by Sax Rohmer
“My lady lacks something?”
Mrs van Roorden smiled.
“Nothing that you can find for me, Mai Cha! Tell me, dear, when did you see your father last?”
“It was nearly a year ago.”
“And where is he now?”
Mai Cha shook her glossy head.
“I cannot say. I never know.”
“But this apartment is always kept open?”
“Always, my lady. He might return at any time.”
“How I wish he would return tonight,” Mrs van Roorden murmured; and then: “May I ask you something, Mai Cha?”
“Anything you wish.”
“Has Sir Denis Nayland Smith ever been here?”
The dark eyes were raised to her in mild astonishment.
“But no. Of course not. He is my father’s enemy. He has never known that we live here. The apartment was bought by someone else — on my father’s behalf.”
“But you know Nayland Smith?”
“I have seen him, my lady. But not for many, many months.”
Mrs van Roorden moved towards the bedroom.
“Don’t bother about me, Mai Cha,” she smiled. “I shall not be going out for a long time yet…”
* * * *
Centre Street that night resembled a wasp’s nest.
An inoffensive businessman, purely because of deep interest in the fascinating Mrs van Roorden, which had impelled him to force his acquaintance upon Mr Fordwich, had become an instrument of justice. Unwittingly he had carried on the work of a star secret agent.
Motorcycle patrolmen, radio cars, shot into the dusk like earthbound rockets. Phones buzzed. The private line to Washington stayed red hot for hours. And Nayland Smith, in the office of his old friend, Deputy Commissioner Burke, a heavy powerful man with black, tufted eyebrows and greying hair, smoked his foul pipe incessantly as if in competition with Burke’s strong cigars.
Raymond Harkness inhaled cigarettes in swift succession, each neatly fitted into a tortoiseshell holder. He displayed no other signs of excitement.
“This card,” said Nayland Smith, “which Harkness found wedged between the leather cover and the silver of poor Orson’s flask, is clearly intended to admit him to a meeting at the house of Kwang T’see, wherever that may be, at two a.m. tomorrow morning, September 10th — that is, tonight. It has the Si-Fan crest at the top.”
“Not a doubt of it,” Burke growled in his deep bass. “He meant to pick up the stick and the flask just as soon as he thought it was safe. If I could have a hand in cleaning up this Fu-Manchu gang before I retire next year, I’d go to growing watermelons with a light heart.”
“The Fu-Manchu gang,” Smith rapped back, “is too big to be cleaned up overnight. But we have a chance to get some of the high executives and to break the Fort Knox scheme.” He glanced at a clock over Burke’s desk. “I’m waiting for news about the house of Kwang T’see!”
“So am I,” Burke agreed, and was about to ring when a rap sounded on the door and Police Captain Rafferty came in.
He saluted Burke with the deference due to a dreaded but respected chief.
“I have a report on Kwang Tsee, sir.”
“Spill it.”
“The only man of that name known in the Chinatown area is the proprietor of a store formerly owned by old Huan Tsung.”
“That settles it!” said Nayland Smith drily. “Go ahead.”
“Huan Tsung disappeared about a year ago. We wanted him, you may remember, but we could pin nothing on him. This man, Kwang T’see, bought the business. He’s enlarged it. He owns a big warehouse in the next street, same block, stocked with antiques from the East. He lives somewhere on the premises. Nothing against him…”
When Rafferty was gone, with a number of instructions:
“I guess this Kwang T’see is a dummy, Smith,” said Burke. “What’s your idea?”
“The same as yours. A Chinatown base is characteristic of Dr Fu-Manchu.”
“You knew Huan Tsung fairly well, didn’t you?”
Raymond Harkness smiled but said nothing.
“You exaggerate!” Nayland Smith assured him. “I never really knew him at all. He was once governor of a Chinese province. He is now Dr Fu-Manchu’s chief aide. He’s a first-class soldier, although of incalculable age. If Chiang Kai-shek had had him on his staff, the Communists would lie nowhere in China today. I have had several skirmishes with General Huan Tsung Chao, to give him his full name, but never won one yet!”
