to eat. As it is reasonable to suppose that Fu-Manchu knows now of our capture, what has puzzled me is the Doctor’s silence—”
“And our immunity!”
“That is less surprising. I know from experience that a cessation of hostilities usually follows the delivery of a Si-Fan ultimatum until the date has expired. We may hope for another week’s safety.”
Nevertheless, I had suffered wakeful hours, hours when I had lain listening for soft footsteps, for the coming of that Shadow which had been amongst us in New York. And I had known, on many a sleepless night, the dread of The Snapping Fingers.
“If I could only find that accursed shop!” I exclaimed. “I am beginning to despair.”
But Smith was plunged in sudden reflection; I doubted if he had heard me. And I was looking about aimlessly at the varied types of humanity represented on the terrace, when he jerked:
“Did Ardatha state expressly that Z was to be found in Cristobal?”
“Why, yes — that is, let me think.”
To recall the exact words — to recall almost any words Ardatha had spoken to me since our strange reunion in London — was not difficult.
“Smith!” I spoke excitedly, “I believe I have been wasting precious time. She said that they were setting out for Cristobal, but then added, ‘When you reach Panama’!”
“That’s it!” snapped Smith, standing up. “Panama! Barton and I have our hands full, as you know, but in any case this is a job you can do better alone. I will notify the Zone police. An officer will meet you. The sooner you start the better, Kerrigan. I suspect that Z is in Panama.”
Indeed, I required no urging; ten minutes later I was on my way.
Storage tanks and other anachronisms left behind, my journey swept me straight into the jungle. Through dense shadows of tropical foliage, I could see, with my mind’s eye, Morgan and his leather-skinned fighting men marching on Panama. Alligators basked in the pools, unfamiliar birds flitted from branch to branch; and I saw here at last a curtain against which the drama of Dr. Fu-Manchu might fitly be played. On this, the Gold Road across the Isthmus, Spaniard and Buccaneer had clashed in many a bloody conflict.
Just beyond the mirror of the waters, beyond festoons of flowering vines, lay hundreds and hundreds of miles of primeval jungle, forest, and mountain, much of it untrodden by a white man’s foot; places never yet explored, inhabited by humans, beasts, birds and insects so far unclassified.
When the train (surely one of the strangest under Uncle Sam’s control) pulled into Panama, I was thinking that somewhere in the secret swamps beyond, Dr. Fu-Manchu had found the horror called the Snapping Fingers.
Sergeant Abdy of the Zone police met me, a man from the Middle West, but leather-skinned and truculent as any that followed Morgan in the days of the Gold Road.
“All the stores with phone numbers have been checked up, Mr. Kerrigan. I guess there’s not much news for you.”
My heart fell.
“You mean there are no names beginning with Z?”
“Just that, except for ‘Zone’. But listen — there’s the market stalls and the playa on the water front. We’ve done some. I broke away to meet you. I plan to explore that section. What I suggest is this: while I do the market — a bit late, now — you do the streets between water front and Central. They’re full of little stores. Meet me at the Marine Hotel.”
Further details were all agreed as we walked along together and Sergeant Abdy gave me my bearings. When we parted, I confess that the size of the job rather staggered me. Only by sheer good luck could I hope to find Z.
But Fate (I often think of the Arabs) has us in leading-strings. Parting from Sergeant Abdy, I set out more or less at random down a crooked, cobbled, narrow street which transported me in spirit to Clovelly in Devonshire. I doubt if I had proceeded twenty paces on my downward path before, on the corner of a shadowy courtyard, I saw above a shop, which appeared to be even more ancient than its neighbours, the name
I pulled up sharply, my pulse beating faster. Through a dirty, narrow-paned window I stared at some of the queerest objects ever assembled. There were two Voodoo masks of repellent appearance, some fragments of antique pottery, and a piece of grotesque mural decoration which might have come from a Yucatan temple. I saw a leather bowl filled with tarnished coins, backed by a partly unrolled Chinese carpet, which even my unpractised eye told me to be almost priceless. There were two cracked and battered tea chests, a number of lopsided and primitive wine bottles. But set right in front of the window, so that it was no more than an inch removed from the dirty glass, was the strangest exhibit of all.
It was a human head.
The head was that of a bearded old man, reduced by the mysterious art of Peruvian head-hunters to a size no greater than that of an average orange. The shrivelled features still retained the personality of the living man. One expected him at any moment to open those sunken lids, and to look out with tiny, curious eyes upon a giant world.
This repellent thing was mounted and set in a carved mahogany box, having a perfectly-fitting glass cover resembling a clock case. And as I stared at the ghastly relic, for my inspection of the window of Zazima had occupied only a matter of seconds, I became aware that from the black shadows of the shop beyond someone was watching me.
The face of the one who watched was so like that in the mahogany box, magnified, that horror touched me and I know that I bent forward and peered more closely into those dim shadows.
Faintly I could discern a bent old man sitting upon cushions piled upon a high-backed wooden chair. He wore a robe or dressing-gown. And as I peered in over the shrivelled head in the window, a thin hand was raised. I was invited to enter.
