by Sax Rohmer
“Nothing!” I groaned!
“In regard to protecting this minister, nothing, I fear. But the other matter—yes! This woman whom you describe is known to be an accomplice of these people who seek the life of Rudolf Adion?”
“She is.”
“Then we shall set out to find her, Mr. Kerrigan! I shall be ready in five minutes.”
Complete darkness had come when we reached the canal in which I had passed the dictator, but the light of a quarter moon painted Venice with silver. I travelled now in one of those sinister-looking black boats to which my attention had been drawn earlier.
“There is the balcony,” I said, “directly over us.”
Colonel Correnti looked up and then stared at me quite blankly.
“I find it very difficult to believe, Mr. Kerrigan,” he said. “Do not misunderstand me—I am not doubting your word. I am only doubting if you have selected the right balcony.”
“There is no doubt about it,” I said irritably.
“Then the matter is certainly very strange.”
He glanced at the two plain-clothes police officers who accompanied us. I had met them before, one, Stocco, was he who spoke good English.
“Why?”
“Because this is the back of the old Palazzo Mori. It is the property of the Mori family, but as you see it is in a state of dilapidation. It has not been occupied, I assure you, for many, many years. I know for a fact that it is unfurnished.”
“This does not interest me,” I replied, now getting angry. “What I have stated is fact. Great issues are at stake, and I suggest that we obtain a key and search this place.”
He turned with a despairing gesture to his subordinates.
“Where are the keys of the Palazzo Mori?”
There was a consultation, in which the man who drove the motor launch took part.
“The Mori family, alas, is ruined,” said Correnti, “and its remaining members are spread all over the world. I do not know where. The keys of the palazzo are with the lawyer Borgese, and it would be difficult, I fear, to find him tonight.”
“Also a waste of time,” I replied, for I knew what Nayland Smith would have done in the circumstances. “From the balustrade of the steps there to that lower iron balcony is an easy matter for an active man. We are all active men, I take it? Even from here one can see that the latchet of the window is broken. Here is our way in. Why do we hesitate?”
The chief of police seemed to have doubts, but recognizing, I suppose, what a terrible responsibility rested upon his shoulders, finally, although reluctantly, he consented.
The police boat was drawn up beside the steps, and I, first in my eagerness, clambered on to the roof of the cabin, from there sprang to the decaying stonework of the balustrade and climbed to the top. Balancing somewhat hazardously and reaching up, I found that I could just grasp the ornamental ironwork which I had pointed out.
“Give me a lift,” I directed Stocco, who stood beside me.
He did so. The boat rocked, but he succeeded in lifting me high enough to enable me to release my left hand and to grasp the upper railing. The rest was easy.
Colonel Correnti, as Stocco in turn was hoisted up beside me, cried out some order.
“We are to go,” said the detective, “down to the main door, open it if possible and admit the chief.”
I put my shoulder to the broken lattice, and it burst open immediately. Out of silvery moonlight I stepped into complete darkness. My companion produced a flashlamp.
I found myself in a room which at some time had been a bedroom. It was quite denuded of furniture, but here and there remained fragments of mouldy tapestry. And on the once-polished floor I detected marks to show where an old-fashioned four-poster bed had rested.
“Let us hope the doors are not locked,” said Stocco.
However, this one at least was not.
“Upstairs first!” I said eagerly, as we stepped out on to the landing.
Looking over a heavily carved handrail, in the light of the flash-lamp directed downwards I saw the sweep of a marble staircase lost in Gothic gloom. A great shadowy hall lay below, with ghostly pillars amid which our slightest movement echoed eerily. There was a damp musty smell in the place which I found unpleasantly tomb-like. But we paused here for scarcely a moment. We went hurrying upstairs, our footsteps rattling uncannily upon marble steps. Here for a moment we hesitated on a higher landing, flashing the light of the lamp about.
“This is the room,” I said, and indicated a closed door.