“The whole thing drops dead,” Burke declared, “if any news has leaked about the slaughter in Room 113.”
“No leakage has occurred,” came Harkness’ gentle assurance. “No one saw the baskets taken out. The room remains sealed. I arranged for Mr Thurston to dine and spend the night with friends of mine in Bronxville, where there is gay company. He has driven there in one of our cars.”
Nayland Smith’s grim face relaxed in a smile. It was a smile which betrayed the schoolboy who had never grown up.
“Clean, smart, efficient work,” he commented. “Satisfied, Burke?”
“I guess so. It’s up to us, now. We know that Fu-Manchu is playing for recognition. He figures that if performers with records like that old cross-talk act, Hitler and Mussolini, not to mention artists still with us, have been allowed a place in public life — why not Dr Fu-Manchu?”
“And why not?” Nayland Smith challenged. “He has the brains of all of them rolled into one.”
“Must have,” Burke agreed. “You’ve been down to Fort Knox and you know that a consignment of gold in one of the vaults, still in the boxes it was shipped in, has been turned into something that looks like lead!”
“Quite so! In accordance with Fu-Manchu’s threat to Washington. Contents of the other twenty-seven vaults are still intact.”
“But the Treasury’s nearly crazy,” Harkness said quietly. “Already, the loss is enormous. If the further threat of the Si-Fan to destroy the entire reserve is made good, the financial stability of the United States will lie in the hands of those people!”
“And we can’t find out how it was done,” Burke groaned. “It sounds like a miracle. Fu-Manchu knows that such losses have to be officially denied. Otherwise we’d have a financial panic. He aims to blackmail Washington into recognising him.”
“He wants to see the Si-Fan where the Nazis and the Fascists stood — where the Soviets stand today!”
“When this conference assembles,” Burke pointed out, “even if we manage to grab the lot we shan’t know what we want to know.”
“There’s another point.” Harkness fitted a fresh cigarette into his holder. “News of it might speed up the action we want to stop. Our information clearly indicates that Fu-Manchu won’t be present, and we may have no evidence whatever against the others.”
Nayland Smith began to walk about restlessly.
“The meeting must not be disturbed. It’s the best chance we’re ever likely to have of finding out what happened to that gold in Fort Knox, and of taking steps to see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“But how?” Burke shouted.
“Surely it’s obvious. They will all be masked. I regard it as highly unlikely — a hundred to one against — that Mrs van Roorden ever suspected Orson of being a Si-Fan deputy. What could be more simple… I’ll take his place.”
* * * *
Mrs van Roorden leaned over the balcony, watching two streams of light, one north bound, the other south, which represented Fifth Avenue, below. No individual light could be picked out; just two long, luminous ribbons broken only when a red traffic signal checked their flow.
She wore the green gown which she had worn at the purser’s party on the Lauretania. This, for two reasons: the first that she despised ideas of good and bad luck, the second, that it amused her to dress to the green mask she must wear at the Si-Fan conference.
The unaccountable disappearance of Sha Mu, her Burmese bodyguard, was disturbing and ominous.
&nbs
p; But, whatever the explanation, she could do nothing at all about it — yet.
No amount of interrogation would extract anything from Sha Mu. What little he knew was negligible and he spoke no language other than the Shan dialect.
So that, whatever had happened, no clue could be picked up from it leading either to the time of to the place of the Si-Fan meeting. As to the man, Fordwich, there was no longer any room for doubt… He had been covering her since their first meeting in Java. He was a secret service agent, either of Great Britain or of the United States.
But, although she taxed her memory unmercifully she could recall not one slip she had made. All the same, it must have occurred; for he had searched her room, and had taken nothing but the letter from her father which betrayed her identity.
Where was that letter now?
Highly probable that every precinct in New York City had a description of the appearance of Dr Fu-Manchu’s daughter!
