by Sax Rohmer
Lola freed her hands, stepped around, and sat down in the chair facing him. “You mean I shouldn’t be in New York?”
“My dear!” Brian partly recovered from the happy shock. “Your being here is the answer to a prayer. It’s impossible but true.”
“Did you get my radiogram?”
“I did. But did you get my reply?”
Lola shook her head. A waiter was standing beside her. Brian ordered two Martinis. As the waiter moved away Lola said, “How could I? I had to leave London an hour after I sent my message to you in Cairo. Madame had booked me for a flight leaving the same afternoon. I told you, Brian, we’d meet again before long.”
Brian’s eyes devoured her. As always, Lola was perfectly dressed, with that deceptive simplicity which only much money can buy.
“Are you staying here — in the Babylon-Lido?”
“Yes. Madame believes in Michel representatives being seen in smart paces.”
“Lola, it’s a miracle!”
Lola, watching him, smiled that odd smile which at once irritated and infatuated him. “There are men even today, Brian, who can perform miracles.”
Her words were puzzling; but, as the waiter brought the cocktails, he forgot them, clinked glasses, and was glad to be alive.
“You didn’t know I was here, Lola?”
“How could I? I saw you as I came in.”
“Are you free for dinner?”
“Of course, Brian dear. I only just arrived.”
* * * *
Dr. Fu Manchu sat in a small room that apparently had no windows. A single bright light shone down onto a large-scale plan pinned to a board, so that sometimes the shadow of his head or hand would appear on the plan as he bent forward to study it. The room was profoundly silent.
The plan represented a number of suites of apartments, some adjoining one another, but roughly half of them separated from the others by a wide corridor. An elevator door and a stairway were marked, both opening off a square landing.
It was a plan of the top floor of a wing of the Babylon-Lido.
Of the three suites shown on the west side of the corridor the one in the center was marked 2610; 2611 was on the north of it and 2609 on the south. There were four smaller apartments on the east side, numbered from 2612 to 2615.
Dr. Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff from a silver box, then turned his shadowed face toward a cabinet that stood near. He pressed a switch.
“Connect Twenty-six-eleven.”
An interval, and then a man’s voice speaking English with a pronounced accent: “Twenty-six-eleven.”
“You are unpacked and established?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Your transmitter is well concealed?”
“Yes, Master.”
“You may not be wanted tonight, but remain in the hotel.”
A faint click and the order: “Connect twenty-six-o-nine.”
There was an almost instant answer, in such bad English as to be nearly unintelligible.
“Speak in your own language. You are ready?”
The reply came in Burmese: “I am ready, Master.”
“Remain where you are until further orders.”
The four apartments on the east side were connected one after another; orders were given and accepted in a variety of tongues. Dr. Fu Manchu was a phenomenal linguist. At last he was satisfied. He leaned back in his chair and hissed softly between his teeth.
Suite 2610, occupied by Sir Denis Nayland Smith, was entirely surrounded by agents of Fu Manchu.
* * * *
While Brian waited for Lola to join him in the Silver Grill, his reflections took an odd turn. There was a queer similarity between this meeting with Lola in New York and his meeting with Zoe in Cairo. They might both have been planned by a producer too lazy to alter the routine. Brian laughed silently, and wondered why so grotesque an idea had occurred to him as he saw Lola coming.
She had changed into an unpretentious but charming dinner dress. It might have — and had — been designed expressly to set off her particular type of beauty. She looked radiant and attracted the tribute of many frowns from the women present.
When they had ordered their dinner, and Lola had selected the right Bordeaux to go with it, she said, “I’m simply dying to hear what you’re doing in New York, Brian. I thought your mysterious affairs were connected with the East, not the West.”
“So did I,” Brian admitted. Then he stopped.
How much was he entitled to tell Lola? She knew some of the facts already, but only as little as he had known himself up to the time of his departure from London.
“New York was the last place I expected to find myself in.” Lola delicately nibbled an olive. “You were the last person I expected to meet.”
