by Sax Rohmer
Conversation ceased, and unavoidably I dropped back into that valley of sorrowful reflection from which this verbal duel between Sir Denis and the French official had temporarily dragged me.
Fleurette was Petrie’s daughter!
This was the amazing fact outstanding above the mist and discord which ruled my brain. It might be that they were together; but, once Petrie should have fully recovered from his dangerous illness, I did not doubt that he would be forced to accept that Blessing of the Celestial Vision from which I had so narrowly escaped; and then...
If my influence had “not tarnished the mirror,” in Dr. Fu Manchu’s words—a ghastly union of unknown age and budding youth would be consummated!
I could not face the idea. I found myself clenching my fists and grinding my teeth.
At which moment, the connection with Paris was made; M. Chamrousse stood up, bowed courteously, and handed the receiver to Sir Denis.
The latter—in voluble but very bad French—proceeded to tread heavily on the toes of the Paris official at the other end of the line. I had learned that he, in moments of stress, was prone to exhibit a truculence, an indifference to the feelings of others which underlay and may have been the driving power behind that brusque but never uncourteous manner which characterised him normally.
He was demanding to speak to the Minister in person and refusing to be put off.
“At home and asleep? Be so good as to put me through to his private number at once!”
M. Chamrousse had taken his stand on the carpet upon which Nayland Smith so recently had paced up and down; listening to the conversation, he merely shrugged, took out a cigarette, and lighted it with meticulous care.
However, it must be recorded to the credit of Sir Denis that his intolerant language—which was sometimes frankly rude—achieved its objective.
He was put through to the sleeping Minister....
No doubt there is much to be said for direct methods in sweeping aside ill-informed opposition. In the Middle West of America, my father’s home, I had learned to respect the direct attack as opposed to those circumlocutory manouevres so generally popular in European society.
To the unconcealed surprise ofM. Chamrousse, Sir Denis’s demands were instantly conceded!
I gathered that authoritative orders would be transmitted immediately to the commander of the destroyer lying in the harbour at Monaco; that every other available unit in the fleet would be despatched in quest of the submarine. In short, it became evident during this brief conversation that Sir Denis wielded an authority greater than even I had suspected.
When presently he replaced the receiver and sprang to his feet, the effect upon M. Chamrousse was notable.
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith,” he said, “I congratulate you— but you fully realise that in this matter I was indeed helpless!”
Sir Denis shook his hand.
“Please say no more! Of course I understand. But if you would accept my advice, it would be this: proceed personally to Ste Claire, and when you have realised the difficulties of the situation there, you will be in a position to deal with it.”
Some more conversation there was, the gist of which I have forgotten, and then we were out in the car again and speeding along those tortuous roads headed for Monaco.
“Much time has been wasted,” rapped Nayland Smith;
“only luck can help us now. Failing a message from some ship which has sighted the yacht Lola, it’s impossible to lay a course. Probably the Lola has a turn of speed which will tax the warship in any event. But lacking knowledge of her position, we can’t even start.
“I don’t doubt she will have been sighted. There’s a lot of shipping in those waters.”
“Yes, but the bulk of it is small craft, and many of them carry no radio. However, we are doing all that lies in our power to do.”
chapter forty-fifth
ON THE DESTROYER
from the bridge of the destroyer I looked over a blue and sail-less sea. The speed of the little warship was exhilarating, and I could see from the attitude other commander beside me that this break in peace-time routine was welcome rather than irksome.
I glanced towards the port wing of the bridge where Nayland Smith was staring ahead through raised glasses.
Somewhere astern of where I stood, somewhere in the slender hull, full out and quivering on this unexpected mission, I knew there were police officers armed with a warrant issued by the Boulevard du Palais for the arrest of Dr. Fu Manchu.
And as the wine of the morning began to stir my blood, hope awakened. The history of Fleurette lay open before me like a book. And all that had seemed incomprehensible in her character and her behaviour, lover-like, now I translated and understood. She had been cultivated as those plants in the forcing houses had been cultivated.
The imprint of Dr. Fu Manchu was upon her.
Yet through it all the real Fleurette had survived, defying the alchemy of the super-scientist: she was still Petrie’s daughter, beautiful, lovable, and mine, if I could find her....
I set doubt aside. Definitely, we should overtake the South American yacht. News had- come from a cruising liner ten minutes before we had reached Monaco Harbour: the Lola, laid on a southerly course, was less than twenty miles ahead.
But, since the Lola also must have picked up the message, we realised that the course of the motor yacht would in all probability have been changed. Nevertheless, ultimate escape was next to impossible.
Yet again that damnable thought intruded: the Lola might prove to be a will o’ the wisp; Fu Manchu, Fleurette, and Petrie not on board!
It appeared to me that the only thing supporting Nayland Smith’s theory and his amazing reaction to it was the fact that the Lola had not answered those messages sent out by the French authority.
At which moment Sir Denis dropped the glasses into their case and turned.
“Nothing!” he said grimly.
“It is true,” the commander replied; “but they have a good start.”
A man ran up to the bridge with a radio message. The commander scanned it.
