by Sax Rohmer
“Surely you will take steps to have them arrested at Folkestone?”
“Not at all.”
“Why?”
He smiled, paused.
“Do you recall Fu Manchu’s words on striking at the heart, the brain? Very well. The heart is the Council of Seven—the brain is Doctor Fu Manchu. It is at the brain I mean to strike, therefore we are leaving for Venice immediately.”
He had pressed the bell and now the door opened and Fey came in.
“Advise Wing Commander Roxburgh that I shall want the plane to leave for Venice in an hour. He is to notify Paris and Rome and to arrange for a night landing.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Stand by with the car.”
Fey went out.
“You are sure, Kerrigan, you are sure”—Nayland Smith spoke excitedly—”that you were not recognized?”
“Sure as it is possible to be. Ardatha was reading. I am practically certain that she could not have seen me. The other woman doesn’t know me.”
Nayland Smith laughed aloud and then stared in an amused way.
“You have much to learn yet,” he said,”about Doctor Fu Manchu.”
Venice
Of those peculiar powers possessed by Nayland Smith, I mean the facilities with which he was accredited, I had a glimpse on this journey. And if confirmation had been needed of the gravity of the menace represented by Dr Fu Manchu and the Council of Seven, I should have recognized from the way in which his lightest wishes were respected that this was a very grave menace indeed.
We had travelled by a Royal Air Force plane which had performed the journey in little more than half the time of the commercial service!
As we entered the sitting room allotted to us in the Venice hotel, we found Colonel Correnti, chief of police, waiting.
Smith, dismissing an obsequious manager with a smile and wave of the hand, turned to the police officer.
He presented me.
“You may speak with complete confidence in Mr. Kerrigan’s presence. Has Rudolf Adion arrived?”
“Yes.”
Smith dropped into an armchair. He had not yet removed hat or Burberry, and groping in a pocket of the latter he produced that dilapidated pouch in which normally he carried about half a pound of tobacco. He began to load his pipe.
“This is a great responsibility for you?”
“A dreadful responsibility!” the colonel nodded gloomily. “The greater because Signer Monaghani is expected on Tuesday morning.”
“Also incognito?”
“Alas, yes! It is these visits of which so few are aware which make my life a misery. Our task is far heavier than that of Geneva. Venice is the favourite rendezvous of some of the greatest figures in European politics. Always they come incognito, but not always for political reason! Why should Venice be selected? Why should this dreadful onus be placed upon me?”
His Latin indignation was profound.
“Where is the chancellor staying?”
“At the Palazzo da Rosa, as guest of the baron. He has stayed there before. They are old friends.”
“Are there any other of Herr Adion’s friends in Venice at present?”
“But yes! James Brownlow Wilton is here. He leases the Palazzo Brioni on the Grand Canal, at no great distance from this hotel. His yacht Silver Heels is in the lagoon.”
“Will he be entertaining Herr Adion?”
“I believe there is to be a small private luncheon party, either at the Palazzo or on board the yacht.”
Nayland Smith crushed tobacco into the big cracked bowl of his pipe. Only once he glanced at me. But I knew what he had in mind and thrilled with anticipation, then:
“You have arranged to have agents on board. Colonel?”
“Certainly. This was my duty.”
“I appreciate that. No doubt you can arrange for Mr. Kerrigan and myself to be present?”
For a moment Colonel Correnti was taken aback. He looked from face to face in astonishment.
“Of course.” He endeavored to speak easily. “It could be arranged.”
Nayland Smith stood up and smiled.
“Let it be arranged,” he said. “I have an appointment to meet Sir George Herbert who is accompanying me to see Herr Adion. I shall be free in an hour. If you will be good enough to return then we can make all necessary plans . . .”
During the next hour I was left to my own devices. That Dr Fu Manchu, if not there in person certainly had agents in Venice, had made me so intensely nervous that I only let Nayland Smith leave the hotel when I realized that a bodyguard in the form of two plain-clothes police accompanied him.
I tried to distract myself by strolling about those unique streets.
This was comparatively new territory. I had been there but once before and only for a few hours. Night had long fallen touching Venice with its magic. Lights glittered on the Grand Canal, shone from windows in those age-old palaces, and a quarter moon completed the picture.
Somewhere, I thought, as I peered into the faces of passers-by, Ardatha might be near to me. Smith was of opinion that they would have flown from Paris, avoiding Croydon as at Croydon they were likely to be recognized. Assuming a fast plane to have been awaiting them, they were probably in Venice now.
Automatically, it seemed, and in common with everyone else, I presently drifted towards St. Mark’s. Despite the late hour it seemed that all Venice took the air. Had my mind been not a boiling cauldron but normally at peace I must have enjoyed the restfulness of my surroundings.
But feverishly I was thinking,”Ardatha is here! At any moment she may become involved in a world tragedy from which I shall be helpless to extricate her.”
One who, whatever his faults, however right or wrong his policy, was yet the idol of a great country, stood in peril of sudden death. Perhaps only one man could save him—Nayland Smith! And upon that man’s head, also, a price had been set by the dreadful Chinese doctor.
