by Sax Rohmer
On the stroke of eight, a Chinese girl came in through a doorway facing that by which visitors entered. She wore national dress and had a grace of movement which reminded Camille of a gazelle. Clasping her hands on her breast, she bowed.
“If you will be pleased to follow me,” she said.
Camille followed her, across a large salon decorated with miniature reproductions of classic statuary and paintings of flawless nudity. There were richly cushioned settees, desks provided with the latest periodicals, softly shaded lamps. She began to understand that Professor Hoffmeyer was a luxury reserved for the wives and concubines of commercial sultans, and to wonder if Mrs. Frobisher had any idea of her salary.
From here they passed along a tiled corridor between cubicles resembling those in a Pompeian bath. There were medical odors mingling with all those perfumes peculiar to a beauty parlor.
There had been no one in the salon, and there was no one in any of the cubicles.
The journey ended in an office which, unlike the other apartments, conformed with Camille’s idea of what a consultant’s establishment should be. There was a large, neat desk. One of the drawers was open, as if someone had been seated there only a moment before. A number of scientific books filled a heavy mahogany case. On the right of this was an opening which evidently communicated with another room.
Camille’s Chinese guide clasped her hands on her breast, bowed, and retired.
The place possessed a faint, sweetish smell. It awakened some dormant memory. Then a voice spoke, the voice of someone in the dimly lighted room beyond.
“Be so good as to enter.”
Camille’s mind, her spirit, rose in revolt. Suddenly she was fired by one impulse only—to escape. But she seemed to be incapable of attempting escape. Those words were a command she found herself helpless to disobey.
Slowly, with lagging steps, she walked in. Her movements made no sound on a thick carpet. It was an apartment Orientally furnished. There were arched openings in which lanterns hung. She saw painted screens, lacquer. But these were sketchy, a pencilled background for a figure seated behind a long, narrow table.
He wore a yellow robe; his chin rested on his hands, his elbows on the table. And his glittering green eyes claimed and owned her.
Camille stifled a scream, turned—and the opening through which she had come in was no longer there; only a beautifully wrought lacquer panel. She twisted back, fighting down hysteria. Her glance took in the whole room.
“Yes,” the sibilant voice assured her, “you are not mistaken, Miss Navarre… you have been here before.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“The greatest compliment ever paid to me,” said Nayland Smith grimly. “Dr. Fu-Manchu considers I am more useful alive than dead!”
Morris Craig, seated, back to the desk, watched that lean, restless figure parading the office. Smith’s hat and topcoat lay on the settee, his pipe bubbled between his small, even teeth. He looked gaunt, but his steps were springy, his eyes clear.
“I can only repeat—it’s a miracle you’re alive.”
“I suppose it is. Mysterious news of the pending raid on Huan Tsung’s led to a postponement of the treatment prescribed. Otherwise, I should have been found, certifiably dead, in that ghastly coffin. Failing the raid, I should by now be on my way to China.”
“Do you think the headquarters of this thing are in China?”
“No,” rapped Smith. “In Tibet. In a completely inaccessible spot. Lhasa is not the only secret city in Asia—nor Everest the highest mountain. But leave that. I want certain facts.”
Craig lighted a cigarette which he had been holding for some time between his fingers.
“You shall have them. But there are certain facts I want, too. I’m not immune from human curiosity, even if I have harnessed a force new to physics. When the police found you last night, what about this fellow, Huan Tsung?”
Nayland Smith smiled. It was a smile of pure enjoyment. He pulled up, facing Craig.
“Huan Tsung, ex-governor of a Chinese province, and a prominent member of the Council of Seven, I had met before. He blandly denied any recollection of the meeting. As I had clearly been delivered at his shop during the evening in a crate, and taken into an adjoining cellar, Harkness and the commissioner proposed to arrest him.”
“I should have proposed ditto.”