“They are clever,” he reported. “But all the same they have been sighted again! They are still on their original course.”
“Who sends the report?” asked Nayland Smith.
“An American freighter.”
“The air arm is strangely silent.”
“We must be patient. Only two planes have been dispatched; they are looking also for a submarine—and there are many miles of sea to search.”
He took up the glasses. Nayland Smith, hands thrust in his pockets, stared straight ahead.
The destroyer leaped and quivered under the lash of her merciless engines, a living, feverish thing. And this reflection crossed my mind: that the Chinese doctor, wherever he might be at that moment, was indeed a superman; for he is no ordinary criminal against whom warships are sent out....
Another message was brought to the bridge; this one from a flying officer. The Lola was laid-to, less than five miles off and nearly dead on our course!
“What does this mean?” rapped Nayland Smith. “I don’t like it a bit.”
I was staring ahead, straining my eyes to pierce the distance....And now, a speck on the skyline, I saw an airplane flying towards me.
“Coming back to pilot us,” said the commander; “they know the game is up!”
A further message arrived. The Lola was putting a launch off at the time that the airman had headed back to find us. No submarine had been sighted.
“By heavens!” cried Nayland Smith, “I was right. His under-water craft is waiting for him in the event of just such an emergency as this! Instruct the plane to hurry back!”
The order was despatched....
I saw the pilot bank, go about, and set off again on a course slightly westward of our own.
The commander spoke a few more orders rapidly, and we crept into line behind the swiftly disappearing airman. We must have been making thirty-five knots or m
ore, for it was only a matter of minutes before I saw the yacht—dead ahead.
“The launch is putting back!” said Nayland Smith. “Look!”
The little craft was just swinging around the stem of the yacht! And now we were so near that I could see the lines of the Lola, a beautiful white-and-silver ship, with a low. graceful hull and one squat yellow funnel with a silver band.
“By heavens!” I shouted, “we’re in time!”
The naval air pilot was circling now above the yacht. That submarine was somewhere in the neighbourhood it seemed reasonable to suppose, unless it had been the purpose of the launch’s crew to head back for shore: a possibility. But no indication of an under-water craft disturbed the blue mirror of the Mediterranean.
The commander of the destroyer rang off his engines.
chapter forty-sixth
WE
BOARD THE “LOLA”
we watched the launch return to the ladder of the yacht and saw her crew mount. The launch was already creeping up to her davits when the boat from the destroyer reached the ladder.
A lieutenant led with an armed party, Nayland Smith followed, then came the French police; and I brought up the rear.
A smart-looking officer—Portuguese, I thought—took the lieutenant’s salute as he stepped on deck. Never, I think, in the experiences which had come to me since I had found myself within the zone of the Chinese doctor, had I been conscious of quite that sense of pent-up, overpowering emotion which claimed me at this moment.
Fleurette! Petrie! Were they here?
The sea looked like a vast panel which some Titan craftsman had covered with blue enamel, and the French warship might have been a gaunt grey insect trapped inside the pigment.
“Sir Denis,” I said suddenly, in a low voice—”If the submarine is really in our neighbourhood—”
“I had thought of it,” he rapped. “It was impossible to identify the man in the stem of the launch. But unless it was Dr. Fu Manchu, in which event he’s on board here, our safety is questionable!”
“Take us to the captain,” said the lieutenant sharply.
The yacht’s officer saluted and led the way.
Armed men were left on duty at the ladder-head and at the foot of the stair leading up to the bridge. The bridge proved to be deserted. Two men were posted there, and we followed on into the chart house.
This was small but perfectly equipped, and it had only one occupant: a tall man wearing an astrakhan cap and a fur-trimmed overcoat. His arms folded, he stood there facing us as we entered...
Emotion almost choked me; triumph, with which even yet a dreadful doubt mingled. Nayland Smith’s jaw squared as he stood beside me staring across the room.
No greetings were exchanged.
“Who commands this yacht?” the lieutenant demanded.
And in that cold guttural voice, so rarely touched by any trace of human feeling:
“I do,” Dr. Fu Manchu replied.
“You failed to answer an official call sent out to all shipping in these waters.”
“I did.”
“You are accused of harbouring persons wanted by the police, and I have the authority to search this vessel.”
Dr. Fu Manchu stood quite still; his immobility was mummy-like.
Nayland Smith stepped aside to make way for the senior police officer from Nice. As the man entered, Sir Denis merely pointed to that tall, dignified figure. The detective stepped forward.
“Is your name Dr. Fu Manchu?”
“It is.”
“I hold a warrant for your arrest. You must consider yourself my prisoner.”
chapter forty-seventh
DR.PETRIE
“come in,” said a low voice.
Sir Denis stood stock still for one age-long moment, his hand resting on the door knob. Then he pulled open the white cabin door.
In a bed under an open porthole Petrie lay! His eyes, darkly shadowed, were fixed upon us. But his expression as Nayland Smith sprang forward was one I shall never forget.
“Petrie! Petrie, old man!...Thank God for this!”
