by Sax Rohmer
“Dr. Craig!… Help!… Dr. Craig!”
Making a series of bounds incredible in a creature ordinarily so slow and clumsy of movement, M’goyna followed. His teeth were exposed like the fangs of a wild animal. He uttered a snarl of rage.
Regan twisted around and fired again.
Instant upon the crack of his shot, M’goyna dashed the weapon from Regan’s grasp and swept him into a bear hug. Power of speech was crushed out of his body. He gave one gasping, despairing cry, and was silent. M’goyna lifted him onto a huge shoulder and carried him back up the steps.
Only a groan came from the laboratory when the semi-man ran down again to recover Regan’s pistol.
He coughed as he reclosed the steel door…
The office remained empty for another two minutes. Then Craig returned, swinging his keys on their chain. He went straight to the safe, paused—and stood sniffing. He had detected a faint but unaccountable smell. He glanced all about him, until suddenly the boyish smile replaced a puzzled frown.
“Smith’s pipe!” he muttered.
Dismissing the matter lightly, as he always brushed aside—or tried to brush aside—anything which interfered with the job in hand, he had soon unlocked the safe and set up his materials. He was so deeply absorbed in his work that when Camille came in, he failed to notice even her presence.
She stood in the open doorway for a moment, staring vaguely about the office. Then she looked down at her handbag, and finally up at the, clock above the desk. But not until she began to cross to her own room did Craig know she was there.
He spun around in a flash.
“Shades of evenin’! Don’t play bogey man with me. My nerves are not what they were in my misspent youth.”
Camille did not smile. She glanced at him and then, again, at the clock. She was not wearing her black-rimmed glasses, but her hair was tightly pinned back as usual. Craig wondered if something had disturbed her.
“I—I am sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. How’s Professor What’s-his-name? Full of beans and ballyhoo?”
“I—really don’t know.”
She moved away in the direction of her open door. Her manner was so strange that he could no longer ignore it. Insomnia, he knew, could play havoc with the nervous system. And Camille was behaving like one walking in her sleep. But when he spoke he retained the light note.
“What’s the prescription—Palm Beach, or a round trip in the Queen Elizabeth?”
Camille paused, but didn’t look back.
“I’m afraid—I have forgotten,” she replied.
She went into her room.
Craig scratched his chin, looking at her closed door. Certainly something was quite wrong. Could he have offended her? Was she laboring under a sense of grievance? Or was she really ill?
He took out a crushed packet of cigarettes from his hip pocket, smoothed one into roughly cylindrical form and lighted it; all the while staring at that closed door.
Very slowly, resuming his glasses, he returned to his work. But an image of Camille, wide-eyed, distrait, persistently intruded. He recalled that she had been in such a mood once before; and that he had made her go home. On the former occasion, too, she had been out but gave no account of where she had gone.
Something resembling a physical chill crept around his heart.
There was a man in her life. And he must have let her down…
Craig picked up a scribbling block and wrote a note in pencil. He was surprised, and angry, to find how shaky his hand had become. He must know the truth. But he would give her time. With a little tact, perhaps Camille could be induced to tell him.
He had never kissed her fingers, much less her lips, yet the thought of her in another man’s arms drove him mad. He remembered that he had recently considered her place in the scheme of things, and had decided to dismiss such considerations until his work was completed.
Now he was almost afraid to press the button which would call her.
But he did.
He was back at his drawing board when he heard her come in. She moved so quietly that he sensed, rather than knew, when she stood behind him. He tore off the top sheet and held it over his shoulder.
“Just type this out for me, d’you mind? It’s a note for Regan. He can’t read my writing.”
“Of course, Dr. Craig.”
Her soft voice soothed him, as always. How he loved it! He had just a peep of her delicate fingers as she took the page.
Then she was gone again.
Craig crushed out his cigarette in an ash-tray and sat staring at the complicated formula pinned to his drawing board. Of course, it probably meant something—something very important. It might even mean, as Nayland Smith seemed to think, a new era in the troubled history of man.
But why should he care what it meant if he must loose Camille?
He could hear her machine tapping…
Very soon, her door opened, and Camille came out. She carried a typed page and duplicates. The pencilled note was clipped to them. Craig didn’t look up when she laid them beside the drawing board, and Camille turned to go. At the same moment, she glanced up at the clock.
Nine-fifteen…
Could Morris Craig have seen, he would have witnessed an eerie thing.
Camille’s vacant expression became effaced; instantly, magically. She clenched her hands, fixing her eyes upward, upon the clock. For a moment she stood so, as if transfixed, as if listening intently. She symbolized vital awareness.
She relaxed, and, looking down, rested her left hand on the desk beside Craig. She spoke slowly.
“I am sorry—if I have made any mistakes. Please tell me if this is correct.”
Craig, who was not wearing his glasses, glanced over the typed page. He was trying desperately to think of some excuse to detain her.
“There was one word,” the musical voice continued.
Camille raised her hands, and deliberately released her hair so that it swept down, a fiery, molten torrent, brushing Craig’s cheek as he pretended to read the message.