Brian went through the pangs of an inward struggle. He longed to confide in somebody. He was made that way. If he couldn’t trust Lola, in whom could he put his trust? After all, she knew already that he was employed by Nayland Smith, and even if he told her all he knew of Sir Denis’ plans, it didn’t add up to much. For he recognized, with a return of his sense of frustration, that he had been kept in the dark all along. He imposed only one condition upon himself: he must say nothing about either Hessian or Dr. Fu Manchu.
“If I could make you understand, Lola, how mad I was to learn that we were coming to New York when the only place I wanted to be was London, you’d know how I longed to be with you again. Finding you right here made me think I had Aladdin’s lamp in my pocket and didn’t know it!”
“I was just as delighted to see you, Brian. Your last letter — the one you left for me — made me rather sad. Perhaps you were just mad at having to leave so suddenly. But it was a very chilly letter, Brian.”
Brian’s sense of guilt dried up his speech for a moment. Then he forced a grin and squeezed Lola’s hand.
“I’m no good at writing that kind of letter,” he told her lamely. “I can say what I want to say, but I can’t write it.”
“You can’t,” she agreed, but the gray eyes were dancing with mischief. “Maybe it’s just as well. You might be prosecuted for libel.”
A waiter came to serve the first course, and when he had gone Lola asked, “What did you do in Cairo? Any perilous adventures, either male or female?”
“Nothing much.” Brian spoke hastily. “Except that I was tailed everywhere I went.”
“Tailed? By whom? What for?”
“Because they knew I was with Nayland Smith, I suppose.”
Lola buttered a roll. “Who are ‘they,’ Brian? I don’t understand.”
“Well… from all I can make out, Lola, it’s a Communist plot Sir Denis is up against.”
“How exciting! What’s the plot?”
“Even if I knew — and I don’t — I couldn’t tell you.”
“It must be something to do with this country, Brian. Is Sir Denis with you?”
“Sure. He’s right here, in the Babylon-Lido.”
“But Brian, dear, you must know what he’s here for. Is he looking for somebody?”
Brian realized that he was on perilously thin ice. Secret agents were expected to keep their secrets from everybody.
“Let me make one thing plain, Lola. I’m not in on the master plan. I get my orders from the chief and ask no questions. All I know is that it’s something very big.”
During the rest of dinner they talked about London and the happy days they had spent there. Every minute Brian knew more and more how much Lola meant to him. She was in an entirely different category from that of the alluring Arab girl Zoe. He had always known it, but tonight his last doubt left him. He was sincerely in love with Lola.
A page appeared at his elbow. “Mr. Brian Merrick?”
“Yes.”
“You have a phone call, sir.”
He excused himself and went to a box at the end of the grillroom. Even before he heard the voice he knew that this delightful interlude with Lola had come to an end.
�
�Thought I’d find you there, Merrick,” Sir Denis said. “Don’t bolt your dinner, but come up when you finish.”
Lola knew before he spoke. “Wanted by the chief?” She smiled that slightly one-sided smile which made him want to kiss her, because it was part invitation and part mockery.
“You’ve guessed it, dear. But he was good enough to tell me not to hurry.”
“In the case of Madame Baudin — that’s Mrs. Michel — that would mean twenty minutes. But never mind. There’s all my packing to do, and we have lots of time ahead.”
* * * *
Brian found Nayland Smith pacing up and down their large living room. The air was foggy with tobacco smoke. He turned as Brian came in and spoke without taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“News for you, Merrick. Your father’s coming tomorrow.”
“That’s fine! I mailed a letter to him only this afternoon.”
“The Senator is bringing some brass hat from the Air Force. But they’ll both be disappointed if they expect to see Dr. Hessian. He refuses to receive any visitors until his model is ready for a demonstration.”
“Why is the Air Force interested?” Brian wanted to know.
“Because Hessian claims that his invention will put ’em out of business.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense, Sir Denis.”