Stocco tried the handle; the door opened. Right ahead of me across the room beyond I saw a half-opened lattice. A moment later I was on the balcony from which the mysterious woman had dropped a rose to Rudolf Adion.
“This is where she stood!”
The detective shone a light all about us. The room was choicely paneled in some light wood and possessed what had once been a painted ceiling, now no more than a series of damp blotches where minute fungus grew.
“Shine the light down here,” I ordered excitedly. On the heavy dust of a parquet floor were slight but unmistakable marks of high-heeled shoes!
“God’s mercy, you were right!” Stocco exclaimed. Yes, I was right. This house was a tomb. Rudolph Adion had made an appointment with a creature of another world, a zombie, a human corpse brought to life! And here indeed was a fitting abode for such a creature!
No doubt the place was partly responsible, but as I stood there staring at my companion, and remembered how Nayland Smith had been smuggled out of life by the master magician called Dr Fu Manchu, I was prepared to believe that a dead woman moved among the living.
Palazzo Mori
We admitted the chief of police by the main door. It was heavily bolted but not locked. He was at least as nonplussed as I when the marks of little heels were pointed out to him in the room above.
“This,” he said, “is supernatural.”
Although disposed to agree with him I was determined to leave no stone unturned in my efforts to solve the mystery. Discounting her sorcerous origin for the moment and therefore her magical powers, how had Dr Fu Manchu’s accomplice got into this place, and how had she got out?
“Merely supernormal perhaps,” I suggested. “Everything has an explanation, after all.” I was trying desperately to restore my own self- confidence. “You know the history of these old buildings better than I do. Have you any explanation to offer of how a person could enter and leave the Palazzo Mori as undoubtedly someone entered and left it tonight?”
“I have no explanation to offer, Mr. Kerrigan,” said Colonel Correnti. His expression was almost pathetic. “None whatever.”
The second detective began to speak urgently and rapidly, and as a result:
“This officer tells me,” the colonel continued, “that at one time, but very, very long ago, there was an entrance to this old palace from the other side of the canal—I mean the Rio Mori, from which we entered.”
“I don’t think I follow you.”
“A passage—they were not uncommon in old days—under the Rio Mori, which of course is quite shallow. It seems that the boathouse of the family was on the opposite bank in those days, and for the convenience of the gondoliers this passage was made. It has been blocked up for at least a century.”
“That hardly seems to help us!”
“No, not at all. I think I know the place—an old stone shed.”
He spoke rapidly to his subordinate who replied with equal rapidity. “It was used, I am told, as a store by a house decorator for a time but is now empty again. No, my friend, this is useless. We must seek elsewhere for the solution of our mystery.”
Of our search of the old palace it is unnecessary that I give any account. It yielded nothing. Apart from those footprints in the upper room there was no evidence whatever to show that anyone had entered the building for many years. Certainly below the grand salon, where patches on the walls from which paintings had been removed, pathetically told of decayed
grandeur, there were locked rooms.
To these we were unable to gain access, and it seemed pointless to attempt it. Examination of the locks clearly indicated that they had not been recently used. At this stage of the search I had given up hope.
We returned to police headquarters. There was no news. I turned aside to hide my despair. An officer who had remained in constant touch with the detectives in the Palazzo da Rosa reported that “Major Baden” had joined the guests for half an hour and had then excused himself on the grounds of urgent business, and had retired again to his own apartment.
“You see?” Colonel Correnti shrugged his shoulders. “We can do nothing.”
I tried to control my voice when I spoke:
“Do you really understand what is at stake? An ex-commissioner of Scotland Yard has been kidnapped, probably murdered. He is one of the highest officials of the British Secret Service. The most prominent figure in European politics, and I do not except Pietro Monaghani, is, beyond any shadow of doubt, in deadly peril. Are you sure, Colonel, that every available man is straining himself to the utmost, that every possible place has been searched, every suspect interrogated?”