“Oh! Forgive me!”
She was bending over him when Craig twisted about and looked up into her eyes. Meeting his glance, she straightened and began to rearrange her hair.
He stood up.
“No—don’t! Don’t bother to do that.”
He spoke breathlessly.
Camille, hands still lifted, paused, watching him. They were very close.
“But—”
“Your hair is—so wonderful.” He clasped her wrists to restrain her. “It’s a crime to hide it.”
“I am glad you think so,” she said rather tremulously.
He was holding her hands now. “Camille—would you think me a really fearful cad if I told you you are completely lovely?”
His heart seemed to falter when he saw that tiny curl of Camille’s lip—like the stirring of a rose petal, he thought of it—heralding a smile. It was a new smile, a smile he had never seen before. She raised her lashes and looked into his eyes…
When he released her: “Camille,” he whispered, “how very lovely you are!”
“Morris!”
He kissed her again.
“You darling! I suppose I have been waiting for this moment ever since you first walked into the office.”
“Have you?”
This was a different woman he held in his arms—a woman who had disguised herself; this was the hidden, the secret Camille, seductive, wildly desirable—and his!
“Yes. Did you know?”
“Perhaps I did,” she whispered.
Presently she disengaged herself and stood back, smiling provocatively.
“Camille—”
“Shall I take the message to Mr. Regan?”
Morris Craig inhaled deeply, and turned away. He was delirious with happiness, knew it, yet (such is the scientific mind) resented it. Camille had swept solid earth from beneath his feet. He was in the grip of a power which he couldn’t analyze,
a power not reducible to equations, inexpressible in a diagram. He had, perhaps, probed the secret of perpetual motion, exalting himself to a throne not far below the knees of the gods—but he had met a goddess in whose slender hands he was a thing of clay.
“D’you know,” he said, glancing aside at her, “I think it might be a good idea if you did.”
She detached the top copy of the note and walked across to the laboratory steps.
“Will you open the door for me?”
Craig pulled out the bunch of keys and went to join her where she stood—one foot on the first step, her frock defining the lines of her slim body, reflected light touching rich waves of her hair to an incredible glory. Over her shoulder she watched him.
The keys rattled as he dropped the chain…
“Morris—please!”
He took the paper from her hand and tore it up.
“Never mind. Work is out of the question, now.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“You adorable little witch, you’re not sorry at all! I thought I was a hard-boiled scientific egg until I met you.”
“I’m afraid,” said Camille, demurely, and her soft voice reminded him again of the notes of a harp, “I have spoiled your plans for the evening.”
“To the devil with plans! This is a night of nights. Let’s follow it through.”
He put his arm around her waist and dragged her from the steps.
“Very well, Morris. Whatever you say.”
“I say we’re young only once.” He pulled her close. “At least, so far as we know. So I say let’s be young together.”
He gave her a kiss which lasted almost too long…
“Morris!”
“I could positively eat you alive!”
“But—your work—”
“Work is for slaves. Love is for free men. Where shall we go?”
“Anywhere you like, if you really mean it. But—”
“It doesn’t matter. There are lots of spots. I feel that I want somewhere different, some place where I can get used to the idea that you—that there is a you, and that I have found you… I’m talkin’ rot! Better let Regan know he’s in sole charge again.”
His keys still hung down on the chain as he had dropped them. He swung the bunch into his hand and crossed toward the steel door. At the foot of the steps, he hesitated. No need to go in. It would be difficult to prevent Regan from drawing inferences. Shrewd fellow, Regan. Craig returned to his desk and called the laboratory.
As if from far away a reply came:
“Regan here.”
Craig cleared his throat guiltily.
“Listen, Regan. I shan’t be staying late tonight after all.” (He felt like a criminal.) “Pushing off. Anything I should attend to before Shaw comes on duty?”
There was a silent interval. Camille was standing behind Craig, clutching her head, staring at him in a dazed way.
“Can you hear, Regan? I say, do you want to see me before I leave?”
Then came the halting words. “No… Doctor… there’s nothing… to see you about…”
Craig thought the sentence was punctured by a stifled cough.
A moment later he had Camille in his arms again.
“Camille—I realize that I have never been really alive before—”
But she was pressing her hands frantically against him, straining back, wild-eyed, trying to break away from his caresses. He released her. She stared up at the clock, then back to Craig.
“My God! Morris! Dr. Craig—”
“What is it, Camille? What is it?”
He stepped forward, but she shrank away.
“I don’t know. I’m frightened. When—when did I come in? What have I been doing?”
His deep concern, the intense sincerity of his manner, seemed to reach her. When, gently, he held her and looked into her eyes, she lowered her head until it lay upon his shoulder, intoxicating him with the fragrance of her hair.
“Camille,” he whispered, tenderly. (He could feel her heart beating.) “Tell me—what is it?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know what has happened. Please—please take care of me.”
“Do you mean you have made a mistake? It was an impulse? You are sorry for it?”
“Sorry for what?” she murmured against his shoulder.
