by Sax Rohmer
“‘Where is he?’ I demanded.
“Fah Lo Suee smiled a mocking smile, and:
“‘You must be patient,’ she replied. ‘They have to bring him a long way.’
“I pocketed my pistol and contented myself with keeping an arm around her. It was a natural gesture, but one for which I was to pay a high price, as I shall tell you.”
“Two men appeared around the angle of the wall carrying a limp body. They hesitated, looking towards us. Madame raised her hand. They came on… I saw you, “Greville, lying on the sandy path at my feet, insensible.
“I continued to clutch Fah Lo Suee tightly, and now I reached for my pistol. I had detected one of the Negro bearers looking across my shoulder in a curiously significant way…”
He paused and struck a match; then:
“It was short warning,” he added, “but it might have been enough. If I had had the pistol against Fah Lo Suee’s ribs, today the world would be rid of a very dangerous devil.
“Someone dropped from the wall behind me… and a swift blow with a sandbag concluded this episode!”
Nayland Smith raised his hand reflectively to his skull.
“I woke up amid complete silence, my head singing like a kettle. I was slow to realize the facts; but when I did I was appalled. That lonely house is shunned by all, I have learned; for the Sheikh Ismail has an evil reputation as a dealer in Black Magic. I was a prisoner there. What were my chances?
“I was in a cell, Greville,”—he suddenly turned to me in the course of his ceaseless rambling walk—“some three yards square. I was lying on the hard mud floor. Not a thing had been taken from me; even my pistol remained in my belt… and the sandbag which had downed me lay close by! A subtle touch, that—But tonight I capped the jest! A window, just beyond reach, admitted light. There wasn’t a scrap of furniture in the place. It had a heavy door reinforced with iron. I was desperately thirsty… and on the ledge of the window above me, I saw a water jar standing on a tray.
“Knowing myself to be in Egypt and failing my experience of Chinese humor, I might have questioned the meaning of all this. But, looking at the lock of the door, and taking out my pistol—to, learn that the shells had been withdrawn—I knew. And I resigned myself.
“It was physically impossible to reach the water jar on the window ledge.
“I had been judged worthy of that Chinese penalty known as The Protracted Death…”
“Perhaps I groaned when these facts forced themselves upon me. You see, Greville, as we entered the saloon I had recognized another undesirable acquaintance… Ibrahîm Bey—Swâzi’s twin brother!
“I have known Swâzi Pasha for many years and in my newer capacity at Scotland Yard have had intimate dealings with him. Beyond doubt he stands between Turkey and that indeterminable menace some believe to emanate from Moscow and others from elsewhere—but which includes Turkey in its program.
“Recognizing now the fact that Ibrahîm—a cold-blooded sedition monger—was a member of the Council of Seven, I knew! Here was the clue to those mysterious movements—of which you, Weymouth, had news, and which were painfully familiar to myself in the Near and Far East.
“Swâzi Pasha was doomed!… So, likewise, was I—the one man who might have saved him!
“You tell me, Weymouth, and you also, Petrie, that you searched the Sheikh’s house from roof to cellar. One spot of cellar you overlooked—the spot in which I awakened!
“I had no means of knowing how long I had been unconscious. My wrist watch remained but had been smashed, doubtless as I fell. I had no means of learning if the raid had taken place. Two ideas were paramount. First, your fate, Greville. Second, Swâzi Pasha.
“I considered the window carefully. It was some two feet square, protected by rusty-looking iron bars, and from the nature of the light which it admitted, I determined that I was in a cellar and that the time was early morning. I determined, also, that the window was inaccessible. A careful examination of the door convinced me that I had no means of opening it. And since not a sound reached me, it was then I resigned myself to that most horrible of deaths—starvation and thirst… Thirst, with a moist jar of water standing on the ledge above me!
“From my condition I judged that only a few hours had elapsed, and I detected a sporting gesture on the part of Fah Lo Suee—a gamble characteristically Chinese. If anyone chanced to pass that way I might be rescued! All this was surmise, of course, but I decided to test it. My eyes were burning feverishly. My head throbbed madly. But otherwise I was vigorous enough. Loudly I cried for help in English and in Arabic. Then, I listened intently.
