by Sax Rohmer
“What’s the alternative?” he snapped, peering at Weymouth.
“There isn’t one that I can think of.”
“What do you say, Petrie?”
Petrie shrugged his shoulders.
“I hadn’t foreseen this,” he confessed. “But now that it’s happened…”
He left the sentence unfinished.
“Get the map out, Greville,” Nayland Smith rapped… “Here, on the ground.”
I dived into the front of the car and pulled out the big map. This we spread on the gravelly path, keeping it flat by placing stones on its corners. Weymouth and Petrie alighted; and the four of us bent over the map.
“Ah!” Nayland Smith exclaimed and rested his finger on a certain spot. “That’s the danger area, isn’t it, Greville? That’s where we might crash?”
“We might!” I replied grimly. “It’s a series of hairpin bends and sheer precipices, at some points fourteen hundred feet up…”
“That’s where they’ll be waiting for us!” said Nayland Smith.
“Good God!” Petrie exclaimed.
I exchanged glances with Weymouth. The expression in his blue eyes was enigmatical.
“Do you agree with me?” rapped Smith.
“Entirely.”
“In short, gentlemen,” he went on, “if we pursue our present route it’s certain we shall never reach el-Khârga.”
There was an interval of silence; then:
“We might easily break down before we get to the hills,” I said slowly. “No one at the other end would be the wiser, except that we should never enter the danger zone. Now”—I bent and moved my finger over the map—“at this point as you see, the old caravan road from Dongola to Egypt is only about thirty miles off. It’s the Path of the Forty, formerly used by slave caravans from Central Africa. If we could find our way across to it, we might approach Khârga from the south, below the village marked Bûlag—it means a detour of forty or fifty miles, even if we can do it. But…”
Nayland Smith clapped me on the shoulder.
“You’ve solved the problem, Greville!” he said. “Nothing like knowledge of the geography of a district when one’s in difficulties. We’re in luck if we make it before dusk. But how shall we recognize the Path of the Forty?”
“By the bleached bones,” I replied.
Sunset dropped its thousand veils over the desert. The hills and wâdis of its desolate expanse passed from a glow of gold through innumerable phases of red. We saw crags that looked yellow under a sky of green: we saw a violet desert across which the ancient route of the slave traders stretched like a long-healed scar. There were moments when all the visible world resembled the heart of a tulip. But at last came true dusk with those scattered battalions of stars set like pearls in a deep, velvet-lined casket.
Wonderful to relate, we had forced the groaning Buick over trackless miles southwest of the road, had found a path through the hills and had struck the Darfûr caravan route some twenty miles below el-Khârga. A difference in the quality of the landscape, a freshening and a cleanness in the air, spoke of the near oasis. Then, on a gentle slope:
“A light ahead!” Weymouth cried.
I checked Said. We all stood up and looked.
“That must be Bûlag,” said Nayland Smith. “The house of the sheikh lies somewhere between there and el-Khârga.”
“It’s a straight road now,” Petrie broke in. “Thank heaven, there’s plenty of light. I’m all for blazing through the village as hard as we can go and then finding some parking place outside the town.”
“Pray heaven the old bus can stand it!” Weymouth murmured devoutly.
And so, headed north, we set out. The road was abominable, but fairly wide where it traversed the village. Nayland Smith had relieved Said at the wheel and the scene as he coaxed a way through that miniature bazaar was one I can never forget. Every man, woman, child, and dog had turned out…
“They may send the news to el-Khârga,” said Smith, as we finally shook off the last pair of staring-eyed Arab boys who ran after us, “but we’ve got to chance it.”
We parked the doughty Buick in a grove of date-palms just south of the town. Weymouth seemed to anticipate trouble with Said, but I knew the man and had never doubted that he would consent to stand by. We left him a charged repeater and spare shells, and there were ample rations aboard to sustain him during the time he might have to mount guard. We marked an hour on the clock when, failing our reappearance, he was to push on with all possible speed to the post office at el-Khârga and communicate with Fletcher. How he carried out these orders will appear later.
As the four of us walked from the palm grove:
“It’s a good many years,” said Weymouth, “since I disguised myself!”
I looked at him in the moonlight, and I thought that he made a satisfactory and most impressive sheikh. True, his Arabic was bad, but so far as his appearance went, he was above criticism. Dr. Petrie was a safe bet; and Sir Denis, as I knew, could have walked about Mecca unchallenged. For my own part I felt fairly confident, for I knew the ways of the desert Arabs well enough to be capable of passing for one.
“We may be too late,” said Nayland Smith; “but I feel disposed, Greville, to make straight for the town; otherwise we might lose ourselves. Then, you acting as spokesman, since you speak the best Arabic, we can inquire our direction boldly.”
“I agree,” said I.
And so it was settled.
El-Khârga, as I vaguely remembered, though a considerable town of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, consisted largely of a sort of maze of narrow streets roofed over with palm trunks so as to resemble tunnels at night. We penetrated, and presently found our way to the centre of the place. A mosque and two public buildings attracted my attention; and:
“Down here,” I said, “there’s a café, where we shall learn all we want to know.”