“For letting me make love to you.”
“No—I’m not sorry if—if I did that.”
He kissed her hair, very lightly, just brushing it with his lips.
“Darling! Whatever came over you? What frightened you?” Camille looked up at him under her long lashes.
“I don’t know.” She lowered her eyes. “How long have I been here?”
“How long? What in heaven’s name d’you mean, Camille? Are you terribly unhappy? I don’t understand at all.”
“No. I am not unhappy—but—everything is so strange.”
“Strange? In what way?”
The phone rang in Camille’s office. She started—stepped back, a sudden alert look in her eyes.
“Don’t trouble, Camille. I’ll answer.”
“No, no. It’s quite all right.”
Camille crossed to her room, and took up the phone. She knew it to be unavoidable that she should do this, but had no idea why. Some ten seconds later she had returned to the half-world controlled by the voice of Dr. Fu-Manchu…
When she came out of her room again, she was smiling radiantly.
“It is the message I have waited for so long—to tell me that my mother, who was desperately ill, is no longer in danger.”
Even as he took her in his arms, Craig was thinking that there seemed to be an epidemic of sick mothers, but he dismissed the thought as cynical and unworthy. And when she gave him her lips he forgot everything else. Her distrait manner was explained. The world was full of roses.
They were ready to set out before he fully came to his senses. Camille had combed her hair in a way which did justice to its beauty. She looked, as she was, an extremely attractive woman.
He stood in the lobby, his arm around her waist, preparing to open the elevator door, when sanity returned. Perhaps it was the sight of his keys which brought this about.
“By gad!” he exclaimed. “I have got it badly! Can you imagine—I was pushing off, and leaving the detail of the transmuter valve pinned to the board on my desk!”
He turned and ran back.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Somewhere in Chinatown a girl was singing.
Chinese vocalism is not everybody’s box of candy, but the singer had at least one enthusiastic listener. She sang in an apartment adjoining the shop of Huan Tsung, and the good-looking shopman, who called himself Lao Tai, wrote at speed, in a kind of shorthand, all that she sang. From time to time he put a page of this writing into the little cupboard behind him and pressed a button.
The F.B.I. man on duty in a room across the street caught fragments of this wailing as they were carried to him on a slight breeze, and wondered how anyone who had ever heard Bing Crosby could endure such stuff.
But upstairs, in the quiet, silk-lined room, old Huan Tsung scanned page after page, destroying each one in the charcoal fire; and presently the globe beside his couch awoke to life, and the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu challenged him from its mysterious depths.
“The latest report to hand, Excellency.”
“Repeat it.”
Huan Tsung leaned back against cushions and closed his wrinkled eyelids.
“I have installed the ‘bazaar’ system. My house is watched and my telephone is tapped. Therefore, news is brought to Mai Cha and she sings the news to Lao Tai.”
“Spare me these details. The report.”
“Reprimand noted. Dr. Craig and Camille Navarre left the Huston Building, according to Excellency’s plan, at nine thirty-seven. One of the two detectives posted at the private entrance followed them. The other remains. No report yet to hand as to where Craig and the woman have gone.”
“Nay
land Smith?”
“Nothing later than former report. Raymond Harkness still acting as liaison officer in this area.”
The widely opened green eyes were not focussed upon Huan Tsung. A physician might have suspected the pinpoint pupils to indicate that Dr. Fu-Manchu had been seeking inspiration in the black smoke. But presently he spoke, incisive, masterful as ever.
“Mount a diversion at four minutes to ten o’clock. Note the time. My entrance must be masked. Whoever is on duty—remove. But no assassinations. I may be there for an hour or more. Cover my retirement. My security is your charge. Proceed.”
Light in the crystal died.
* * *
At a few minutes before ten o’clock, a man was standing at a bus stop twenty paces from the private entrance to the Huston laboratory. No bus that had pulled up there during the past hour had seemed to be the bus he was waiting for; and now he waited alone. An uncanny quietude descends upon these office areas after dusk. During the day they remind one of some vast anthill. Big-business ants, conscious of their fat dividends, neat little secretary ants, conscious of their slim ankles, run to and fro, to and fro, in the restless, formless, meaningless dance of Manhattan.
Smart cabs and dowdy cabs, gay young cabs and sad old cabs, trucks, cars, busses, bicycles, pile themselves up in tidal waves behind that impassable barrier, the red light. And over in front of the suspended torrent scurry the big ants and the little ants. But at night, red and green lights become formalities. The ants have retired from the stage, but the lights shine on. Perhaps to guide phantom ants, shades of former Manhattan dancers now resting.
So that when a boy pedaling a delivery bike came out of a street beside the Huston Building, it is possible that the driver of a covered truck proceeding at speed along the avenue failed to note the light.
However this may have been, he collided with the boy, who was hurled from his bicycle. The truckman pulled up with an ear-torturing screech of brakes. The boy—apparently unhurt—jumped to his feet and put up a barrage of abuse embellished with some of the most staggering invective which the man waiting for a bus had ever heard.