“There was no sound.
“A Buddhist-like resignation was threatening me more and more. But I was by no means disposed to abandon myself to it. To sit down was impossible, otherwise than on the floor—and I felt peculiarly limp. I leaned up against the door and weighed my chances.
“And it was at this moment that a good man announced his presence. Failing him, I shouldn’t be here tonight!
“I heard the howl of a dog!
“‘Said!’
“In that moment, Petrie,”—instinctively Nayland Smith turned to his old friend—“the face of the world changed for me! The mood of resignation passed. Standing immediately under the window, I howled a reply.
“The signal was repeated. I answered it. And two minutes later I heard Said’s voice above.
“Details are unnecessary, now. He had to go back to the car for gear and a rope. Scrambling down the shallow well with which the window communicated, he succeeded in wrenching the bars loose.
“And so I climbed out, to find myself on the fringe of the palm grove. I can’t blame you, Weymouth, for failing to discover this far-flung chamber of the Sheikh’s house. Undoubtedly it had been designed for a dungeon. I can only suppose the iron-barred door communicated with a tunnel leading to the cellars.
“My mind was made up. Beneath my monkish cowl I was an Arab, and an Arab I would remain! I was heartsick about you, Greville, but knew that I could do nothing—yet. Stamboul was my objective. The reason you failed to find the car in the gully was that I commandeered it for the overland journey to the railroad!
“I had realized the efficiency of the organization to which I was opposed. My funds were fortunately sufficient for my purpose, and I reached Stamboul a week after the raid on the house of the Sheikh Ismail. Officially, I was not present in Constantinople. But I acquainted myself with the latest news in the possession of Scotland Yard—through the medium of Kemal’s police. Acting upon this, I checked his journey in Paris. The rest you know.”
Nayland Smith ceased speaking, and:
“Something you do not know,” said Mrs. Petrie from her shadowy corner on the divan. “I have seen him—Fu-Manchu, in London, tonight!”
Nayland Smith turned to her.
“You were never at fault, Karamanèh,” he said. “Dr. Fu-Manchu occupied rooms next to those of Swâzi Pasha in Paris!”
A taxi hooted outside in Piccadilly…
PART FOUR
CHAPTER TEN
ABBOTS HOLD
“It all seems so peaceful,” said Rima, clinging very tightly to my arm; “yet somehow, Shan, I never feel safe here. Last night, as I told you, I thought I saw the Abbots Hold ghost from my window…”
“A natural thing to imagine, darling,” I replied reassuringly. “Every one of these old monastic houses has its phantom monk! But, even if authentic, no doubt he’d be a jovial fellow.”
As is the fashion of such autumn disturbances, a storm which had been threatening all the evening hovered to the west, blackly. Remote peals of thunder there had been during dinner, and two short but heavy showers. Now, although angry cloud banks were visible in the distance, immediately overhead the sky was cloudless.
We sauntered on through the kitchen garden. A constant whispering in the trees told of moisture dripping from leaf to leaf. But the air was sweet and the path already dry. Rima’s unrest was no matter for wonde
r, considering the experiences she had passed through. And when Sir Lionel had suggested our leaving London for the peace of his place in Norfolk, no one had welcomed the idea more heartily than I. In spite of intense activity on the part of Inspector Yale and his associates, all trace of Madame Ingomar—and of her yet more formidable father—had vanished.
But Nayland Smith considered that Sir Lionel, having served Fah Lo Suee’s purpose—might now be considered safe from molestation and we had settled down in Abbots Hold for a spell of rest.
“The queer thing is,” Rima went on, a deep earnest note coming into her voice, “that since Sir Denis joined us I have felt not more but less secure!”
“That’s very curious,” I murmured, “because I’ve had an extraordinary feeling of the sort, myself.”
“I suppose I’m very jumpy,” Rima confessed, “But did you notice that family of gypsies who’ve camped beyond the plantation?”