Two minutes later we were grouped around a table in a smokeladen room.
“Look about,” said Nayland Smith. “Kismet is with us. Whatever is going on in el-Khârga is being discussed here, tonight.”
“I told you this was the place,” said I.
But I looked about as he had directed. Certainly we had discovered the one and only house of entertainment in el-Khârga… Little did I realize, as I considered our neighbours, where my next awakening would be!
Here were obvious townspeople, prosperous date-merchants, rice growers, petty officials and others, smoking their pipes in evening contentment. A definite odour of hashîsh pervaded the café. But the scene looked typical enough, until:.
“Those fellows in the corner don’t seem quite in the picture,” said Weymouth.
I followed the direction of his glance. Two men were bending over a little round table. They smoked cigarettes, and a pot of coffee stood between them. In type, they were unfamiliar; unfamiliar in the sense that one didn’t expect to come across them in an outpost of Egypt. In Cairo, they might have passed unnoticed, but their presence in el-Khârga was extraordinary. I turned to Nayland Smith, who was glancing in the same direction; and:
“What are they?” I asked.
“Afghans,” he replied. “The great brotherhood of Kâli is well represented there.”
“Remarkable,” I said. “There can be few relations between Afghanistan and this obscure spot.”
“None whatever!” Weymouth broke in. “And now, Greville, follow the direction in which my cigarette is pointing.”
Endeavouring not to betray myself, I did as he suggested.
“A group of three,” he added for my guidance.
I saw the group. I might have failed to identify them, but my memory was painfully fresh in regard to that dead man in the Tomb of the Black Ape. They wore their turbans in such a manner that the mark on the brow could not be distinguished. But I knew them for Burmans; and I did not doubt that they belonged to the mysterious fraternity of the Dacoits! At which moment:
“Don’t turn around until
I give the signal,” Nayland Smith rapped—“but just behind us.”
I watched him as he glanced about, apparently in search of a waiter, then caught his signal. I looked swiftly into an alcove under the stairs… and then turned aside, as the gaze of a pair of fierce, wild-animal eyes became focused upon mine. The waiter arrived and Nayland Smith ordered more coffee. As the man departed to execute the order:
“Thugs!” he whispered. He bent over the table. “There are representatives of at least three religious fanatical sects in this place tonight. Dacoity is represented, also Thugee. The two gentlemen from Kandahar are phansigars, or religious stranglers!” He stared at Weymouth.
“Does this suggest anything to you?”
Weymouth’s blue eyes were fixed on me; and:
“I confess, Greville,” he said, “that I feel as you do… And I can see that you’re puzzled.”
“I am,” I agreed.
Nayland Smith raised his hand irritably and tugged at the lobe of his left ear; then:
“You understand, Petrie?” he jerked.
I looked at Dr. Petrie and it was unnecessary for him to reply. I saw that he did understand.
“Any doubt I may have had, Smith,” he said, “regarding the purpose of this expedition, is washed out. In some miraculous way you have brought us to what seems to be the focus of all the dangerous fanatics of the Eastern world!”
“I don’t claim all the credit,” Smith replied; “but I admit that the facts confirm my theory.”
“And what was your theory?” I asked.
“My theory,” Smith replied, “based on the latest information to hand, and, as Weymouth here knows, almost hourly reports from police headquarters as widely divided as Pekin and Berlin, was this: That some attempt was being made to coordinate the dangerous religious sects of the East together with their sympathizers in the West. In short that the organization once known as the Si-Fan—you, alone, Greville,” he turned to me, “fail to appreciate the significance of this—is in process of reconstruction! Something vital to the scheme was hidden in the Tomb of the Black Ape. This—and I can only blame myself—was removed under my very nose. The centre of the conspiracy is Fah Lo Suee—Dr. Fu-Manchu’s daughter, whose temporary headquarters I know to be here. Tonight, at least, I am justified. Look around.”
He bent over the table and we all did likewise, so that our four heads came very closely together; then:
“We are not too late,” he said earnestly. “A meeting has been called… and we must be present!”
The two Indians in the alcove stood up and went towards the door. As the pair disappeared:
“They lead, and we follow!” said Nayland Smith. “Go ahead, Weymouth, and act as connecting link.”
He stood up, clapping his hands for the waiter. Weymouth had his meaning in a moment, nodded, and went out.
“Follow him, Greville!”
I grasped the scheme and went out behind the superintendent. The spirit of the thing was beginning to get me. Truly this was a desperate adventure… for the stakes were life or death!
We were dealing with savagely dangerous characters who were, moreover, expert assassins to a man. Possibly those we had actually identified in the cafe represented only a small proportion of the murderous fanatics assembled that night in el-Khârga…
Weymouth led and I followed. I had grasped Nayland Smith’s routine—and I knew that Petrie would be behind me. The score discharged, Smith would track Petrie.
I saw the bulky form of the superintendent at the far side of the square. By a narrow street he paused, peered ahead, and then glanced back.
I raised my hand. Weymouth disappeared.
Reaching the street in turn, I looked along it. I saw a sheer tunnel, but recognized it for that by which we had reached the square. There was an open space at the further end; and I saw Weymouth standing there in the moonlight and knew that I must be visible to him—as a silhouette.
