by Sax Rohmer
“Don’t turn around,” Lola whispered, “but there’s a queer-looking man sitting just behind you who seems to be interested in our conversation. This job of yours sounds rather hush-hush. Let’s talk about me until we go in to lunch. Then you can tell me all about it.”
Brian had reserved a corner table in the grill room, and when they were seated he asked, “Any sign of the spy?”
Lola smiled and shook her head. “I may have misjudged him. But he really did seem to be listening. He hasn’t come in, anyway.”
“I’m glad. There certainly seems to be something unusual about my new job. But as you put me onto it, Lola, you’re entitled to know all about it. You’d gone out when I got my mail this morning, and there was a very formal note that said something like ‘The Honorable Peter Wellingham would be obliged if Mr. Brian Merrick would call at the above address at eleven a.m. in connection with his application dated the fifteenth instant.’ You know all about the kind of people who are ‘Honorable,’ Lola. Who is Peter Wellingham?”
Lola looked confused, almost alarmed, but quickly recovered her composure.
“He’s Lord Chevradale’s son.”
“Do you know him?” There was a note of suspicion in Brian’s voice.
“Not personally. But I’ve heard that he’s badly in debt.”
“That’s queer. Because he gave me a substantial advance on my salary. I hope it’s not a rubber check! But let me tell you.”
And so over lunch he told her all that had happened on this eventful morning. He admitted that he had not taken to Peter Wellingham, but that because of the strong attractions of the job he had overcome his prejudice, convinced that to work under Sir Denis Nayland Smith would be an education in itself.
Sitting there, facing a pretty girl and surrounded by normal, healthy people, many of them fellow Americans, with deft waiters moving from table to table, he dismissed the illusion of the green eyes behind the Burmese cabinet. He decided not to mention it.
“I really owe this chance to travel to you, Lola. You saw the advertisement in the Times, and if you hadn’t encouraged me to do it, I don’t believe I should have written.”
“It read like a job created purposely for you, Brian.” She smiled rather wistfully. “I knew how you wanted to see more of the world before going home, and I’m really glad you pulled it off.”
“There’s one fly in the ointment,” Brian confessed. “Just as I get to know you I have to dash off to Egypt.”
“But you told me the Near East fascinated you, that you’d always wanted to go there.”
“That’s true. And it would be perfect — if you were coming with me.”
Lola took a cigarette from her case. “I never know where I’ll be sent next. I admit that Egypt’s unlikely but I don’t suppose you’ll be there long. We’re both world wanderers now, and we’re certain to get together again somewhere. I must rush, Brian. Six-thirty at the Mirabelle…”
CHAPTER TWO
In an old Cairo house not far from the Mosque of El Ashraf, a house still untouched by Western “improvements,” a tall, gaunt figure paced slowly up and down a room that once had been the saloon of the harem. High, and lighted by a lantern in the painted roof, it was brightly paved in the Arab manner, and had elaborate paneled walls and two mushrabîyeh windows.
The man pacing the tiled floor wore the same yellow robe that he had worn during his brief interview with Peter Wellingham in London and a similar black cap on his massive skull. His finely lined features were those of a scholar who had never spared himself in the quest of knowledge. It was a wonderful face. It might have belonged to a saint, or to the Fallen Angel.
His walk was feline, silent. He seemed to be listening for some expected sound. And suddenly it came… a strange, muffled, animal sound.
He crossed in three strides to a screen set before one of the recessed windows, and drew it aside.
Two glass boxes stood on a narrow table. In one was a rat, in the other a rabbit. It was the rabbit that had made the queer sound. The little creature thrashed around there in convulsions, and even as the screen was moved aside became still. The rat already lay rigid.
The man in the yellow robe walked in his catlike way through an arched opening into an adjoining room equipped as a laboratory. Some of the apparatus in this singular room would have puzzled any living scientist. From a wall, safe that he unlocked he took out a small phial. He seated himself at a glass-topped table, removed the stopper from the phial, and inserted a dipper. The delicacy of touch in those long-nailed fingers was amazing.