“Think not?” Nayland Smith shot a quick glance at him. “You’re going to be surprised.”
“What is it? A guided missile?”
“No. Something to make guided missiles a waste of time. I’m not a physicist, Merrick, so I can’t explain the thing, but it means immunity from every form of air attack, including H bombs.”
“Good Lord! But can he really do it?”
Nayland Smith stared at Brian with a grim smile. “Why do you suppose I risked my neck to get him here?”
It was a sound argument in its way. Brian said, “I begin to see some reason for all the precautions.”
“Particularly now that Dr. Fu Manchu has traced him.”
“I still don’t understand where Dr. Fu Manchu comes in.”
“Then I’ll explain. I was retained by the United States government to get Hessian out of the hands of the Communists, to enable him to use his phenomenal brain for the side he belongs to. Dr. Fu Manchu has been retained by the Communists to see that he doesn’t do it.”
Brian was reduced to stupefied silence for a moment. He remembered saying to Lola, “All I know is that it’s something very big.” How big he hadn’t dreamed. Nayland Smith went on pacing about like a caged animal.
“Can you tell me one thing more, Sir Denis?” Brian ventured. “If you’re sure that agents of Dr. Fu Manchu are actually in New York, why don’t you have them arrested?”
Sir Denis turned, fixed him with a penetrating stare. “Have you any idea, Merrick, how long I tried to trap Fu Manchu himself during the time I knew, as all Scotland Yard knew, that he was in London? Six years! And he’s still free. As for his unidentified agents, New York is an even tougher problem than London.” He knocked ashes from his pipe into a tray. “Dr. Fu Manchu is president of an organization known as the Si-Fan. It has members throughout the East, Near and Far. It has agents in every city in Europe and every city in the United States. Its power is second only to that of communism, if not equal to it.”
He began to stuff a coarse-cut mixture into the hot bowl of his pipe. Brian said nothing.
“Its greatest strength, Merrick, is in its secrecy. Few people have even heard of the Si-Fan. As a result, there’s never been any concerted action against it. If they can’t have Hessian’s invention themselves, the Reds don’t intend to let anyone else have it. Heaven knows what they’ll try. But it’s our job to guard Hessian until he passes his plans over to the United States.”
CHAPTER TEN
In Egypt, not long afterward, on a night when there was no moon over Cairo, something happened designed to have an important bearing upon affairs in New York.
A small, lean man, very dark-skinned, was discarding his cloak upon the doorstep of the house in which Brian had once taken shelter from the student rioters. When he stepped out onto the narrow street he wore only a black loincloth and a small, tightly wound black turban.
The quarter had sunk into silence. Except for the distant sound of a pipe and the barely audible thud of a drum, nothing disturbed its stillness. The little man glanced once to right and left, then crossed the narrow street to the gate of the courtyard opposite. He peered through the bars. He could see the house of the Sherîf Mohammed, its projecting windows outlined against the starlight. The windows were dark. Nothing stirred.
He clasped the metal bars with bare toes and fingers, and with the agility of a monkey climbed to the top. He dropped lightly on the other side, moved across the courtyard, and surveyed the front of the building. Hesitating for a moment, he ran to the end. Looking up, he saw what he wanted.
A sturdy bougainvillea covered the south wall. On the floor above were several windows. He mounted to the first of these at incredible speed, but found it securely fastened. He swung to another. It was slightly open. He held his ear against the narrow opening, listening intently. Then inch by inch, he raised the window and dropped noiselessly inside the room.
Motionless, he lay where he had dropped. There was no sound. From his loincloth he pulled out a small flashlight. He lighted it for a moment. He was looking for the door. He found it.
In a matter of seconds he was out on a tiled corridor. Again he stood still, listening. He moved to the left, attracted by a sound of snoring. He peered into an anteroom richly furnished. It had a large window and the starlight was strong enough to enable this strangely endowed visitor to see all he wanted to see.
