Sax Rohmer - Fu Manchu 09

by Re-enter Dr Fu Manchu

  Dr. Jurgonsen had tried to detain him, but Hessian had merely nodded and gone out.

  Then the imperturbable Japanese scientist had been made the target of a verbal bombardment. But he had never faltered, never changed the tone of his voice, even when others were shouting. Nayland Smith had tapped Brian on the shoulder and nodded towards the door. Back again in their own quarters:

  “We’re out of our depth, Merrick,” he told Brian, “up there. But words can’t alter facts.” He poured out two liberal shots of whisky. “Otto Hessian had solved the problem of protection from all form of aerial attack. You agree?”

  “I can’t doubt it. The thing’s a miracle. It’s magic.”

  “There’s no difficulty whatever in throwing up this sound ceiling over a wide area. Strong feature is the low cost. Everybody’s convinced, of course. But old Jurgonsen is boiling with professional jealousy. Your father has tried to persuade the Japanese to get Hessian to set up his apparatus in Washington for the President’s okay. But Hessian blankly declines. Genius has its privileges. It’s a case of Mohammed and the mountain. The President will come.”

  “Here?” Brian jerked, startled by such a proposal.

  “Here, Merrick, and soon. You saw the vacant chair at the table?

  That’s for your father. The place occupied by Senator Merrick tonight will be reserved for the President.”

  When presently the members of the committee re-assembled it was clear that their opinion was unanimous. Even Dr. Jurgonsen was forced to admit that Otto Hessian had broken new ground in the aerial defence problem, opening up a prospect of entire immunity on a remarkably low budget.

  “Secrecy and speed are vital,” he declared. “Dr. Hessian, whom I knew only by name, had vilely bad manners but clearly knows his subject.”

  “I’ll see the President tonight,” Senator Merrick promised. “It was arranged I should do so, however late I got back. Dr. Hessian is certainly a most irascible character, and I must persuade the President to come here, incognito, without delay, not later than tomorrow or Friday. Not a word of this must leak out. There will be no press conferences, gentlemen!”

  “Every conceivable precaution has been taken,” Nayland Smith assured him. “You all entered the hotel by a door not normally in use and came up in a reserved elevator.”

  “I thought the man on duty looked hard at me,” Dr. Jurgonsen complained.

  “Quite likely He’s an F.B.I, operative!”

  *

  In a hotel bedroom a stockily-built Asiatic, with thick, sensual features and fierce eyes, was listening to a voice which came out of an open suit-case standing on a trestle. It was a sinister, sibilant voice, its curious quality enhanced by the language in which it spoke—Hindustani.

  “You understand that this is the emergency called Project Zero?”

  “I understand, Master.”

  “Is Nogai with you?”

  “He is downstairs, Master.”

  “Order him to avoid the public rooms. He has attracted attention.

  Because he is registered as a Rajah’s son he must not act like one. Both remain in your apartment until further orders. Take your meals there.

  Now, repeat your emergency instructions.”

  “Yes, Master. At the signal——”

  “Repeat the signal.”

  “Three raps on the door … .”

  “Continue.”

  “The door will be unlocked on the other side and I unlock it on this side. I put all lights out. I open the door enough to see in, and wait for the man to come. The first time he has his back to me, I act.”

  “You must make no mistake.”

  “I never make mistakes, Master. Nogai and I open the big box and drag him in. We close the door; and wait for further orders.”

  “And if he is not alone?”

  “Nogai goes to the front door and rings. Whichever one answers I deal with the other. Nogai deals with the man at the door.”

  “Silently!”

  “Nogai’s method is as silent as mine, Master …”

  A few minutes later, a woman seated manicuring her fingernails was addressed by the same strange voice, speaking in French, from a cream leather toilet case on the table beside her. She started nervously, staring across the empty room with a haunted look in her eyes.

  “I am here, Excellency,” she replied, also in French—apparently her native tongue.

  “A general emergency has arisen. You have maintained your contact with personnel at the airport?”