Smearing a spot from the dipper onto a slide, he set the slide in place in a large microscope and, stopping, stared through the lens, which he slightly adjusted.
Presently he stood up and, using a lancet, took a spot of his own blood and dropped it onto the smeared plate, which he immediately replaced. He again bent over the microscope. When he stood up a second time his expression was the expression of a demon.
He composed himself and pressed a button on a panel. A door opened and a young Japanese came in. He wore a white tunic.
“Bring Josef Gorodin here, Matsukata. Then wait in the saloon with two of my Burmese until you hear the gong.”
Matsukata bowed and went out. He returned shortly with a thickset man, also in white, whose heavy Slavonic features were set in what might have been a permanent scowl. He tried, to meet the gaze of the emerald-green eyes, but had to look aside. He spoke.
“You wished to see me, Comrade Fu Manchu?”
Dr. Fu Manchu continued to watch him. “You may address me either as Excellency or as Doctor. Comrade — no! I have offered my services — at my own price — to your masters. This does not mean that I kneel at the shrine of Karl Marx. I have something to say. Sit down.”
It was not an invitation; it was a command. Josef Gorodin sat down.
“On the evening I returned here from London,” Fu Manchu went on, “you were at work here, upon some experiments that I wished you to carry out in my absence. They had no practical importance. They were designed to test your ability. Your results convinced me that you were not untalented.”
“Thank you,” Gorodin muttered sarcastically.
“I showed you this phial.” Fu Manchu held it up. “I told you that many years ago I had completed my long experiments — those experiments so vainly attempted by the old alchemists — and that I had discovered what they termed the Elixir of Life. I said ‘The small quantity of the elixir in this phial contains three additional decades of life for any person who knows how to use it!’ You remember?”
“I remember.”
“I told you that by certain familiar symptoms I had been warned that the time had come for me to renew the treatment; that otherwise death might claim me at any hour. You remember?”
Gorodin bowed his head.
“You returned later, Josef Gorodin, and begged me to give you a drop of the preparation for analysis. I consented, for I knew it would defy your analysis. I told you to return the phial to the safe. You remember?”
Gorodin moistened his heavy lips, glanced up, then down again. “I remember.”
Dr. Fu Manchu reached along the table and struck a small silver gong that stood there. Matsukata appeared in the archway, followed by two stocky Asiatics. Gorodin sprang up, fists clenched, but was instantly seized by the experienced manhandlers of the Chinese doctor’s bodyguard. And when Fu Manchu, watching without expression, spoke again, his voice came as a sibilant whisper.
“I am sure your analysis had no results, Josef Gorodin. But I am about to give you conclusive evidence of the nature of this elixir. Seat him there, Matsukata. Slit his sleeve up to the shoulder.”
Gorodin had turned purple. He was a powerful man, but had quickly given up struggling, as every movement resulted in violent pain.
“You misjudge your position, and mine!” he shouted. “I am senior aide to the Minister of Scientific Research!”
Dr. Fu Manchu was charging a hypodermic syrin
ge from the phial. “This one injection will arrest both mental and physical decline, and give you ten more years at your present robust age to pursue your researches for the Ministry.”
“If you dare to harm me you will sign your own death sentence!”
“Hold his arm still, Matsukata.” Fu Manchu spoke softly, holding the syringe in a steady hand. “Were you attached to my staff merely to watch me, or to destroy me? Answer.”
Gorodin avoided those green eyes, but he began to tremble. He clenched his teeth.
“You daren’t do it!” he muttered.
“You mean, Dr. Gorodin, that you fear to have your useful life extended for ten years beyond its normal span?” The needle point touched Gorodin’s skin.
“Stop!” It was a scream. “What do you want to know?”
The needle, point was removed an inch or so. “You heard my question. Answer it.”
Gorodin swallowed noisily. “There are those who believe that to give you control of all our resources was a dangerous price to pay for your services — that the power once held by Stalin would be seized by you.”
