by Sax Rohmer
“It is reported that Danger Number One—I hear you hiss, my friend—invariably sleeps with his windows open. Sacrifice ten more of our little friends. See that he does not sleep alone tonight.”
“My lord, I have no one who could undertake the work. If I had Ali Khan or Quong Wah, or any one of our old servants. But I have none. What can I do in this uncivilized land to which my lord has exiled me?”
Several moments of silence followed. The long ivory hands with their incredible nails, beautiful even in their cruelty, rested motionless upon the table, then:
“Await orders,” said the imperious, guttural voice.
Another button was depressed and there was silence. The pencil of smoke rising from the incense burner was growing more and more faint. Dr. Fu-Manchu opened his eyes, staring straight before him; his eyes were green as emeralds, glittering gems reflecting an inexorable will. His right hand moved to a small switchboard. He inserted a plug, and presently a spot of red light indicated that he was connected.
“Is that ‘A’ New York?”
“Kern Adler here.”
“You know to whom you are speaking?”
“Yes. What can I do for you, President?” The voice was unctuous but nervous.
“We have not yet met,” the imperious tone continued, “but I assume, otherwise I should not have appointed you, that you can command the services of the New York underworld?”
There was a perceptible pause before Kern Adler replied.
“If you would tell me, President, exactly what you want, I should be better able to answer.”
“I want the man called Peter Carlo. Find him for me. I will then give you further instructions.”
Another pause…
“I can find him, President,” the nervous voice replied, “but only through Blondie Hahn.”
“I distrust this man Hahn. You have recommended him, but I have not yet accepted him. I have my reasons. However, speak to him now. You know my wishes. Report to me when they can be carried out.”
The red light continued to glow; one yellow finger pressed a small switch with the result that the office of Kern Adler, Attorney, and one of the biggest survivors of the underworld clean-up, seemed to become acoustically translated to the study of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Adler could be heard urgently calling a number; and presently he got it.
“Hello, Kern,” came a coarse voice; “want the boss, I guess. Hold on; I’ll get him.” There was an interval during which dim sounds of dance music penetrated to the incense-laden room, then:
“Hello, Kern,” came in a deep bass; “what’s new with you?”
“Listen, Blondie. I’m telling you something. If you want a quiet life you have to fall into line. I mean it. It’ll be good for your health to go to work again. Either you come in right now or you stay right out. I want something done tonight—you have got to do it.”
“Listen to me, Kern. You’ve spilled a mouthful. But what you don’t seem to know is this: you’ve been washed-up—and you figure you’re still afloat. You’re stone dead but you won’t lie down. Come clean and I’ll talk to you. I’m standing all ready, on my two big feet. I don’t need your protection.”
“I want ‘Fly’ Carlo, and I’m prepared to pay for him. He has to get busy tonight. President’s orders—”
“President nothing! But listen—you can have Carlo, when I hold the pay roll. That’s my terms now and always. What’s the figure? Carlo will cost the President (like hell he’s President!) all of two thousand dollars. He can only get him through me. I’m his sole agent and my rake-off is my own pidgin.”
“Your terms are ridiculous, Blondie. Talk sense.”
“I’m talking sense all right. And I’ve got something very particular to say to you.” The deep, gruff voice was menacing. “Somebody got busy among my records last night while I was at a party. If I thought it was you, I’d steal you away from your girl friends, little man. Next time you wrote a love letter it’d be with a quill from an angel’s wing.”
At which moment Kern Adler’s line became suddenly disconnected.
“Hello there!” Hahn bawled. “You cut me off! What in hell—”
His protests were silenced. A guttural voice came across the wires:
“You have been put through to me—the President… Paul Erckmann Hahn—I believe this is your name?—you possess a certain brute force which attracts me. You are crude; but you might possibly be used.”