She smiled, turned, and went into the softly lighted room, redolent of old memories. Mai Cha, Who had been seated, reading, stood up as the graceful figure appeared.
“Sit down, dear. There’s no need for ceremony when we are alone.”
She addressed the girl in English, which she spoke without trace of accent.
“Thank you,” Mai Cha said simply, and obeyed.
“I have had the same training as you.” Mrs van Roorden sank onto a low settee. “The beautiful old courtesies. But we both live in a new world. Perhaps we shall never know that old world of ours again. You are to be my guide tonight?”
“Yes, my lady. Those are my orders. But I was told…”
Mai Cha hesitated.
“Yes, dear, what were you told?”
“That Sha Mu would follow, to protect us if necessary.”
“You know Sha Mu?”
“He was here a year ago.”
“He landed with me. But I am sorry to say he has disappeared!”
“That is bad,” Mai Cha murmured.
Mrs van Roorden studied her. She was very young to be a child of Huan Tsung. Her mother must have been pretty, for beauty was not a characteristic of the old mandarin.
“We must go alone. I am a stranger to New York, Mai Cha. Is it far?”
“Quite a long way. We can take the car nearly to where we are going and then we must walk.”
“I wonder if you can find me a cloak to put over my frock?”
“Certainly, my lady. I was told to do so.”
The careful staff work of Huan Tsung could be detected in this. What he had not foreseen was the loss of her credentials — so that she must convince six men, each one risking his liberty, six men who had never met her before, that she was authorised to preside over their conference…
* * * *
The car in which Nayland Smith was being driven to Kwang T’see’s house of mystery slowed up at a selected point, and Harkness got in. Although the black sedan belonged to Headquarters, there was nothing visible to indicate this fact, and the police driver wore plain clothes.
“Turn right at the lights,” Harkness directed, “and cruise along the river front slowly.”
“What news?” Nayland Smith asked.
“The meeting is at Kwang’s beyond doubt.” Harkness fitted a cigarette into his holder. “Something afoot there all right. And we have settled one point that was bothering you. Visitors aren’t going in at the store; they’re ringing a private bell beside the door on the other street. Small office belonging to the warehouse.”
“There have been visitors, then?” Smith rapped. “How many?”
Harkness nodded as he lighted his cigarette.
“Two, so far. Strangers to the area. And both carried cases.”
“Similar to Orson’s which I have here?”
“That’s it. The first man arrived on the dot of one-thirty-five. Exactly at one-forty, the second came along… Ah! Here’s a report.”
He lifted the ‘phone, listened, said “Go on reporting,” then hung up.
“Another?”
“Number three was there on the stroke of one-forty-five. I expect you follow my line of reasoning, Sir Denis?”
“Clearly. The cards are timed so that no two deputies arrive together. My card says: ‘Two a.m.’ — So I’m evidently expected to be the sixth arrival. Do they all come alone?”
“Yes. On foot.”
“H’m.”
Nayland Smith stared out across the River, through a gap in dock buildings, to where the Jersey City skyline stretched like far-flung ramparts of some giant castle. A launch of the Harbour Patrol went by, its crew ignorant of the fact that a conspiracy to upset the stability of the United States was brewing close on shore.
“I don’t like this business,” Harkness remarked in his gentle way. “It’s believed, but has never been proved, that the cellars under both those places intercommunicate, in fact form a perfect warren in the time-honoured Chinese style.”
“What of it? You may remember that I know something about Huian Tsung’s cellars, anyway. Been down there before. Point is, if anything goes wrong, you know I’m there and you know where to look for me.”
“Yes. But I feel this should be my job, not yours.”
“The hell you do!” rapped Nayland Smith, his eyes suddenly steely. “Don’t misunderstand me, Harkness. I quite follow and I appreciate. But now that poor Orson is gone, there’s probably no man outside the Si-Fan who knows more about the organisation than I do. No. Definitely it’s my job.”
Harkness sighed.
“You have memorised the notes pencilled on Orson’s report?”