  “I have.”

  “Make your own plans, provided I have no occasion to direct otherwise. You know already the information I must have. It is vital that this reaches me at once. When you notify me of the expected arrival you will be directed how to proceed. You understand?”

  “I understand, Excellency.”

  “No orders, other than those preceded by the code-word Si-Fan, are to be accepted. You understand?”

  “I understand perfectly.”

  “I count upon unremitting vigilance. Keep in constant touch wherever you are. Report hourly from the time you set out… .”

  Dr. Fu Manchu leaned back in his chair, his ascetic face lined with anxiety. For more than an hour he had been assembling his forces for some secret purpose which might mean world chaos. He stood up wearily and crossed the small room without a window which he seemed to use as a remote control base. Even now it was only dimly lighted by a lamp on a buffet where there were no homely decanters but only an array of

  chemical equipment and a large medicine chest containing many bottles and phials.

  He took a measuring glass and prepared a draught composed of one part of a greenish liquid, two of amber and one of red. This he emptied carefully into a larger glass and filled it with distilled water. The contents bubbled slightly, became cloudy and then still. Dr. Fu Manchu began to drink, when a faint ring sounded. He turned. A speck of blue light had sprung up in the radio cabinet.

  Returning to his chair, he moved a switch and spoke: “What have you to report?”

  A woman’s voice answered. “Earlier information of the disaster in Cairo is confirmed, Doctor. The person responsible for it I have been unable to trace, for all have left.”

  “The absence of any publicity, of any official reaction, is disturbing.”

  “But understandable. The President is expected tonight.”

  “I am aware of this, and have spread my net; for the hour of danger is earlier. I am staking everything upon my knowledge of the man. He never does the obvious.”

  “You judge wisely, Doctor. I have information from a reliable source that ‘the obvious’ was proposed, but rejected. What you have foreseen will happen.”

  “If I could be as sure of one other thing I would trust to Routine 5 and cancel all other orders.”

  “What is this one other thing, Doctor?” The woman’s voice remained soft but revealed tension.

  Dr. Fu Manchu clenched his hands; his features became convulsed, and then calm again.

  “His being alone at the crucial moment.”

  “If I undertake to arrange this one thing, Doctor, will you give me carte blanche to deal with it?”

  “You never yet failed me, once. And no one ever failed me twice. It is a gambler’s choice—but I have always been a gambler… .”

  *

  Brian had great difficulty getting to sleep that night. The astounding experiment in the penthouse had left him in a state of high excitement. He would seriously have doubted the evidence of his senses if the wonders he had seen hadn’t been confirmed by other competent witnesses.

  Then, at some remote hour, just as he was dozing off at last, the phone in the living-room buzzed and he heard Nayland Smith’s voice. The conversation was a brief one and a moment later Sir Denis burst in.

  “Your father, Merrick! We’re to expect the President at ten o’clock tonight!”

  This made sleep a hundred per cent more difficult. He simply could not stop thinking. For
some reason which his mental powers were incapable of grasping he had been dragged into the heart of a top secret which might very well involve the survival of civilization.

  Why? He kept asking himself— Why?

  But he could find no answer.

  Nature conquered at last, and he forgot his problems. It was after nine o’clock when he woke, and he went into the living-room to see if Nayland Smith was there. He found a note on the desk—which, enclosed in the painted screen, sometimes reminded him of a pulpit—pencilled in block letters (presumably because Sir Denis’s handwriting was illegible).

  It said: “Don’t go out until I come back. D.N.S.”

  Brian took up the phone and asked to be put through to Lola’s apartment.

  She answered at once.

  “Listen, Lola honey—did you call me last night? I had to go out.”

  “No, Brian. I couldn’t make it.”

  “How are you fixed today? I’m uncertain about lunch, but——”

  “I’m quite certain about it, Brian. I don’t get any! There’s only one possible spot, maybe an hour, about four o’clock. Will you be free, if I am?”