“Used?” Hahn’s voice sounded stifled. “Listen—”
“When I speak, it is you who must listen. The person who got busy among your records, as you term it, was one of my own agents—in no way connected with Kern Adler. I learned much that I had wished to know about you, Mr. Hahn…”
“Is that so?” came a bull-like bellow. “Then listen, pet!—You’re a Chink if I ever heard one. That tells me plenty. I’ve been checking up on you. The ‘G’ men are right on your tail, yellow baby. Centre Street has got your fingerprints, and Hoover knows your toenails by sight. You’re using an old hide-out in Chinatown, and there’s a blue-eyed boy from Britain on the trail. You’re in up to the ears, President. You’ll need me badly to save your scalp. Adler can’t do it. He’s out of print. Come up to date and talk terms.”
Long ivory fingers remained quite motionless upon the table. Dr. Fu-Manchu’s eyes were closed.
“Your remarks impress me,” he said softly, sibilantly. “I feel that you are indispensable to my plans. By all means let us talk terms. The matter is urgent…”
* * *
Mark Hepburn tried, and tried in vain, to sleep. The image of a woman haunted him. He had checked her up as far as possible. He thought that he had her record fairly complete.
She was the widow of a United States naval officer. Her husband had been killed in the Philippines three years before.
There was one child of the marriage—a boy. In fact, the credentials with which she had come to Abbot Donegal were authentic in every way. A thousand times, day and night, he had found himself in an imaginary world sweeter than reality—looking into those deep blue eyes. He found it impossible to believe that this woman would stoop to anything criminal. He would not entertain the idea despite damning facts against her.
He wanted to hear evidence for the defense, and he was fully prepared to take it seriously. In all his investigations he hoped yet feared to come across her. He wondered if at last he had fallen in love—and with a worthless woman. Her flight on that night from the Tower of the Holy Thorn; the fact she had been endeavoring to smuggle away the incriminating manuscript which explained the collapse of Abbot Donegal: these things required explanation. Yet the official record of Moya Eileen Adair, as far as he traced it, indicated that she was a young gentlewoman of unblemished character;
She came from County Wicklow, in Ireland; her father, Commander Breon, was still serving with the British navy. She had met her late husband during the visit of an American fleet to Bermuda, where she had been staying with relatives. He was of Irish descent; he, too, was a man of the sea, and they had been married before the American fleet sailed. All this Mark Hepburn had learned in the space of a few days, employing those wonderful resources at his disposal. Now, tossing wearily on his bed, he challenged himself: Had he been justified in instructing more than twenty agents, in expending nearly a thousand dollars in radio and cable messages, to secure this information?
The fate of the country was kept spinning in the air by those who juggled with lives. Sane men prayed that the Constitution should stand foursquare; others believed that its remodeling as preached by Dr. Prescott would form the foundations of a new Utopia. Others, more mad, saw in the dictatorship of Harvey Bragg a Golden Age for all… And the Abbot of Holy Thorn held a choir of seven million voices in check awaiting the baton of his rhetoric.
Bribery and corruption gnawed rat-like into the very foundations of the State; murder, insolent, stalked the city streets… And he, Mark Hepburn, expended his energies tracing the history of one woman. As he
lay tossing upon his pillow the whole-hearted enthusiasm of Sir Denis Nayland Smith became a reproach.
Then, suddenly, he sprang upright in bed, repeater in hand.
The door of his room had been opened very quietly…
“Hands up!” he rasped. “Quick!”
“Not so loud, Hepburn, not so loud.”
It was Nayland Smith.
“Sir Denis!”
Smith was crossing the room in his direction.
“I don’t want to arouse Fey,” the incisive but guarded tones continued. “He has had a trying day. But it’s our job, Hepburn. Don’t make any noise; just slip along with me to my room… Bring the gun.”
In silence, pyjama-clad, barefooted, Hepburn went along the corridor, turning right just before reaching the vestibule. In the room occupied by Nayland Smith the atmosphere was perceptibly cooler. The windows were wide open; heavy curtains were drawn widely apart; a prospect of a million lights gleamed far below; the muted roar of New York’s ceaseless traffic rose like rumbling of distant thunder.