“I have. But I don’t know what some of them mean. I wonder if he had a premonition of what was to happen? Or were they intended to refresh his own memory?”
The notes referred to had been scribbled on the back of one of the typed pages hidden in Orson’s hollow stick. They were:
Ring seven times
Si-Fan. The Seven
Give up card
Mask. Gown
Seven rings. Sixth bell
“The first one’s clear enough,” Harkness said. “You ring the doorbell seven times. The others are incomprehensible. I can only hope that their meaning will come to you when you get inside. But if anything goes wrong, you know what to do?”
“Certainly. But I should hate to disturb the party before it had properly begun.”
The arrival of a fourth man at Kwang’s door had been reported:
“Time we were moving,” Smith said, rapidly, and glanced at the illuminated dial of his wrist-watch. “Better put the glasses on!”
At a word from Harkness, the sedan shot forward at sudden speed, swerved swiftly left and swept almost noiselessly into a dark street. At this hour of the night on the outskirts of the Asiatic quarter, windows were blackened, there were few people on the sidewalk. These mean houses might have been uninhabited.
Even the show places on Mott and Pell Street would be closing. Only one prepared to explore deep in secret burrows could hope to penetrate to the shady side of Eastern life in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
The big car came to a sudden halt.
“You can’t miss the door,” Harkness said. “Remember — I’m standing by!”
Nayland Smith, wearing no disguise other than heavy-rimmed glasses (with plain lenses), got out. He carried Selwyn Orson’s small leather case. They had driven past the establishment of Kwang T’see an hour before, and it was impossible for him to make any mistake.
As he walked slowly along, he paid an unspoken compliment to the police arrangements, whereby several men had been placed, earlier, so that they commanded a view of Kwang T’see’s office door. The store on the next street was also under close observation.
He had the whole of the New York Police Department behind him… and the unknown before…
* * * *
“We must walk from here, my lady.”
Mrs van Roorden alighted from the car. Her green gown was hidden by a dark rainproof coat,
the hood pulled over her head. A satchel hung from a strap across her shoulder. Mai Cha, hatless, and wearing a cheap frock in place of her native dress, had stepped out first and held the car door open. The chauffeur sat, silent, at the wheel.
There was garbage piled on the dirty sidewalk. The dingy houses looked as though they had been deserted in a plague. Two or three dilapidated automobiles were parked along the street.
“This is a dreadful neighbourhood, Mai Cha.”
“Yes. It is bad. I worked near here for a long time. But further up it is better.”
“Which way do we go?”
“To the corner. Then around, half way along the block.”
“The car will wait?”
“Of course, my lady.”
The warmth of the night had grown sultry. Clouds gathered, to add to the gloom of the depressing street. They had nearly reached the corner when Mrs van Roorden heard the sound of a started engine. She stopped, turned.
“You told me the chauffeur would wait!”
“He will wait, my lady.” Mai Cha’s placid voice remained soft, soothing. “I shall know where to find him.”
They came to the corner, and Mrs van Roorden stood back against a wall decorated with a Chinese poster. A heavily built man, a half-caste of some sort, picturesquely drunk, had almost bumped into her. He pulled up, stared at her, stared at Mai Cha, and staggered on.
“Let’s hurry!”
Mrs van Roorden was coolly composed, but delicately disgusted. Her composure might have faltered if she had known that the drunken half-caste was one of Raymond Harkness’ men. That he had returned to the corner to watch them and that, two minutes later, he would report: “The woman has gone in.”
They hurried along to a door set beside double, barred gates.
“Here is the bell, my lady. I shall be waiting for you to come out.”
* * * *
Nayland Smith five minutes before, had pressed the same bell — seven times.
An interval followed, during which nothing happened. Then, there was a faint clicking sound. Realising that it operated mechanically, Smith pushed the door — and found himself in a complete blackout, stuffy, airless. The door closed behind him.
He stood still for a moment, trying to get his bearings in the dark. But he could see nothing, hear nothing. He wondered what he should do next, thought of Orson’s notes — and had an idea.