  “I’ll see that I’m free! I’ll wait in the Paris Bar. We can’t miss each other there.”

  When presently he hung up, Brian had become uneasily aware of the fact that Lola was preoccupied, tensed up in a new way. He wondered if Madame Michel had been overtaxing her and he wondered, not for the first time, if Lola was changing, slipping away from him …

  When Nayland Smith came in, around noon, he showed such signs of agitation that Brian felt alarmed. The state of nerves in which Sir Denis had been on his first, clandestine, visit was mild compared to his present condition.

  “Sir Denis! Something has upset you. Whatever has happened?”

  Nayland Smith turned aside irritably, crossed to the buffet and mixed himself a stiff drink. He dropped down in a chair, took a long draught, and then raised haggard eyes.

  “The worst that could happen, in the circumstances. Dr. Fu Manchu is here!”

  “Here!. You mean in New York?”

  “Right here in Manhattan.” He emptied his glass. “In just a few hours the President will leave Washington. I shall find myself up against the master mind—and Fu Manchu will stick at nothing——”

  He stood up and refilled his glass.

  This was so unlike the abstemious, cool-brained Nayland Smith Brian had known that he was gripped by a swift and dismal foreboding. Sir Denis was afraidi

  The idea chilled him. It was unthinkable—like something blasphemous. But many incidents passed in lightning parade across his mind, incidents which, individually, had shaken his faith at the time, but which collectively threatened to shatter it.

  Suffering had broken this man of iron. It was a tragedy.

  “You don’t suggest, Sir Denis, that the President may be in personal danger?”

  “Now that Fu Manchu is here we are all in personal danger. Look, Merrick—I’m going up to see Dr. Hessian. It’s vital he should know. Go out and get some lunch. When you come back—and don’t hurry—I may be asleep. I had no sleep last night, so don’t disturb me… .”

  *

  Lingering over his lunch, feeling miserable and about as useful as a stray dog, Brian tried to muster his wandering ideas, to form some sort of positive picture.

  Fu Manchu was in New York. And Nayland Smith had gone to pieces.

  These two facts he must accept, for they stood for cause and effect.

  For the first he had been prepared; for the second he had not. As aide to Sir Denis (hitherto unemployed), the duty clearly fell upon him of taking over if his chief failed!

  The responsibility thrilled, and at the same time chilled. He lacked almost every essential facility. Sir Denis hadn’t troubled to put him in touch with the F.B.I, operatives associated with them. He didn’t know one by sight. He had no more than a nodding acquaintance with Dr. Hessian; and, for all that scientist’s undoubted genius, found his personality strangely repellent.

  Brian seriously considered calling his father, laying all the circumstances before that man of wide experience, and abiding by his advice. But the difficulty of doing so on a long-distance call, and an implied betrayal of the trust imposed upon him by Sir Denis, ruled this plan out.

  The decision—what to do—rested squarely on himself. It was close on three o’clock when he went up to the suite. He found a “Do Not Disturb”

  card outside, but opened quietly and went in. A similar card hung on Nayland Smith’s bedroom door. There was a note, in block letters, on the desk. It said:

  Do what you like until seven o’clock. But stay out of the Babylon-Lido until that hour. Don’t enter on any account. Then wait in the Paris Bar until I page you. Please regard this as an unavoidable order. D.N.S.

  Chapter 14

  When Brian went into the Paris Bar he found it empty, as he might have expected it to be at that hour. Conscientious by nature, he wasn’t sure that his being there didn’t amount to disobeying the orders of a senior officer.

  He was still studying the problem when Lola came in.

  “Lola!” There was no one in the place, not even a bartender, and he took her in his arms. “How very glad I am to see you!”

  It was an impulse quite irresistible. He held her close and gave her a lingering kiss. Then he recovered himself as she drew back and looked up at him with that quizzical smile.

  “So it seems, dear!” But her grey eyes didn’t register resentment; they invited. So did the tempting lips.