Sir Denis’s face I could not see—for he stood with his back to me, grasping Petrie’s upstretched hand. But I could see Petrie; and knew that he was so overwhelmed by emotion as to be incapable of words. Sir Denis’s silence told the same story.
But when at last that long, silent handgrasp was relaxed:
“Sterling!” said the invalid, smiling—”you have done more than merely to save my life. You have brought back a happiness I thought I had lost forever. Smith, old man—” he looked up at Sir Denis—”get a radio off to Kara in Cairo at the earliest possible moment! But break the news gently. She will be mad with joy!”
He looked at me again.
“I understand, Sterling, that what you have found you want to keep?”
At that Nayland Smith turned.
“I trust your financial resources are adequate to the task, Sterling?” he rapped, but with a smile on his tired face—and it was a smile of happiness.
“Does she know?” I asked, and my voice was far from steady.
Petrie nodded.
“Go and find her,” he said. “She will be glad to see you.”
I went out, leaving those lifelong friends together. I returned to the deck.
What must there not be that Petrie had to tell Sir Denis and he to tell Petrie? It was, I suppose, one of the most remarkable reunions in history. For Petrie had died and had been buried, and was restored again to life. And Sir Denis had crowned his remarkable career with the greatest accomplishment in criminal records—the arrest of Dr. Fu Manchu....
The attitude of the members of the crew of the Lola strongly suggested that the vessel was used for none but legitimate purposes. One by one they were being submitted to a close interrogation by the French detective and his assistant in a forward cabin.
I had heard the evidence of the chief navigating officer and of the second officer. The vessel belonged to Santos da Cunha, an Argentine millionaire, but he frequently placed it at the disposal of his friends, of whom Dr. Fu Manchu (known to them as the Marquis Chuan) was one. It was the Marquis’s custom sometimes to take charge, and he, according to these witnesses was a qualified master mariner and a fine seaman!
His personal servants, of whom there were four, had come on board at Monaco; from this dehumanised quartette I anticipated that little would be learned. The ship’s officers and crew denied all knowledge of a submarine. When the engines had been stopped by Dr. Fu Manchu and the launch ordered away, they had obeyed without knowing for what purpose those orders had been given.
Personally, I had no doubt that the under-water craft lay somewhere near, but that the doctor had decided to sacrifice himself alone rather than to order the submarine to surface when the coming of the French airman had warned him that his movements were covered.
Why?
Doubtless because he had recognized his own escape to be impossible....
I reached the cabin in which I knew Fleurette to be, rapped, opened the door, and went in.
She was standing just inside—and I knew that she had been waiting for me....
I forgot what happened immediately afterwards; I lived in another world....
When, at last, and reluctantly, I came to earth again, the first idea which I properly grasped was that of Fleurette’s almost insupportable happiness because she had learned that she really possessed a father—and had met him!
Her eagerness to meet her mother resembled a physical hunger.
It was not easy to see these strange events through her eyes. But, listening to her, watching her fascinatedly, tears on her dark lashes as she sometimes clutched me, nervously, excitedly, it dawned upon me that there is probably a great void in the life of one who has never known father or mother.
Her happiness was clouded by the knowledge that she had gained it at the price of the downfall of Dr. Fu Manchu. I tried to divert the tide of her thoughts, but it was useless.
<
br /> She, and she alone, was responsible....
It was clear to me that Petrie—sensing that exulted estimate which Fleurette had made of the character of the incalculable Chinaman—had done nothing to disturb her ideals.
How long we were there alone I don’t know; but at last:
“Really, darling,” said Fleurette, “you must go back. I am not going to move. I dare not face——”
I tore myself away; I returned to Petrie’s cabin.
Nayland Smith was there. The two were deep in conversation: they ceased speaking as I entered.
“I have solved a mystery for you,” Sir Denis began, looking up at me. “You recall, when Petrie lay in the grip of the purple plague and Fah Lo Suee was there, the voice which warned you to beware of her?”
“Yes.”
“I was the speaker. Sterling!” said Petrie.
Save for the queer blanching of his hair, he seemed to me now to be restored to something almost resembling his former self. Happiness is the medicine of the gods. He had met a beautiful girl, in whom, as in a mirror, he had seen his wife;
had known that this was the daughter snatched from them in babyhood. Then, within a few hours, he had been rescued from a living death to find Nayland Smith at his bedside.
“I suspected it; but at the time I found it hard to believe.”
“Naturally!” Sir Dennis was the speaker. “But I have just learned a remarkable and at the same time a ghastly thing, Sterling. Victims of the catalepsy induced by Dr. Fu Manchu remain conscious.”
“What!”
“It is difficult to make you understand,” Petrie broke in, “what I passed through. Evidently my preparation ‘654’ is fairly efficacious. If you had known what to do next, I should have survived all right. I was insensible, but the injection of Dr. Fu Manchu’s virus to induce catalepsy restored me to consciousness!
“How long after it had been administered, I don’t know. Incidentally, that hell-cat made the injection in my thigh, under the sheet, while she sat beside the bed. Oh! you’re not to blame, Sterling.”
“She inherits her father’s genius,” Sir Denis murmured. “As I saw her last,” I said savagely, “she was suffering for it.”