I found it impossible to relax. I recalled Smith’s words:
“Do as you please, Kerrigan, but for heaven’s sake don’t show yourself.”
It was impossible, this walking in shadow, distrusting the moonlight, avoiding all places where people congregated, and slinking about like a criminal who feared arrest. I went back to the hotel.
The lounge appeared to be deserted, but I glanced sharply about me before crossing it, making my way to the suite reserved for Smith and myself.
I found the sitting room in darkness, but an odor of tobacco smoke brought me up sharply as I was about to cross the threshold.
“Hello!” I called,”is anyone there?”
“I am here,” came Smith’s voice out of the darkness.
He stood up and switched on the light, and I saw that his pipe was between his teeth. Even before he spoke his grim expression told me all there was to know.
“Have you seen him?”
He nodded.
“What was his attitude?”
“His attitude, you will be able to judge for yourself when you see him on Silver Heels tomorrow. He has gone so far, has risen so high, that I fear he believes himself to be immortal!”
“Megalomania?”
“Hardly that perhaps, but he sets himself above counsel. He admitted reluctantly that he had received the Si-Fan notices—two at least. He merely shrugged his shoulders when I suggested that a third had come to hand.”
He was walking up and down the room now tugging at the lobe of his left ear.
“If Adion is to be saved, he must be saved against himself. If I had the power, Kerrigan, I would kidnap him and transport him from Venice tonight!”
“I count upon you. Colonel,” said Nayland Smith as the chief of police rose to go. “My friend and I will be present on Silver Heels tomorrow. I must have an opportunity of inspecting Mr. Brownlow Wilton’s guests and of seeing in which of them Rudolf Adion is interested.”
When we were alone:
“Have the police obtained any clue?” I as
ked.
Smith shook his head irritably.
“Very rarely indeed does the doctor leave clues. And this is a major move in his game. I don’t know if Monaghani is marked down, but Adion admits that he is. We have yet to see if Monaghani arrives. But for tonight, I suppose my work is done. Have you any plans?”
“No.”
“I wish I could find Ardatha for you,” he said softly, and went out. “Good night.”
As the door closed and I heard him walking along to his room I dropped down on to a settee and lighted a cigarette. How I wished that J could find her! I had never supposed love to come in this fashion. Quite easily I could count the minutes—had often done so—that I had been in Ardatha’s company. Collectively they amounted to less than an hour. Yet of all the women I had known, she was the one to whom my thoughts persistently turned.
I tried to tell myself that this was an obsession born of the mys tery in which I had met her—an infatuation which would pass—but always the effort failed. No, she haunted me. I knew every expression of her piquant face, every intonation of her voice; I heard her talking to me a thousand times during the day—I dreamed of her, I suspected, throughout the night.
That Nayland Smith was tired I could not doubt, I was tired myself. Yet, although it was long past midnight, any idea of sleep I knew to be out of the question. Outside, divided from the window only by a narrow quay, the Grand Canal lapped its ancient walls. Occasionally, anomalous motorboats passed; at other times I heard the drip of an oar as some ghostly gondola crept upon its way. Once the creaking of a boat, as a belated guest returned to the hotel, reminded me—terrifyingly—of the cellars under the Monks’ Arms where I had so nearly come to an end.
I rang for a waiter and ordered a drink to be brought to my room;
then, extinguishing the lights of the sitting room, I went along the corridor intending to turn in.
However, when my drink arrived and I had lighted another cigarette, I was overcome with recklessness. Crossing to the window I threw open the shutters and looked down upon the oily glittering waters of the canal.
Venice! The picture city, painted in blood and passion. In some way it seemed fitting that Fu Manchu should descend upon Venice;
fitting, too, that Ardatha should be there. The moon had disappeared; mysterious lights danced far away upon the water, beckoning me back to the days of the doges.
From my window I looked down upon a shadowy courtyard, a corner of the platform upon which the hotel (itself an old palace) was built. It could be approached from the steps which led up to the main door, but so far as I could make out in the darkness it formed a sort of cul-de-sac. My window ledge was no more than four feet from the stone paving.
And now, in the shadows, I detected someone moving . . .
I drew back. My hand flew to a pocket in which, always, since I had met Dr Fu Manchu, an automatic rested. Then a voice spoke—a soft voice:
“Please help me up. I must talk to you.”
It was Ardatha!
Ardatha
She sat in a deep, cushioned divan, a Renaissance reproduction, watching me with a half smile.
“You look frightened,” she said. “Do I frighten you?” “No, Ardatha, it isn’t that you frighten me, although I admit your appearance was somewhat of a shock.”
She wore a simple frock and a coat having a fur-trimmed collar, which I recognized as that which I had seen in the car near Hyde Park corner. She had a scarf tied over her hair, and I thought that her eyes were mocking me.
“I am mad to have done this,” she went on,”and now I am wondering—”
I tried to conquer a thumping heart, to speak normally. “You are wondering if I am worth it,” I suggested, and forced myself to move in her direction.
Frankly, I was terrified as I never could have believed myself to be terrified of a woman. My own wild longing had awakened some sort of response in Ardatha! I had called to her and she had come! But as the lover of a girl so complex and mysterious I had little faith in Bart Kerrigan.