  Their second kiss was so like one of mutual passion that Brian’s heart leapt. Lingering doubts were dispelled. Lola loved him!

  “Let’s get out of here, dearest.” He spoke hoarsely. “I want to talk to you, quietly. Queer things are happening.” His arm was around Lola’s waist. “Where can we be alone—if only for half an hour?”

  “Wel!”— Lola hesitated—”I have one of the tiniest apartments in the Babylon-Lido. Madame doesn’t squander dollars. We could go there, but —”

  She glanced up at him.

  “I promise to behave. I admit I’m mad about you, but I won’t break out again.”

  The apartment was on the eighth floor; its windows commanded an excellent view of a brick wall. The living-room wasn’t much larger than either of the bathrooms in the lordly suite reserved for Sir Denis. Lola boiled water in an electric kettle to make tea, which she prepared with the manner of an experienced traveller… . “You can imagine you’re back at Oxford, Brian.”

  It was all delightfully intimate, and Brian’s mood of depression magically dispersed. When, seated in an easy chair nursing a cup of tea, Lola offered him a cigarette, he felt that this was a foretaste of bliss.

  He sparked his lighter; glanced at the cigarette—and paused.

  “Please light mine,” Lola said sweetly. “They arrived this morning—

  enough to last me for two months! Your extravagant tastes need watching, Brian.”

  The cigarettes were “Azizas”—those he had ordered in Cairo!

  “Did you get my letter, Lola?”

  “Yes. I got your letter. Thank you for everything, Brian. And now, what is it you want to talk about? I warned you, dear. I hadn’t much time.

  On the stroke of five I have to be off.”

  “Then I’d better begin. What I want to say is strictly confidential. But I just have to say it to somebody—and there’s nobody else but you I can say it to. I’m worried about Sir Denis.”

  “Why, Brian?” Lola drew her brows together in a frown of concentration. “Is he ill?”

  “Yes.” Brian nodded, “Mentally ill, I’m afraid. His sufferings have shaken him badly. I think he’s losing his nerve.”

  “From your account of Sir Denis, I supposed he had no nerves.”

  “So did I. But today he seemed to fold up.”

  “Why, Brian? Has something happened?”

  Brian began to remember that it was his duty to keep his mouth s
hut.

  He must put a curb on his confidences. But he believed in Lola’s worldly wisdom, and desperately needed her advice.

  He glanced at her. It had occurred to him almost from the moment of their meeting that she kept up her usual air of easy self-possession only by means of a sustained effort. Perhaps his passionate greeting had shaken her. But certainly, although she masked the fact, she was queerly keyed up; kept glancing at her watch.

  “Sir Denis seems to think some new danger has developed,” he told her.

  “Danger? To whom?”

  “To all of us, I guess.” He began to grope for words. “My father’s expected tonight, and some other important visitors. If this danger is real, I’m wondering if I should stop them.”

  “Surely Sir Denis would have done so, if he couldn’t guarantee their safety.”

  “You don’t know,” Brian assured her, “how completely he’s gone to pieces.”

  “As your father is involved, surely you could at least discuss it with him.”

  Brian shook his head wearily. “He’s asleep up there! And I have his written order. Look at this.” From his pocket he took out the note he had found on the desk. “They’ll be on their way before seven o’clock!”

  Lola read the note, but made no comment; passed it back; glanced at her wristwatch.

  “What would you advise me to do, Lola?”

  She stood up. “In the first place, get a move on. I have to go. As for Sir Denis’s order, I advise you to do nothing—except obey it to the letter… .”

  *

  Brian watched Lola’s taxi weaving its way into the traffic torrent and finally becoming lost to view, with a sense of desolation. She had her troubles, too, he knew, although they didn’t involve millions of human destinies but only the vanity of a few wealthy women who bought their dresses at Michel’s.

  He started away at a brisk pace towards Central Park. An hour’s walk in fresh air might help him to shake off that appalling sense of gloom, which Huckleberry Finn called then fantods.