“Yes, dear. I passed them today. I saw a boy—rather a good-looking boy he seemed to be, but I was some distance off—and an awful old hag of a woman. Do they worry you?”
Rima laughed, unnaturally.
“Not really. I haven’t seen the boy. But the woman and man I met in the lane simply gave me the creeps—”
She broke off; then:
“Oh, Shan! What’s that!” she whispered.
A deep purring sound came to my ears—continuous and strange. For a moment I stood still, whilst Rima’s fingers clung close to mine. Then an explanation occurred to me.
Not noticing our direction, we had reached the corner of a sort of out-house connected by a covered passage with part of the servants’ quarters.
“You understand now, darling,” I said, and drew Rima forward to an iron-barred window.
Bright moonlight made the interior visible; and coiled on the floor, his wicked little head raised to watch us, lay a graceful catlike creature whose black-spotted coat of gold gleamed through the dusk.
It was Sir Lionel’s Indian cheetah—although fairly tame, at times a dangerous pet. Practical zoology had always been one of the chief’s hobbies.
“Oh, thank heaven!” Rima exclaimed, looking down into the beautiful savage eyes which were raised to hers—“I might have guessed! But I never heard him purring before.”
“He is evidently in a good humor,” I said, as the great cat, with what I suppose was a friendly snarl, stood up with slow, feline grace, yawned, snarled again, and seemed to collapse wearily on the floor. The idea flashed through my mind that it was not a bad imitation of a drunken man!
This idea was even better than I realized at the time.
We walked on, round the west wing of the rambling old building, and finally entered the library by way of the French windows. Sir Lionel had certainly changed the atmosphere of this room. The spacious apartment with its oak-paneled walls and the great ceiling beams displayed the influence of the Orientalist in the form of numberless Eastern relics and curiosities, which seemed strangely out of place. Memories of the cloister clung more tenaciously here— the old refectory—than to any other room in Abbots Hold.
A magnificent Chinese lacquer cabinet, fully six feet high, which stood like a grotesque sentry box just below the newel post of the staircase struck perhaps the most blatant discord of all.
The library was empty, but I could hear the chiefs loud voice in the study upstairs, and I knew that Nayland Smith was there with him. Petrie and his wife had been expected to dinner, but they had telephoned from Norwich to notify us that they would be detained overnight, owing to engine trouble.
Mrs. Oram, Sir Lionel’s white-haired old housekeeper, presently came in; and leaving her chatting with Rima, I went up the open oak staircase and joined the chief in his study.
“Hullo, old scout!” he greeted me as I entered. “If you’re going to work with me in future, you’ll either have to chuck Rima or marry her!”
He was standing on the hearth rug, dominating that small room which was so laden with relics of his extensive and unusual travels that it resembled the shop of a very untidy antique dealer.
Nayland Smith, seated on a corner of the littered writing table, was tugging at the lobe of his left ear and staring critically at the big brown-skinned man with his untidy, gray-white hair and keen blue eyes who was England’s most intrepid explored and foremost Orientalist. It was a toss-up which of these two contained the more volcanic energy.
“Smith’s worried,” Sir Lionel went on in his loud, rapid manner. “He thinks our Chinese friends are up to their monkey tricks again and he doesn’t like Petrie’s delay.”
“I don’t,” snapped Nayland Smith. “It may be an accident. But, coming tonight, I wonder—”
“Why tonight?” I asked.
Nayland Smith stared at me intently; then:
“Because tonight I caught a glimpse of the Abbots Hold ghost.”
“Rot!” shouted Sir Lionel.
“The monk?” I asked excitedly.
Nayland Smith shook his head.
“No! Didn’t look like a monk to me,” he said.
“And I don’t believe in ghosts!” he added.
When I rejoined Rima, her restless mood had grown more marked.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Shan,” she said. “Dear old Mrs. Oram has gone to bed; and although I could hear your voices in the study I felt quite ridiculously nervous. I’m terribly disappointed about the Petries.”