Tonight it was my part to claim her—or to lose her forever. Her eyes as well as her words told me that the choice was mine.
I offered her a cigarette and lighted it, then sat down beside her. My impulse was to grab her—hold her—never let her go again. But I took a firm grip upon these primitive urges, and then:
“I saw you at Victoria,” she said.
“What! How could you have seen me?”
“I have eyes and I can see with them.”
She lay back among the cushions, and turning, smiled up at me.
“I had no idea you had seen me.”
“That is why I am here tonight.” Suddenly, seriously: “You must go back! I tell you, you must go back. I came here tonight to tell you this.”
“Is that all you came for, Ardatha?”
“Yes. Do not suppose it means what you are thinking. I like you very much, but do not make the mistake of believing that I love easily”
She spoke with a quiet imperiousness of manner which checked me. My emotions pulled me in various directions. In the first place, this beautiful girl of the amethyst eyes, who, whatever she did, whatever she said, allured, maddened me, was a criminal. In the second place, unless the glance of those eyes be wildly misleading, she wanted me to make love to her. But in the third place, although she said her nocturnal visit had been prompted by friendship, what was her real motive? I clasped my knees tightly and stared aside at her.
“I am glad you are a man who thinks,” she said softly,”for between us there is much to think about.”
“There is only one thing I am thinking about—that I want you. You are never out of my mind. Day and night I am unhappy because I know you are involved in a conspiracy of horror and murder in which you, the real you, have no part. If I thought lightly of you and merely desired you, then as you say I should not have thought. I should have my arms around you now, kissing you, as I want to kiss you. But you see, Ardatha, you mean a lot more than that. Although I know so little about you, yet—”
“Ssh!”
Swiftly she grasped my arm—-and I seized her hand and held it. But the warning had been urgent, and I listened.
We both sat silent for a while. My gaze was set upon a strange ring which she wore. The clasp of her fingers gave me a thrill which passionate kisses of another woman could never have aroused.
Somewhere out there in the shadows I had detected the sound of a dull thud—of soft footsteps.
Releasing Ardatha’s hand, I would have sprung up, but:
“Don’t look out!” she whispered. “No! No! Don’t look out!”
I hesitated. She held me tightly.
“Why?”
“Because it is just possible—I may have been followed. Please, don’t look out!”
I heard the sound of a distant voice out over the canal; splashing of water . . . nothing more. I turned to Ardatha. There was no need for words.
She slipped almost imperceptibly into my arms, and raised her lips . . .
Nayland Smith’s Room
For a long time after Ardatha had gone—I don’t know how long a time—I knelt there by my open window staring out over the canal. She had trusted herself to me. How could I detain her—how could I regard her as a criminal? Indeed I wondered if ever I should be able so to regard her again.
The fear now burning in my brain was fear solely for her safety.
Always I had found it painful to imagine her in association with the remorseless murder group controlled by Dr Fu Manchu, but now that idea was agony. I dared not imagine what would happen if her visit to me should be discovered, if the double part which she played came to the knowledge of the Chinese doctor . . . and I could not forget that queer sound down by the waterside, those soft footsteps.
Ardatha suspected that she might have been followed. Perhaps her suspicions were well founded!
I stared out intently into misty darkness. I listened but could hear nothing save the lapping of w
ater. From where had she come—to where had she gone? I knew little more about her than I had ever known, except that she was anxious to save me from some dreadful fate which obviously she believed to be pending.
One thing I had learned: Ardatha was of mixed Oriental and European blood. On her father’s side she descended from generations of Eastern rulers; petty chieftains from a Western standpoint, but potentates in their own land. Her murderous hatred of dictatorships was understandable. Practically the whole of her family had been wiped out by General Quinto’s airmen . . .
Silence!—and in the silence another idea was bom. The watcher in the night perhaps had a double purpose. Satisfied that I was fully preoccupied, he might have given some signal which meant that Nayland Smith was alone!
Most ghastly idea of all—this may have been the real purpose ofArdatha’s visit!
I tried in retrospect to analyse every expression in the amethyst eyes; and I found it hard, in fact impossible, to believe treachery to be hidden there. I thought of her parting kiss. My heart even now beat faster when I recalled it. Surely it could not have been a Judas kiss?
No sound could I detect anywhere about me. The Grand Canal was deserted, the moon partly veiled; but my thoughts had me restlessly uneasy. I must make sure that Nayland Smith was safe.
Quietly opening my door I walked along and switched up the light in the sitting room.
It presented exactly the same appearance as when I had left it. I moved on to Smith’s closed door. I listened intently but could hear nothing. However, he was a deep, silent sleeper, and I was not satisfied. Very gently I moved the handle. The door was unlocked. Inch by inch I opened it, until at last, having made hardly any sound, I could creep in.
The room was in darkness, save for a dim reflection through the slats of the shutters. Yet I was afraid to switch on the light, for I had no wish to disturb him. I crept slowly forward in the direction of the bed, and my eyes growing accustomed to the semidarkness, by the time that I reached it a startling fact had become evident:
The bed was empty! It had never been slept in!