“Close the door.”
Mark Hepburn closed the door behind him as he entered.
“You will notice,” Nayland Smith continued, “that I have not been smoking for some time, although I have been wide awake. I was afraid of the glow from my pipe.”
“Why?”
“For this reason, Hepburn. Our brilliant enemy has become a slave of routine. It is now almost a habit with him to test his death-agents upon someone else, and if the result is satisfactory to try them on me…”
“I’m not too clear about what you mean—”
“I mean that unless I am greatly mistaken, I am about to be subjected to an attempt upon my life by Dr. Fu-Manchu!”
“What! But you are forty stories up from the street!”
“We shall see. You may remember that I deduced the arrival of certain weapons in the Doctor’s armory from circumstances connected with the death of Richet…”
“I remember. But a long night’s work was wasted.”
“Part of our trade,” rapped Nayland Smith dryly. “You will notice, Hepburn—there is ample reflected light—two trunks upon the top of a chest of drawers set against the wall on your left. Climb up and hide yourself behind the trunks—I have placed a chair for the purpose. Your job is to watch the windows but not to be seen—”
“Good God!” Hepburn whispered, and clutched Smith’s arm.
“What is it?”
“There’s someone in your bed!”
“There’s no one in my bed, Hepburn, nor is there any time to waste. This job is life or death. Get to your post.”
Mark Hepburn rallied his resources: that shock of discovering the apparent presence of someone in the bed had shaken him. But now he was idly cool again, cool as Nayland Smith. He climbed on to the chest of drawers, curled up there behind the trunks, although space was limited, in such a manner that he had a view of the windows while remaining invisible from anyone in the room. This achieved:
“Where are you, Sir Denis?” he asked, speaking in a low voice.
“Also entrenched, Hepburn. Do nothing until I give the word. And now listen…”
Mark Hepburn began to listen. Clearly he sensed that the menace came from the windows, although its nature was a mystery to him. He heard the hooting of taxis the eerie wail which denotes that the Fire Department is out, the concerted whine of motor engines innumerable. Then, more intimately, these sounds becoming a background, he heard something else…
It was a very faint noise but a very curious one; almost it might have been translated as the impact of some night bird, or of a bat, against the stone face of the building…
He listened intently, aware of the fact that his heartbeats had accelerated. He allowed his glance to wander for a moment in quest of Nayland Smith. Presently, accustomed now to the peculiar light of the room, he detected him. He was crouching on a glass-topped bureau, set just right of the window, holding what Hepburn took to be a sawn-off shotgun in his hand.
Then again Hepburn directed the whole of his attention to the windows.
Clearly outlined against a sullen sky he could see one of New York’s tallest buildings. Only three of its many windows showed any light: one at the very top, just beneath the cupola, and two more in the dome itself which crowned the tall, slender structure. Tensed as he was, listening, waiting, for what was to come, the thought flashed through his mind: Who lived in those high, lonely rooms—who was awake there at this hour?
Another curious light was visible from where he lay—a red glow somewhere away to the left towards the river; a constantly changing light of which he could see only the outer halo. Then a moving blur appeared far below, and a rumbling sound told him that a train was passing…
Suddenly, unexpectedly, a sharp silhouette obscured much of this dim nocturne…
Something out of that exotic background belonging to the man who, alone, shared this vigil tonight, had crept up between the distant twinkling lights and Mark Hepburn’s view.
Vaguely he realized that the phenomenon was due to the fact that someone, miraculously, had climbed the face of the building, or part of it, and now, as he saw, was supporting himself upon the ledge. There was a moment of tense silence. It was followed by activity on the part of the invader perched perilously outside. A light, yellow-muffled, shone into the room, its searching ray questing around, to rest finally for a moment upon the bed.
Mark Hepburn held his breath; almost, he betrayed his presence.
The appearance of the disordered bed suggested that a sleeper, sheets drawn up right over his head, lay there!