During their short acquaintance Rima and Mrs. Petrie had established one of those rare feminine friendships which a man can welcome. In Mrs. Petrie’s complex character there was a marked streak of Oriental mysticism—although from her appearance I should never have suspected Eastern blood; and Rima had that Celtic leaning towards a fairyland beyond the common ken which was part and parcel of her birthright.
“So am I, darling,” I said. “But they’ll be here in the morning. Have you been imagining things again?” I glanced at the French windows. “Peters has locked up, I see. So you can’t have been nervous about gypsies!”
It was strange that Rima, who had shared our queer life out in the Valley of the Kings, should be so timorous in a Norfolk country house; should fear wandering gypsies who had never feared Bedouins!
“No.” She looked at me in her serious way, apparently reading my thoughts. “I’m not afraid of gypsies—really. I have spent too many nights out there in the wâdi in Egypt to be afraid of anything like that. It is a sort of silly, unreal fear, Shan! Will you please do something?”
“Anything! What?”
Rima pointed to the Chinese cabinet at the foot of the stairs.
“Please open it!”
I crossed to the ornate piece of furniture and flung its gold-lined doors open. The cabinet was empty—as I had expected.
Rima thanked me with a smile, and:
“I’ve been fighting a horrible temptation to do just that,” she confessed, “for a long time! Thank you, Shan dear. Don’t think I’m mad but, truly,”—she held out the book she had had on her knees— “for ever so long past I have been sitting here reading and rereading this one line—and glancing sideways at the cabinet. You seemed to wake me out of a trance!”
I took the book—a modern novel—and glanced at the line upon which Rima’s finger rested. It was:
“I am near you…”
“Could anything be more absurd?” she asked, pathetically. “What’s wrong with me?”
I could find no answer, then—except a lover’s answer. But I was to learn later.
When at last we said goodnight, I noticed as Rima stood up that she had a scent spray on the cushions beside her, and laughingly:
“What’s the idea?” I asked.
She considered my question in an oddly serious way. In fact, her mood was distrait in an unusual degree; but finally:
“I had almost forgotten,” she replied, with a faraway look; “but I remember, now, that there was a fusty smell, like decaying leaves. I thought a whiff of eau-de-Cologne would freshe
n the air.”
My room was on the southwest front of Abbots Hold. It was one of those in the Georgian wing, and an ugly stone balcony stretched along before it. Beneath this balcony ran a sort of arcade behind which iron-barred windows belonging to the domestic quarters faced on sloping lawns. Above were these fine, spacious rooms reserved for guests, and the prospect was magnificent. Next to me was Nayland Smith; then there was a vacant room, and then Rima’s.
On entering I did not turn up the light. There was a private plant in Abbots Hold installed by Sir Lionel. But, groping my way across, I raised the blind and looked out.
Opening the French window, I inhaled the fragrance of moist loam and newly wetted leaves. Away on the right I had a view of a corner of the terrace; directly before me the ground dropped steeply to a belt of trees bordering the former moat; beyond, it rose again, and two miles away, upstanding weirdly beyond distant park land, showed a ruined tower, one of the local landmarks, and a relic of Norman days.
At first my survey of the prospect was general and vague; indeed, I had opened the window more to enjoy the coolness of the night air and to think about Rima than for any other reason. But now, suddenly, my entire interest became focused upon the ruined tower rising ghostly above surrounding trees.
Clearly visible against a stormy backing, one little point of light high up in the tower appeared and disappeared like a winking eye!
I clenched my teeth, craning out and watching intently. A code message was being transmitted from the tower! For a while I watched it, but I had forgotten Morse, and the dots and dashes defeated me. Then came inspiration: someone in Abbots Hold must be receiving this message!
Instant upon the birth of the theory, I acted.
The geography of the neighborhood, which I knew fairly well, told me that this message could only be intended for Abbots Hold. Neglectful of the fact that the leaves were drenched with rain, I quickly got astride of the ledge and began to climb down the ivy to the shrubbery beneath.
I dropped into wet bushes without other mishap than the saturating of my dinner kit, and keeping well within the shadow of the house I began to work my way round in the direction of the terrace. I passed the dining room, glancing up at the rooms above it, and proceeded. The whole house was in darkness.