“My poor Gorodin! The power I shall possess will exceed his wildest dreams.” The gaunt face became transfigured. Fu Manchu’s brilliant eyes blazed with the light of fanaticism. “But no matter. And you, no doubt, are one of those who believe this?”
“Yes.”
“And so you attempted to — what do you term it? — liquidate me? Where is the phial of elixir?”
‘There beside you.”
“I shall repeat my question — once. Where is the phial of elixir?”
“There beside you.”
“Then you must welcome these ten additional years of life.”
And Dr. Fu Manchu injected the contents of the syringe into Gorodin’s arm.
A scream more animal than human came from the man’s lips. He fought like a captive tiger, ignoring the agony that every movement produced. But his bare arm he could not move. Matsukata held it in a grip of steel. Gorodin’s veins bulged like blue cords on his forehead. Then he relaxed, panting.
“You have murdered me.” He spoke breathlessly. “You will pay with your own life for this.”
“You have courage.” Dr. Fu Manchu studied the inflamed face with scientific curiosity. “From the shape of your head I had not expected it. Until I have leisure to examine the contents of this phial that you ingeniously substituted for my own, I cannot say if there is any antidote to the poison. Could you enlighten me?”
Gorodin’s lips were turning blue. “There is none.”
“Then you will have the honor to die as you planned I should die. Recently I watched a rat in its last agonies from this treatment. I have no desire to watch another rat die in the same way.” He dropped the syringe in a glass bowl and glanced at Matsukata. “Sterilize. Incinerate his body.”
Dr. Fu Manchu turned and walked slowly out of the laboratory.
* * * *
For Brian Merrick the days that followed in London seemed more like a dream than a reality when he looked back on them later. Mr. Wellingham made all the necessary passport and medical arrangements, fixing appointments at times to suit Brian’s convenience. The organization for which he acted was undeniably efficient. Lola took charge of his shopping list, and whenever possible went with him to a famous store at which an account had been opened in his name. She sternly checked some of his wilder impulses, such as the purchase of a sun helmet.
“You’d look like a fool in Cairo wearing such a thing! If they send you up to the Sudan there are plenty of stores in Cairo where you can buy all you want.”
They lunched, dined, and danced together. The sun shone and Brian was ridiculously happy. One afternoon, sitting in Hyde Park with Lola, he said, “Today, I felt as though we were shopping for a honeymoon abroad. Oh, Lola, if only it had been true!”
He saw her blush, lower her lashes, and glance away. “We come from a country of hasty marriages,” she told him softly, her usual composure restored. “Such a marriage is usually just the first of several. We enjoy being together. Why get serious about it?”
“Lola, I hate leaving you.”
“I know I shall miss you, too, Brian. But we both have jobs to do and our jobs are interesting.”
Brian watched the piquant face. “But you won’t drop out of sight? You’ll write to me?”
“Of course I shall — if I know where to find you.”
“As soon as I reach Cairo I’ll radio my address to you at Michel’s.”
“No, Brian dear! Don’t do that. Michel won’t allow any private correspondence to come to the office. And I might be anywhere. I’ll tell you what, Brian. When I get my sailing orders I’ll leave a forwarding address at the hotel if I haven’t heard from you by then.”
“It might take weeks to reach you!”
“I’ll tip the hall porter to send it airmail.”
That night they were out together later than usual, Lola lovely to look upon in her cunningly simple dance dress, Brian drunk with longing but kept in check by those sudden moods of aloofness that sometimes came over Lola, like a mysterious cloak, changing her entire personality. At one moment all sweet surrender, in the next she became the unattainable woman.
But in the taxi going back to the hotel he took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. “Lola,” he murmured, “I love you…”
She returned his kiss; but gently pushed him away. “Don’t make love to me now, Brian, when I know we’re parting so soon. I’m very fond of you. But please wait. I feel we shan’t be parted for long.”
He detained her in the dark lounge of the hotel for an unreasonable time; and when, very tired, she stepped off the elevator (Lola lived on the floor below Brian), he felt that he had lost her forever. A sense of desolation swept over him.