“Dr. Fu-Manchu has become a slave of routine”—Nayland Smith’s words echoed in Hepburn’s mind. “It is almost a habit with him to test his death-agents upon someone else, and if the result is satisfactory to try them on me.”
The shadowy silhouette perched upon the window ledge projected some kind of slender telescopic rod into the room. It stretched out towards the bed… Upon it depended what looked like a square box. The rod was withdrawn. The visitor accomplished this with a minimum of noise. Hepburn, his ears attuned for the welcome word of command, watched. An invisible line was wound in, tautened, and jerked. Suddenly came a loud and insistent hissing, and:
“Shoot!” snapped the voice of Nayland Smith. “Shoot that man, Hepburn!”
* * *
The shadowy shape at the window had not moved from that constrained, crouching attitude—two enormous hands, which appeared to be black, rested on the window ledge—when Mark Hepburn fired—once, twice… The sinister silhouette disappeared; that strange hissing continued; the muted roar of New York carried on.
Yet, automatic dropped beside him, fists clenched, he listened so intently, so breathlessly, that he heard it…
A dull thud in some courtyard far below.
“Don’t move, Hepburn,” came Nayland Smith’s crisp command. “Don’t stir until I give the word!”
An indeterminable odor became perceptible—chemical, nauseating…
“Sir Denis!”
It was the voice of Fey.
“Don’t come in, Fey!” cried Nayland Smith. “Don’t open the door!”
“Very good, sir.”
Only a very keen observer would have recognized the note of emotion in Fey’s almost toneless voice.
The hissing noise continued.
“This is terrible!” Hepburn exclaimed. “Sir Denis! what has happened?”
The hissing ceased: Hepburn had identified it now.
“There’s a switch on your right,” came swiftly. “See if you can reach it, but stay where you are.”
Hepburn, altering his position, reached out, found the switch, and depressed it. Lights sprang up. He turned—and saw Nayland Smith poised on top of the bureau. The strange weapon which vaguely he had seen in the darkness proved to be a large syringe fitted with a long nozzle.
The air was heavy with a sickly sweet smell suggesting at once iodine and ether.
>
He looked towards the bed… and would have sworn that a figure lay under the coverlet—a sheet drawn up over its face! On the pillow and beside the place where the sleeper’s head seemed to lie rested a small wooden box no more than half the size of those made to contain cigars. One of the narrow sides—that which faced him—was open.
There seemed to be a number of large black spots upon the pillow…
“It’s possible,” said Nayland Smith, staring across the room, “that I missed the more active. I doubt it. But we must be careful.”
Above the muted midnight boom of New York, sounds of disturbance, far below, became audible.
“I’m glad you didn’t miss our man, Hepburn!” rapped Nayland Smith, dropping on to the carpeted floor.
“I have been trained to shoot straight,” Mark Hepburn replied monotonously.
Nayland Smith nodded.
“He deserved all that came to him. I faked the bed when I heard his approach… Jump into a suit and rejoin me in the sitting-room. We shall be wanted down there at any moment…”
Three minutes later they both stood staring at a row of black insects laid upon a sheet of white paper. The reek of iodine and ether was creeping in from the adjoining bedroom. Fey, at a side table, prepared whiskies imperturbably. He was correctly dressed except for two trifling irregularities: his collar was that of a pyjama jacket, and he wore bedroom slippers.
“This is your province, Hepburn,” said Nayland Smith. “These things are outside my experience. But you will note that they are quite dead, with their legs curled up. The preparation I used in the syringe is a simple formula by my old friend Petrie: he found it useful in Egypt… Thank you, Fey.”
Mark Hepburn studied the dead insects through a hand-lens. Shrunken up as they were by the merciless spray which had destroyed them, upon their dense black bodies he clearly saw vivid scarlet spots—“Scarlet spots”—the last words spoken by James Richet!
“What are they, Hepburn?”
“I’m not sure. They belong to the genus Latrodectus. The malmignatte of Italy is a species, and the American Black Widow spider; but these are larger. Their bite is probably deadly.”