I opened the door of the shop. A bell jangled as I did so, and from an ancient church somewhere farther down the street a clock chimed the half hour.
Immediately, as the door closed behind me, I became aware of an indescribably fusty atmosphere. I had stepped out of the Panama of today into a crypt in which were preserved age-old memories of the Panama which had seen rack, death by fire, Spanish swords countering English; or into an even earlier Panama worshipping strange gods, a city unknown to the Inquisition or to the England of Francis Drake.
It seemed at first glance that the bulk of Zazima’s offerings were displayed in the window. There were some carpets on the walls and some faded charts and prints. A few odds and ends lay about the untidy place. But it was upon the face of the proprietor, for such I assumed the old man in the high-backed chair to be, that my attention was focused.
He was, as I have indicated, yellow and wrinkled, with fragments of scanty hair and beard clinging, colourless, to the parchment of his skin. He sat cross-legged upon the cushions, and for one moment, looking into his sunken eyes, a vague apprehension touched me. I had met a strangely penetrating glance. When I spoke I was staring over his head.
“You have some attractive wares for sale.”
I glanced back at him. He was nodding, and I saw now that he held a common clay pipe in his left hand, and that the peculiar odour of the place was directly traceable to the tobacco he was smoking.
“Yes, yes!” he thrust the stem of the pipe into an apparently toothless mouth. “As you say. But business is very slack, Mr. Kerrigan.”
I don’t know if it was the perfect English in which he addressed me, or his knowledge of my name that more greatly surprised me; but I can state with certainty that his confirmation of my hopes that here indeed was a link with Ardatha made my heart beat even fast
er than it was already beating.
“Why do you call me Mr. Kerrigan?”
“Because that is your name.” He smiled with a sort of naïve cunning. “Of course, I was expecting you.”
“But how did you know me?”
“By three things. The first: your appearance, of which I had been advised; the second: your behaviour. Those two things, conjoined to the third, assured me of your identity.”
“And what was the third?”
“I could see your heart beating under your coat when you looked up and read the name Zazima.”
“Indeed?”
Without the clay pipe, the aged philosopher might have been the immortal Barber of Baghdad.
“Yes, it is true. I cannot think why you have been so long in coming.”
“How was I to know you were in Panama? I have been searching in Colon and Cristobal.”
“But why in Cristobal? I, Zazima, have been here in Panama for forty years.”
“This I did not know.”
I was beginning now to wonder about the nationality of Zazima, and I decided that he was some kind of Asiatic, certainly a man of culture. Behind him, on the wall, hung a piece of Moorish tapestry, faded, worn, but from a collector’s point of view, probably of great value; and I saw Zazima as an Eastern oracle, sitting there, cross-legged, inscrutable.
He removed the clay pipe from his shrunken lips, and: “Recite to me the message which the lady delivered,” he said, “since here is some mystery. I know you bear it in your memory, for I have lived and loved myself.”
Doubtful, always suspecting treachery, for if I had learned anything during my association with Nayland Smith it had been that the power of the Si-Fan was everywhere, I hesitated. I have had occasion before to refer to a sort of lowering of temperature, a sense of sudden chill, which subconsciously advised me of the presence of Fu-Manchu. I knew others who had shared this experience. And as I stood there, watching the strange old man in the high-backed chair, I became aware of just that sensation.
No doubt I betrayed myself: for Zazima spoke again. He spoke gently, as one who seeks to soothe a nervous child.
“Those who oppose the Master fight with the elements. You are in no danger. If you are sensible in this, my humble shop, of a greater presence, have no fear. Beneath my roof you are safe. Danger is to the lady you love. Tell me, if you please, what message she sent to you.”
A moment more I hesitated, and then:
“She told me,” I said, “that I should have news of her at the shop of Za — . There, her words were cut off.”
I watched Zazima closely. His sunken eyes were closed; he seemed to be in a state of contemplation. I decided that the Moorish tapestry covered a doorway. But presently those piercing eyes regarded me again.
“We who work for the Master, work unafraid. The lady’s message, Mr. Kerrigan, should have run ‘at the shop of Zazima in Panama: look for the head in the window’. I sorrow to learn that you have sought in vain. However, it is not too late.”
“Quick, tell me” — my hand shot out in supplication— “where is she? Where can I find her?”
“It is not for me to answer, Mr. Kerrigan.”
He alighted from the chair. I cannot state that he stood up — for I realized at this moment that he was a dwarf. Clay pipe in hand he passed me, crossed to the window, pulled aside the folds of the Chinese carpet, and straining forward reached the box which contained the shrivelled head. With this he returned.
“It is twenty dollars,” he said; “which is a stupid price.”
“But” — I shrank back— “I don’t want the thing!”
“The lady’s message should have concluded with these words: ‘Look for the head in the window. Buy it!’”
I stared down at him suspiciously. Was I becoming involved in a cunning web spread by Dr. Fu-Manchu? For of the fact that the Chinese Doctor, if not present in person, dominated this scene I was convinced. Yet — for now I was cool enough — I saw that I must trust Zazima. Ardatha had asked me to seek him out. Dark, sunken eyes watched me; and I thought that there was an appeal in them.
“As you say, it is a stupid price.”