“On what charge?” rapped Smith. “There are witnesses—including a police officer—to testify that he was not at home during the time I was being interviewed by Dr. Fu-Manchu—”
“But you tell me he doubled with Fu-Manchu—”
“Undoubtedly he did. But how can we prove it? A scholarly, elderly gentleman who claims to be French Canadian occupies the apartment on lower Fifth Avenue which Huan Tsung visited last night. They are old friends, it seems. They were discussing the political situation in China, and Huan Tsung returned to Pell Street for some correspondence bearing on the subject.”
“But Smith—you were found in his cellar!”
“It isn’t his cellar, Craig. Remember, the police broke into it. And the man to whom it really belongs is out of town! Lastly, the shopman, a cultured liar, produced an invoice for the contents of the crate in which I was brought there from wherever I had been before!”
“But you say you recognized Huan Tsung?”
“Certainly. But he blandly assures me I am mistaken. He had the impudence to point out that to the Western eye, Chinese faces look much alike. Had he had the privilege of meeting me before, he said, such an honor couldn’t possibly have escaped his memory!”
“Do you mean to say he’s going to get away with it?”
“For the time being, I’m afraid he is. Mr. La Fosse of lower Fifth Avenue, who is undoubtedly in Fu-Manchu’s employ, declares that he never even heard of such a person. Of course, the police will watch them closely, as astronomers watch a new comet. Their lines are tapped already.”
“And what about those damned injections? Do you feel no ill effects?”
“None whatever. You must accept the fact, Craig, that Dr. Fu-Manchu has a knowledge of medicine which is generations ahead of anything known to Western science. And now, waste no more of my time. Listen—”
The big clock above the desk sounded its single note. Eight o’clock. The office door opened and Regan came in. His dour face wore an odd expression.
“I may be mistaken,” he said, “but I fancy I saw a pair of tough-looking lads loafing outside the private door downstairs.”
Nayland Smith laughed. “Part of my bodyguard!”
“Oh,” said Regan. “That’s it, is it?”
“We are invested,” murmured Craig. “A beleaguered garrison. Look well to your armour, gentlemen, and let your swords be bright—”
Regan nodded unhumorously and going up the steps, unlocked the laboratory door. Eerie vibrations invaded the office. His figure showed outlined for a moment against green light. Then the door was closed as he went in.
“I want to know,” rapped Nayland Smith, “when you will be finished.”
“Tonight.”
“Sure?”
“Perfectly sure.”
“I thought as much. Even allowing an hour for dinner?”
Craig brushed his hair back, staring.
“I’m stopping for no dinner.”
Nayland Smith smiled again.
“Craig, I begin to agree with Dr. Fu-Manchu, who informed me that you are what he described as ‘touched with genius.’ I don’t want you to confirm his diagnosis by dying young. I have booked a table at a quiet restaurant. Until you are dragged away from that desk, your abstraction is deplorable. And there are many important things I want to tell you.”
“Won’t they keep?”
“No. And by the way, I miss the invaluable Sam.”
“The said invaluable has twenty-four hours’ leave. His mother is ill in Philadelphia. Result, that for the first time in days I can go out for a drink without being tailed by a shadow in a peaked cap!”
“Oh!” rapped Smith, and gave Craig a steely glance. “Sorry to hear it.”
The laboratory yawned again, and Shaw stepped out. He stood at the top of the steps for a moment looking down. The chief technician had the heavy frame of an open-air man who has come indoors, a mass of unruly blond hair, and a merry eye. “Just off, Shaw?” Craig called. “You don’t know my masterful friend, Sir Denis Nayland Smith? On my right, Masterful Smith; on my left, Martin Shaw.”
Shaw came down and shook hands.
“Free man until midnight,” he said. “Then back to the bloody juggernaut that lives in there!” He turned to Craig. “If you had that valve detail ready tonight, I believe I could fit up the transmuter in time for tests on, say, Monday.”
“Do you?” Craig replied, and grinned like a schoolboy. “Has no thought crossed the massive brain to file a will before that date?”