* * * *
It was at approximately the same hour that an event occurred in the old Arab mansion near the Mosque of El Ashraf that would have a great influence upon Brian Merrick’s life.
The lofty saloon was dimly lighted by hanging lamps of perforated brass. Dr. Fu Manchu lay on a cushioned seat in one of the mushrabîyeh windows, so that what little breeze there was could reach him from the courtyard outside. His normally gaunt features were so gray and sunken that now that they resembled a death’s-head. His eyes were dim. It seemed to Matsukata, the Japanese physician, who sat watching him, that only the man’s unquenchable spirit remained alive. When he spoke, the once imperious voice was a mere croak:
“You have never… seen me… in this pitiable condition… before. I knew I had… little time. But the… dreadful change has… come so suddenly.” Fu Manchu panted for some moments. “Gorodin’s treachery… has destroyed me… You have searched… every inch… of his rooms… for the stolen phial?”
Matsukata bowed his head. “Every fraction of an inch, Excellency. But the Sherîf Mohammed has been at work nearly twenty-fours without sleep or rest on the material.”
Dr. Fu Manchu’s eyes closed. “If I die… tonight,” he whispered, “mankind will… not long… survive me.”
He became silent. Matsukata bent over him in sudden anxiety. A door opened at the other end of the saloon and a man entered quietly, an old, white-bearded man who wore Arab dress.
A change crept over Fu Manchu’s gray face. Without opening his eyes he whispered in Arabic, “You have it, Hakim?”
“I have it, Excellency at last.”
From under his black robe the old physician took a small phial, half filled with nearly colorless fluid.
“You are… sure… of the antacoid?” The words were barely audible.
“Positive.”
“Proceed… quickly.”
“His heart” — Matsukata spoke close to the Arab doctor’s ear— “is dangerously weakened.”
“I understand. We have no choice. The convulsions that follow the administration of the elixir are frightful. Be prepared for this. But any attempt to check them would be instantly fatal.”
* * * *
Brian had a restless night, not falling asleep until dawn was peering in at his window. He was awakened by the buzzing of his bedside phone. As he took up the receiver, he noted vaguely that it was ten o’clock.
“Mr. Merrick?” a woman’s voice inquired.
A hope that the caller was Lola died. “Yes, this is Brian Merrick.”
“Hold the line for Mr. Wellingham.”
Peter Wellingham came on. Even without seeing the pale face, Brian was chilled by those tones of false geniality.
“Good morning, Merrick. Hope I haven’t waked you up. Your instructions are just to hand, in the form of a reservation for a BOAC flight to Cairo leaving at the uncomfortable hour of five-thirty tomorrow morning. You’ll be picked up at your hotel at four, so I thought I’d give you time to pack.”
“Very thoughtful,” Brian murmured.
“A member of Sir Denis’ staff, a Mr. Ahmad, will contact you when, you arrive in Cairo. You’ll like him. I’ll send all papers along right away. Everything else in order?”
“Everything.”
“I’m off to Paris in an hour, or I should have loved to have you lunch with me. But I expect you’ll be well occupied with your own affairs. I saw you in Pall Mall one afternoon with an uncommonly pretty girl. You Americans seem to be damned popular!”
When Wellingham hung up, Brian lay back on his ruffled pillow and tried to figure out just where he stood and how he felt about it.
He had sent a long airmail letter to his father, telling him that a chance to travel had come his way in the form of a job as assistant to Sir Denis Nayland Smith. The Senator had replied, offering good advice and assuring Brian of his support if ever it should be needed. Then had followed some disturbing facts about the situation in the Near East.
‘The public,” his father wrote, “doesn’t appreciate the seriousness of the situation out there. Here at home they think it doesn’t concern them, as the trouble is so far away. But I can assure you that the President is deeply disturbed. The U.S. is the only partner in the Western bloc with any cash in the bank. This piles a terrible responsibility on us. I’m sure you know how to take care of yourself, my boy, but be very careful when you get to Egypt. You couldn’t have a better man beside you than Nayland Smith.”