He raised his arm. I replied. Then I looked back.
Dr. Petrie was crossing the square!
We exchanged signals and I followed Weymouth. The chain was complete.
For a time I thought that the house of the Sheikh Ismail might be somewhere on the road we had pursued from the palm grove to the town. But it was not so. Weymouth, ahead of me, paused, and gave the signal: left.
A narrow path through rice fields, with scanty cover other than that of an occasional tree, proved to be the route. If the men walking a few hundred yards ahead of Weymouth looked around, they could scarcely fail to see him! I only prayed, should they do so, that they would take it for granted he was bound upon business similar to their own.
Where an acacia drooped over a dome, very white in the moonlight, which marked the resting place of some holy man, the path seemed to end. So also did the cultivated land. Beyond stretched the desert, away to the distant hills.
By the shrine Weymouth paused, turned, and signaled. I looked back. Petrie was not in sight. I waited, anxiously… and then I saw him, just entering the rice field.
We exchanged signs and I pressed on.
Left of the cultivated land, and invisible from the rice, was a close grove of dôm palms. As I cautiously circled around the shrine and saw nothing but desert before me, instinctively I looked to right and left. And there was Weymouth, not fifty yards away!
I joined him, and:
“The house is just, beyond the trees,” he said. “There’s a high wall all around it. The two Indians have gone in.”
We waited for Petrie. Then Nayland Smith joined us. He turned and stared back along the path. Evidently no other party was on the way yet. The track through the rice field was empty as far as the eye could see.
“What next?” said Smith. “I’m afraid I’ve left too much to chance. We should have visited the mudîr. The thing begins to crystallize. I know, now, what to expect.”
He turned, and:
“Weymouth,” he said, “do you remember the raid on the house in London in 1917?”
“By God!” cried Weymouth. “You mean the meeting of the Council of Seven?”
“Exactly!” Smith rapped.
“Probably the last.”
“In England, certainly.”
“The Council of Seven?” I said. “What is the Council of Seven?”
“It’s the Si-Fan!” Petrie replied, without adding to my information.
But the tone of his voice turned me cold in spite of the warmth of the night.
“The Council of Seven,” Weymouth explained, in his kindly way, “was an organization with headquarters in China…”
“In Honan,” Smith jerked.
“The president, or so we always believed,” Weymouth continued, “was Dr. Fu-Manchu. Its objects we never learned except in a general way.”
“World domination,” Petrie suggested.
“Well, that’s about it, I suppose. Their methods, Greville, included wholesale robbery and murder. Everybody in their path they removed. Poison was their favourite method, animal or vegetable, and they apparently controlled in their campaign the underworlds of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. They made the mistake of meeting in London, and”—his tone grew very grim—“we got a few of them.”
“But not all,” Nayland Smith added. He suddenly grasped my shoulder, and: “Are you beginning to understand,” he asked, “what was hidden in the Tomb of the Black Ape?”
I looked at him in blank surprise.
“I can see no connection,” I confessed.
“Something,” he went on tensely, “which has enabled the woman you know as Madame Ingomar after an interval of thirteen years, to summon the Council of Seven!”
In the shadow cast by a lebbekh tree we all crouched, Nayland Smith having his glasses focused upon the door in a long high wall.
The two Afghans had approached and now stood before this door. So silent was the night that we distinctly heard one of them beat on the panels. He knocked seven times…
I saw the door open. F
aintly to my ears came the sound of a strange word. It was repeated—by another voice. The murderous Asiatics were admitted. The door was closed again.
“Representatives of at least two murder societies have arrived,” said Smith, dropping the glasses and turning. “We are learning something, but not enough. In short, how the devil are we going to get into that house?”
There was a pause and then:
“Personally,” said Dr. Petrie, “I think it would be deliberate suicide to attempt to do so. We have not notified the officials of el-Khârga of our presence or our business; and as it would appear that the most dangerous criminal group in the world is assembling here tonight, what could we hope to do, and what would our chances be?”
“Sanity, Petrie, sanity!” Nayland Smith admitted. But the man’s impatience, his over-brimming vitality, sounded in his quivering voice. “I’ve bungled this business—but how could I know?… I was guessing, largely.”
He stood up and began to pace about in the shadow, carefully avoiding exposing himself to the light of the moon; then:
“Yes,” he murmured. “We must establish contact with el-Khârga. Damnable!—because it means splitting the party… Hello!”
A group of three appeared, moving like silhouettes against the high, mud-brick wall—for the moon was behind us. Nayland Smith dropped prone again and focused the glasses…
“The Burmans,” he reported. “Dacoity has arrived.”
In tense silence we watched this second party receive admittance as the first had done. And now I recognized the word. It was Si-Fan!… Again the great iron-studded door was closed.
“We don’t know how many may be there already,” said Petrie. “Possibly those people we saw in the café—”
“Silence!” Smith snapped.
As he spoke, a tall man dressed in European clothes but wearing no hat appeared around the corner of the wall and approached the door. He had a lithe, swinging carriage.