“I assure you, Mr. Kerrigan, that every available man in Venice is either searching or watching tonight. I can do no more . . .”
I think during the next hour I must have plumbed the uttermost deeps of despair. I wandered about the gay streets of Venice like a ghost at a banquet, staring at lighted windows, into the faces of the passers-by until I began to feel that I was attracting public attention.
I returned to the hotel, went to my room and sat down on that settee where Ardatha had bewitched me with kisses.
How I cursed every moment of that stolen happiness! No contempt I had ever known for a fellow being could approach that which I had for myself. I conjured up a picture of Nayland Smith;
almost in my state of distraction I seemed to hear his voice. He was trying to tell me something, trying to direct me, to awaken in my dull brain some spark of enlightenment.
Had our cases been reversed what would he have done?
This idea seemed to give me a new coolness. Yes! what would he have done? I sat there, head buried in my hands, striving to think calmly.
That the dark woman had entered and left that ruined palace was a fact. Whoever or whatever she might be, of her presence there we had unassailable evidence. Our search had revealed no explanation of the mystery. But there were doors we had failed to open.
This would not have been Nayland Smith’s way!
He would never have been satisfied to leave the Palazzo Mori until those lower rooms had been examined. Nor would he have been content with the assertion of the chief of police that the ancient passage under the canal was blocked . . .
I sprang up.
This was the line of inquiry which Smith would have followed! I was sure of it. This should be my objective. A disheveled figure (I had not been undressed for thirty-six hours), once more I set out.
The ancient house of the gondoliers was easy to locate. It was solidly built of stone with three windows on the land side and a heavy padlocked door at the end. The narrow lane by which one approached it was dark and deserted. I had brought an electric torch, and I shot a beam through one of the broken windows. It showed a quantity of litter: fragments of wall paper, mortar boards and numerous empty paint cans. I inspected the padlock.
This bore evidence of use: it had recently been oiled!
But it was fast.
Greatly excited, I returned to the broken window and looked in again. The litter had not been disturbed, I could have sworn, for a considerable time—yet the door had recently been used.
My excitement grew. I thought that from some place, in this world or beyond, Nayland Smith had succeeded in inspiring me with something of his old genius for investigation. A great task lay to my hand. I determined to do it well.
I studied the padlock. I had no means of picking it, nor indeed any knowledge of that art. To crash a pane in one of the windows would have been useless, for they were of a kind not made to open, and the panes were too narrow to allow entrance had the glass been entirely removed. I walked around to the other side. Here was evidence of a landing stage long demolished. There were three windows and a walled-up door. Inspection was carried out from a narrow ledge which overhung the canal. Baffled again, I was about to return—when I heard footsteps coming down the lane!
I stayed where I was. Directly opposite, the narrow canal glittering between, rose a wall of the deserted Palazzo Mori. I could see that stone balustrade up which I had scrambled, the iron balcony to which I had clung. Nearer and nearer the footsteps approached, and now I heard a woman’s voice:
“Wait, just a moment! . . . I have the key.”
It was a soothing, caressing voice, and I longed for a glimpse of the speaker, but dared not move.
I heard the rattling of the padlock, opening of the door.
“Please wait! Not yet! We may be seen!”
Light suddenly illuminated the interior of the building. I crouched low, my heart beating fast, and cautiously from one corner of a window, peered in.
What I saw made my heart beat faster. It strengthened my resolution to do what Nayland Smith would have done . . .
Rudolf Adion, wearing a half mask, and a cloak over his evening dress, stood hands clasped behind him, watching a woman who knelt in a corner of the floor!
His eyes were ardent; he tore the mask off—and I saw a man enslaved. The woman wore a loose fur wrap, her arms resembled dull ivory. She was slender, almost serpentine, jet-black hair lay close to her shapely head. And as I looked and recognized her, she stood upright.
A trap had been opened, a section of floor with its impedimenta of pots and litter had been slid aside! She turned—and for the first time I saw her eyes.