Shaw nodded. “It has, Doctor. Rests with you. But if we can keep the cork in when we really fill the bottle, well—”
He went out, giving an imitation of a man under heavy fire. As the office door closed:
“Our convoy awaits!” said Nayland Smith. “Let’s move.”
“Stop ordering me about,” Craig exclaimed in mock severity. “Oh, I give up the unequal contest.”
He called the laboratory.
“Regan here.”
“I regret to state, Regan, that I am being forcibly removed to some restaurant to dine.”
“Good thing, too.”
“Repeat.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh, well, I shall be back at nine. Want to see me before I go?”
“No, Doctor. Enjoy your dinner.”
Craig carried his drawing board, and his notes, across to the safe. When they were locked away, he glanced towards the door of Camille’s room.
“She’s out,” said Smith drily. “I passed her as I came in.”
* * *
They were already speeding along in a police car, two F.B.I. men following in another, when Camille faced Dr. Fu-Manchu across the bizarre study.
“You have been here before,” the harsh voice had said. And, in a moment of cold horror, which seemed to check her heartbeats, Camille knew this to be true. Her dream had haunted her so persistently that she had spoken to Morris, warned him to change the safe combination; for in her waste-basket she had found those fragments of a torn-up note. And although she had spent hours trying to piece the fragments together, and had failed, she knew that the paper on which the note was written came from the Huston Electric office.
Now—the man, the inscrutable, dreadful face of the man, every detail surrounding him, told her that the dream had been no dream, but a memory recaptured in sleep.
She had come to the appointment with Professor Hoffmeyer wearing her dark-rimmed glasses. At this moment the incongruity of her appearance in such an environment struck her forcibly.
One angle of the room was occupied by shelves filled with volumes, some of them large with faded leather bindings. Then came the lacquer panel. This, she knew, masked an opening through which she had entered. Beyond it a curtain partly concealed a recess. There was an arched doorway in which a silk-shaded lantern hung.
A cushioned divan rose like an island in a sea of rugs. There were two strangely shaped mediaeval chairs.
A long black table bore books, open manuscripts, jars which apparently contained specimens of some kind, and a mummied head mounted on a wooden base. The dim light of a green lamp just outlined a crystal globe eclipsed in shadow.
And behind the table, hands with attenuated nails crossed under his chin, was the Man….
“Please sit down.”
His half-closed eyes glanced sideways in the direction of the divan. He did not stir, otherwise.
Camille, fighting a desperate battle for calmness, for sanity, remained standing. She stared challengingly at the motionless figure. Her throat was dry, but when she spoke, her soft voice did not betray her.
“I came to consult Professor Hoffmeyer. Who are you?”
He remained immobile. When he replied, Camille could not see that the thin lips moved.
“I am accustomed to asking questions, Miss Navarre, not to answering them. But I must make a concession in the case of a fellow scientist—and one whose courage I respect. I am known as Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
“Dr. Fu-Manchu!” she whispered.
“I believe you have been warned against me. I regret that, like the straying husbands, I should be so misunderstood, that the world should think badly of me.”
“But what are you doing here? If Mrs. Frobisher knew—”
“If Mrs. Frobisher knew what? That Professor Hoffmeyer is Dr. Fu-Manchu, or that Camille Navarre is employed by the intelligence service of an alien government? To which eventuality do you refer?”
“What do you say? What are you suggesting?”
“I suggest nothing. I ask a question. Mrs. Frobisher made the appointment for tonight because I told her to do so—”
“You mean that Mrs. Frobisher knows?”
“Mrs. Frobisher does not know anything. Few women do. But I believe that her husband might react unfavorably if he knew you to be an agent of Great Britain.”
Camille’s heart was throbbing wildly, but she had been trained to face the worst. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it is true.” Slowly Dr. Fu-Manchu stood up. “Your employers are within their rights in seeking to learn the nature of those experiments being carried out in the Huston laboratory. We live in a dangerous age. I admire them for their ingenious removal to a better post of Dr. Craig’s former assistant, and for providing you with the necessary credentials to take her place.”
