The Trail of Fu Manchu f-7

by Sax Rohmer

  “Gimme another drink, Sam,” he kept demanding. “Gimme another drink, Sam.”

  Save for two chairs set before the table upon which the thirsty man rested his elbows, there was no visible accommodation in the “Sailors’ Club”.

  “Go ahead!” Nayland Smith whispered in Sterling’s ear. “Grab those two chairs.”

  No one took the slightest notice of their entrance, and walking towards the bar, they seated themselves in the two vacant chairs. The one-eyed boy stood by for orders.

  “Two pints beer,” said Nayland Smith in his queer broken English.

  The boy went to the bar to give the order. And the barman to whom he gave it was quite easily the outstanding personality in the room. He was a small Chinaman, resembling nothing so much as an animated mummy. His chin nearly met his nose, for apparently he was quite toothless; and there was not an inch of his skin, nor a visible part of his bald head, which was not intricately traced with wrinkles. His eyes, owing to the puckering of the skin, were almost invisible, and his hands when they appeared from behind the counter resembled the talons of some large bird.

  “Gimme another drink, Sam,” hiccupped the man on the divan. “Never mind those blokes—gi’ me another drink.”

  One elbow slipped and his head fell right forward on the table.

  “O.K. sir,” came a low whisper. “Detective-sergeant Murphy. Something funny going on here to-night, sir.”

  Nayland Smith turned to the aged being behind the bar.

  “Give him another drink,” he said rapidly in Chinese. “Charge me. He is better asleep than awake.”

  The incredible features of Sam Pak drew themselves up in a ghastly contortion which may have been a smile.

  “It is good,” he whistled in Chinese—”a sleeping fool may pass for a wise man.”

  The one-eyed boy was bending over the counter, placing the mugs on a tray. Sterling watched, and suddenly:

  “Sir Denis,” he whispered—”look! That isn’t a boy’s figure.”

  “Gimme a drink,” blurted Murphy; then, in a whisper: “It isn’t a boy, sir—it’s a girl...”

  CHAPTER

  15

  A LIGHTED WINDOW

  Forester of the River Police had taken charge of the party covering Sam Pak’s from the Thames. His presence, which was unexpected, had infused a new spirit into the enterprise. The fact that he was accompanied by the celebrated Inspector Gallaho of the C.I.D., caused a tense but respectful silence to fall upon the party. Everyone knew now that some very important case lay behind this monotonous duty.

  A sort of rumour hitherto submerged, now ran magically from man to man, the presence of the famous detective lending it wings.

  “If s the Fu Manchu business—I told you so. . .”

  “He’s been dead for years. . . .”

  “If you ever have the bad luck to meet him, you’ll . . .”

  “Silence on board!” said Forester, in a low but authoritative voice. “This isn’t a picnic: you’re on duty. Listen—isn’t one of you an able-bodied seaman?”

  The ex-steward spoke up.

  “I was an A.B., sir, before I became a steward.”

  “You’re the man I want. You see that lighted window—the one that belongs to Sam Pak’s?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It isn’t more than three feet below the roof and there’s plenty of foothold. Do you think you could climb it?”

  There was a moment of silence, and then:

  “To the roof, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could try. There wouldn’t be much risk if the tide was in, but I’m not so sure of the mud.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “I’ll take a chance.”

  “Good man,” growled Gallaho. “Inspector Forester has brought a rope ladder. We want you to carry a line up to make the ladder fast. The idea is to get a look in at that lighted window. Bear it in mind. But for the love of Mike, don’t make any row. We are taking chances.”

  Merton, the ex-sailor, rather thought that he was the member of the party who was taking chances. He was endeavouring to find suitable words in which to express this idea, when:

  “That’s a good man, Inspector,” snapped a voice from the barge. “Always keep your eye on a man who volunteers for dangerous duty.”

  Merton looked up as two men who resembled Portuguese deck-hands dropped from the barge into the tail of the cutter. But the speaker’s voice held an unmistakable note. Rumour had spoken truly.

  The presence of Inspector Gallaho had started tongues wagging; here was someone vastly senior to Gallaho, and masquerading in disguise. The attitude of the famous C.I.D. detective was sufficient evidence of the seniority of the last speaker.

  The River Police craft was eased alongside the rotting piles which supported that excrescence of Sam Pak’s restaurant. Merton swarmed up without great difficulty towards a point just below the lighted window. Here he paused, making signs to the crew below.