Her eyes—long, narrow, dark-lashed eyes—were emerald green! I had thought that there were no eyes in the world like these except the eyes of Dr Fu Manchu.
She made a gesture of triumph. She smiled as perhaps long ago Calypso smiled.
“Be patient! This is the only way—come!”
The words reached me clearly through the broken window. Pulling her wrap over her bare shoulders, she beckoned and began to descend steps below the trap. I saw that she carried a flashlamp.
Rudolf Adion obeyed. The light below shone up into his dark, eager face as he stooped to follow.
And then came darkness.
The Zombie
Rudolf Adion, dictator of a great European nation, was going to his death!
I thought rapidly, trying to envisage the situation from what I believed would have been Nayland Smith’s point of view.
Probably I could reach police headquarters in ten minutes. A call box was of no avail, owing to my ignorance of the language, so that this meant ten minutes wasted. Before the police arrived, Adion might have disappeared as Nayland Smith had disappeared. That the passage led to the Palazzo Mori I had good reason to suppose. But unless it had been planned to assassinate the chancellor in that deserted building and hide his body, where were they going?
My experience of the methods of the Si-Fan inclined me to believe that Adion would be given a final opportunity to accept the Council’s orders. My decision was soon made. I would follow; and when I had found out where the woman was leading the dictator, return and bring a party large enough to surround the place.
The door I knew to be unfastened. I groped my way to where a dim oblong light indicated the position of the trap. I saw stone steps. I descended cautiously. The place in which I found myself had a foul reek; the filthy water of the Rio Mori dripped through its roof in places. It was an ancient stone passage, slimy and repellent. A vague moving light at the further end was that of the flashlamp carried by the woman.
Adion’s infatuation had blinded him to his danger. But putting myself in his place and substituting Ardatha for the woman of death, I knew that I, too, would have followed to the very gates of hel
l.
Fixing my eyes on that guiding light, I proceeded. The light disappeared, but I discovered ascending steps. A spear in the darkness led me up to a door ajar. I heard a voice and recognized it. It was the voice of Adion.
“Where are you leading me, Mona Lisa?”
In the exquisite face of this ghoul who hunted human souls for Dr Fu Manchu he had discovered a resemblance to that famous painting. The resemblance was not perceptible to me . . .
Along an arched cellar, silhouettes against the light of the moving lamp which cast grotesque shadows, I saw the pair ahead: the slender figure of the woman, the cloaked form of the doomed man. There was a great squat pillar in this forgotten crypt and I crept behind it until they had come to the top of the open stair and vanished into a Gothic archway.
Complete darkness had come when I crept forward and followed, feeling my way to the foot of the stair.
The sound of footsteps ceased. I stood stockstill. I heard the woman’s laughter, low-pitched, haunting. It ended abruptly. There came thickly muttered words in a man’s voice. He had her in his arms . . . Then the footsteps continued.
A key was placed in a lock and I heard the creaking of a door. It echoed, phantomesque, as though in a cavern; it warned me of what I should find. I waited until those sounds, mockingly repeated by the ghosts of the place, grew faint. Advancing, I found myself in the tomblike entrance hall of the Palazzo Mori.
The light carried by the woman was now a mere speck. However, using extreme caution, I followed it. As I crossed that haunted place, the shades of men trapped, poisoned, murdered there, seemed to move around me in a satanic dance. Tortured spirits of mediaeval Venice formed up at my back, barring the road to safety. Yet I pressed on, for I knew that the great outer door was open, that even if my way through the foul tunnel be cut off, here was another sally port although it meant a plunge into the Grand Canal.
The light faded out entirely, but a hollow ringing of footsteps assured me that I had further to go. One of those doors which the police party had found closed, was open! (The ancient lock had been wedged. It was fitted with a new, hidden lock.) And beyond that door Rudolf Adion went to destruction.