He was walking around the corner of the long, narrow table, and coming nearer. He had a catlike step.
“My credentials are my own.”
“Indeed. And where did you acquire them?”
“Is that your business?”
Fear (the tall, yellow-robed figure was very close now) made her defiant.
“And where did you acquire them?” he repeated in a low, sibilant tone.
“I graduated at the Sorbonne.”
“I congratulate you. These are details I had no time to gather at our former interview. And did you carry out intelligence work during the war?”
“I worked with the Resistance.” Camille spoke faintly. “In Grenoble.”
Dr. Fu-Manchu returned to his seat behind the long table. “Again, accept my congratulations. You speak perfect English.”
“My mother was English.”
Camille sank down on the divan. She was terrified, but her brain remained cool. One thing was clear. During that hiatus which had cost her so many sleepless nights, she must have been here. How had she got here? And why, except in a dream, had she completely forgotten all that happened? Above all, what had happened?…
Camille clutched the cushions convulsively.
A quivering, metallic sound, like that of a distant sistrum, stirred the silence.
The crystal was coming to life. A radiance as of moonlight glowed and grew within it. For a moment it seemed cloudy, resembling a huge opal. Then the clouds dispersed, and a face materialized.
Camille thought, at first, that it was the living face of the Egyptian whose mummied head stood on the table, so yellow and wrinkled were its lineaments. But it soon declared itself as that of a very old Chinese.
“I have the report, Excellency.”
The voice was clear, but seemed to come from a long way off.
“Repeat it.”
Dr. Fu-Manchu was watching the face in the crystal. A sudden urge to run flamed up in Camille’s mind. She glanced swiftly right and left, and then:
“Remain where you are,” came a harsh command. “There are no means of leaving this room without my permission. Continue, Huan Tsung.”
“Nayland Smith and Dr. Craig are in the restaurant. Contact is impossible. There is an F.B.I. bodyguard at the d
oors. All my incoming messages are overheard. Therefore this was sent to me in the Shan dialect.”
There came a momentary silence, in which Camille realized that she was not witnessing a supernatural phenomenon, but some hitherto unknown form of television; and then:
“I have one hour,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “in which to make the first move.”
The face in the crystal faded slowly, like a mirage. The moonlight died away. As Dr. Fu-Manchu turned his intolerable regard upon her again, Camille stood up.
“I want to know,” she said, “why I have been trapped into coming here. Perhaps you think you can force me to betray Dr. Craig’s secrets to you?”
“Were you not prepared to betray them to the British government?” he asked softly.
“Perhaps I was. But from a motive you could never understand. In the hope of preserving the peace of the world—if that is possible.”
“Do you regard Great Britain as holding a monopoly in peaceful intentions? Do you suppose that Dr. Craig would welcome the knowledge that you worked with him only to betray him?”
Camille tried to meet the gaze of those half-closed eyes. “I—I—did not think of it as betrayal. Only as a duty; a duty for which I must be prepared to sacrifice—everything.”
“Such as the respect of Dr. Craig—or possibly something more precious?”
Camille lowered her eyes, and dropped back on the divan. Dr. Fu-Manchu stood up and walked towards her. He carried a small volume.
“I will never reveal one of Dr. Craig’s secrets to you,” she said on a note of desperation.
“My dear Miss Navarre—you have already revealed them all, or all that you knew at the time. Let you and me be sensible. Communist criminals aspire to rule man by fear. Nations no longer have the right to choose their rulers. As a result, the market is glutted with politicians, but statesmen are in short supply. Man wants nothing but happiness. What Russian yearns to spread the disease from which he himself is suffering?”
He stood right before her now.
“You see this book? It is a complete list of the megalomaniacs who are threatening the world with a third, and final, war. Power-drunk fools. They could all, quite easily, be assembled in this room. The unhappy peoples they claim to speak for are only the fuel to be thrown into the furnace of their mad lust. Advance guards of these ignorant ruffians already knock at the door—and one man holds in his hands a weapon which may decide the issue.”