I handed twenty dollars to Zazima, and he surrendered to me my strange purchase.
“Have you nothing else to tell me?”
“Nothing. I have sold you the head. A great Chinese philosopher has written: ‘When the cash is paid words cannot restore it’. The matter is concluded.”
I turned to go. Zazima had reseated himself on the high-backed chair.
“Do not open the box,” he added softly, “until you are alone.”
And he seemed to speak as one who is prompted.
CHAPTER NINETEEN. FLAMMARIO THE DANCER
As I sat outside a café which Sergeant Abdy had recommended to me, I was far from easy in my mind. Having first wrapped my strange possession in a newspaper, I had bought a cheap attaché case which now stood on the table before me; it contained the shrivelled head. A halt for refreshment had proved to be imperative, and in any case I had to wait for a train. My luncheon dispatched, I lingered over an iced drink.
It was cool beneath the awning. Before me rose ranks of royal palms seeming to mount guard along the tiled paths. Coloured boys had given up pestering me to have my shoes cleaned, to buy post-cards, tickets for bull-fights, and other things which I didn’t want. Dark-eyed señoritas transported me in spirit to Spain as they moved on jutting iron balconies of ancient stone houses. Coches rattled lazily along the cobbled streets. It was pleasantly hot and the sky looked unreally blue.
But I had much to think about.
I could not fail to remember that the most delicate operation in the murders due to the Snapping Fingers was that of introducing the unknown agent of death. Suppose (I argued) I carry in the mahogany box such an agent; suppose I am being used, cunningly, to destroy my friends and myself!
It was not outside the bounds of possibility. In Zazima’s shop I had been acutely aware of a hidden presence. Against this was the indisputable fact that Ardatha had directed me to go there — that I had been expected.
Ardatha! What had my journey availed? I knew no more than I had known before I had set my eyes on the strange dwarf called Zazima. And there was something else. As I had come out into the cobbled, sloping street, carrying my purchase, an idea had been strong upon me that I was watched — not by someone inside the shop, but by someone outside, that this person was following me at a distance. So strong did this conviction become that as I turned into Sixth Street I paused for a moment and then turned back.
I almost fell over a slim, sallow-faced man who was on the point of rounding the corner!
Muttering an apology, he hurried on; but his appearance had set me a problem. Where had I seen that sallow face before? A wide-brimmed hat had somewhat obscured his features, but nevertheless I knew that this was not the first time I had seen him.
Abstractly selecting a cigarette from my case, I watched a coche which slowly approached, hood up, for the noonday sun was hot. In any more objective mood I might well have failed to note the passenger; but now his sallow features imprinted themselves upon my passive brain with medal-like accuracy. He had removed the wide-brimmed hat and lay back in the shadow of the hood; but I knew him, knew him for a spy — for the man who had followed me as I left Zazima’s shop.
More, that fugitive memory was trapped. He was the man who had been with Ardatha in the foyer of the Regal Athenian!
“The carriage clattered past at some little distance from the café, and turned into a side street just beyond an ancient church whose huge iron-studded doors probably dated back to the days when Drake met the Spaniards in Nombre de Dios Bay.
I was closely covered. What was the purpose of this espionage?
The link with Ardatha was established; its implications horrified me. My anxiety to examine the head grew so intense that for a moment I thought of hiring a room in the restaurant merely for that purpose.
Sergeant
Abdy’s reappearance induced wiser councils. He dropped down on a chair facing me.
“Checked up on Zazima,” he reported. “Nothing against him. He has contacts in the Chinese quarter, and it’s suspected some of his stock is stolen and the rest smuggled. If so, he’s clever. But he’s never given any trouble…”
* * * *
Both Nayland Smith and Sir Lionel were out when I returned, but Smith had left a message which read:
“Back for late dinner. Don’t go out until I join you.”
I passed through the foyer with its arcades and lighted show cases, and for all my distracted frame of mind could not fail to notice that I was an object of interest to a number of visitors lounging about in a seemingly aimless fashion. Indeed, it did not call for a newspaper training to see, as Smith had seen, that Colon was a hotbed of foreign agents, each watching the other, but all bent upon some common purpose.
What was the purpose?
I wondered if this gateway of a sea lane which joined two oceans was normally beset spies. That remark of Smith’s, “The Panama Canal has two ends,” recurred to me again and again.
One graceful brunette seemed bent on making my acquaintance: she was tall, slender, but despite her light brown skin, the colour of which might have been due to sun-bathing, she had that swaying carriage which betrays African ancestry. Her brilliant amber eyes, shaded by long curling lashes, fixed upon me, she conveyed so frank an invitation that I found it embarrassing. As I stepped into the elevator:
“Who is that dark girl?” I asked the man.
“Oh, that’s Flammario, the dancer from the Passion Fruit Tree.”
“Does she live here?”
“No, sir; and if you think she’s man-hunting — you’re wrong. Did you check up on the emeralds? That girl is a good little business woman. I guess she owns about half the town.”
This information made Flammario’s behaviour even more hard to understand. But by the time that I reached the apartment, I had dismissed her from my mind: someone else occupied it exclusively.