A fat man lay asleep on a cushioned divan — the man who had first come to the gate when Brian called to demand an interview with the Sherîf Mohammed.
The keen eyes of the little dark man detected a doorway on the right of the anteroom. He crossed to it, went through, and found a descending stair. It led to another corridor.
After cautiously opening several doors, he found what he was looking for: another stairway. He went down at extraordinary speed for one running in the dark, and found himself in the paved entrance hall of the house.
Now that his eyes were accustomed to the dim light, he could evidently see as clearly as a cat. And he seemed to know just what he was looking for.
With complete assurance, and making no sound, he moved around the walls, and presently, near the door that opened on the courtyard, he found what he sought. At the back of a small room intended for a porter’s lodge there was a strong teak door, iron-studded, the wood bleached with age. A bunch of old-fashioned Arab keys hung on a hook beside it. The largest of these fitted the ancient lock.
A stone stair led the midnight intruder to the cellars. Here he used his flashlight, without hesitation. He found stores of various kinds, including casks of wine that no true believer would expect to find in the cellars of a descendant of the Prophet.
Pressing on farther, he came to a smaller cellar, long and narrow. There was nothing in it, but on one side were two more of the heavy iron-studded teak doors. They differed from that at the top of the stair in one respect: Each had an iron grille in it. He had thrust, the bunch of keys inside, his accommodating loincloth; he was about to pull them out when he stopped dead, as if stricken motionless — a trick of many wild animals when surprised.
Quite still he stood, and listened.
The sound was very faint, but this man’s senses were supernormal. Someone was sleeping behind one of the doors.
He remained still for nearly a minute, debating what he should do. Then he crossed to the grille from behind which the sound came, peered in, could see nothing, and so shone a momentary ray from his flashlight into the blackness.
An instant challenge came. “Who’s there?”
The little man switched the light off and glided from the cellar, silent as a phantom. He fled up to the port
er’s lodge, relocked the door as he had found it, making more noise than he cared to, and went out into the entrance hall.
Here be stood still again to listen. There was no sound.
In niches of the mosaic-covered wall were many rare porcelain pots and other beautiful objects. On some of those the little man shone brief, flashes from his light.
He began to examine the several windows facing onto the courtyard, selected one of them, opened it slightly, and slipped through like a lizard. Once outside, he succeeded in partly closing it again.
He was over the gate and across the street to the doorway where he had left his cloak with a silent agility more like that of a nocturnal animal than of any human being.
Mr. Lyman Bostock, United States representative in Cairo, twirled a cigar between finger and thumb and stared reflectively across at Sir Nigel Richardson, his British colleague, who lay in a split-cane lounge chair with an iced drink beside him in the hollow of the chair arm provided for that purpose. Mr. Bostock’s study opened onto a balcony, and the balcony overhung a pleasant garden, shadowy on this moonless night.
“I’m only just finding it out,” Mr. Bostock remarked in his soothing drawl, “but you’re a queer bunch, you Englishmen.”
“I happen to be Scotch.”
“Maybe that’s worse. But I have to hand it to you, there’s not much about this country you don’t seem to know — including all the crooks in Cairo.”
“That’s base ingratitude, Bostock! I’ll let you in on a secret. Murdoch, whom you’ve met with me — he has confidential employment in our Embassy — was formerly an officer with the Egyptian police. That was m the days when we ran the show. And what Murdoch doesn’t know about the Cairo underworld could be put in a thimble. You asked me to find the right man. I found him.”
Mr. Bostock glanced at his watch, took a drink, and put his cigar back in his mouth.
“Agreed. I accept the responsibility.”
“You don’t have to. We’re in this thing together. If your FBI has unearthed a mare’s nest — and that’s my private opinion — there was no alternative so far as I can see. The course of action was left to you. What could you do? Neither you nor I could get a search warrant on a mere suspicion, particularly in the case of so highly respected a citizen as the Sherîf Mohammed Ibn el-Ashraf.”