  “Push out,” snapped Nayland Smith in a low voice.

  The little craft was eased away, and Merton, carrying the line, proceeded to the second and more difficult stage of his journey, watched breathlessly by every man aboard the River Police launch. Twice he faltered, and, once, seemed to have lost his hold. But at last a sort of sympathetic murmur ran around the watching party.

  He had reached the roof of the wooden structure. He waved, and began to haul in the line attached to the rope ladder.

  A stooping figure passed behind the lighted window. . .

  Merton, in response to signals from Gallaho, moved further left, so that when the ladder was hauled up it just cleared the window. Some delay followed whilst Merton, disappearing from the view of those below, sought some suitable stanchion to which safely to lash the ladder. This accomplished, he gave the signal that all was fast, and:

  “As soon as I’m on the ladder,” said Nayland Smith, “get back to cover. The routine, as arranged, holds good.”

  He began to climb . . . and presently he could look in at the lighted window.

  CHAPTER16

  A BURNING GHAT

  A woman attired in scanty underwear was pulling on high-heeled, jade green shoes. She was seated on a cheap dilapidated wooden chair. Depended upon a hanger on the wall behind this chair, was a green frock, which Nayland Smith guessed to be probably a creation of Worth. A dressing-table of a kind which can only be found in the second-hand stores appeared at one end of the small rectangular room. It was set before a window, and this was the window of the wooden superstructure which looked out towards the Surrey bank of the Thames. A flannel suit, a pair of shoes, a muffler, and a Chinese cap, lay upon the floor.

  Fascinated and unashamed, Nayland Smith watched the toilet of the woman who squeezed tiny feet into tiny jade green shoes.

  She stood up, walked to the mirror, and smeared her face with cream from a glass jar which once had contained potted meat. The features of the one-eyed Chinese waiter became obliterated.

  The classic features of Fah Lo Suee, daughter of Dr. Fu Manchu, revealed themselves!

  Fah Lo Suee, having cleansed her skin, hurriedly carried the one chair to the dressing-table, and seating herself before a libellous mirror, set to work artistically to make up as a beautiful woman; for that she was.a beautiful woman Nayland Smith had never been able to deny.

  Silently, cautiously, he began to descend. The River Police craft was pulled up beneath him. Forester and a member of the crew hung on to the end of the ladder as Nayland Smith came aboard.

  “Put me ashore,” he snapped. “Gallaho! Sterling! Then stand by for Merton.”

  Sterling grabbed the speaker’s arm. His grip was violent in its intensity.

  “Sir Denis!” he said—”for God’s sake tell me—who is up there? What did you see?”

  Nayland Smith turned. They were alongside the barge, across the deck of which they had come, and by the same route were returning.

  “Your old friend Fah
Lo Suee! When I gave the sign to Murphy and came out, I thought you had recognized her, too. I was interested in the fact that she seemed to have a base somewhere upstairs.”

  “Fah Lo Suee,” Sterling muttered. “Good heavens! now that you point it out, of course, I realize it was Fah Lo Suee.”

  “The Doctor is using her remorselessly: every hour of her day is fully occupied. Late though it is, she has some other duty to perform. She must be followed, Sterling.”

  They were crossing the deck of the barge, Gallaho at their heels, his bowler hat jammed on at a rakish angle, when:

  “Look!” said Nayland Smith.

  With one hand he grabbed the C.I.D. man, with the other he grasped the arm of Sterling.

  A wavering blue light, a witch light, an elfin thing, danced against the fog mantle over the house of Sam Pak.

  “Good Lord!” Gallaho muttered. “I heard of it for the first time to-night, but I’m damned if I can make out what it is.”

  All watched in silence for a while. Suddenly, the mystic light disappeared.

  “It looks like something out of hell,” said Gallaho.

  “Very possibly it is,” Nayland Smith jerked. He turned to Sterling. “Did you notice anything curious about the air of the Sailors’ Club?”

  “It had the usual fuggy atmosphere of places of that kind.”

  “Certainly it had, but did anything in the temperature strike you?”

  “Temperature . . .?”

  “Exactly”

  “Now, that you mention it, it was certainly very hot.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Now that you mention it, it was certainly very hot.”

  “Undoubtedly it was, and twice as hot at the bar end as at the other.”

  “Maybe it’s central heated,” said Gallaho. “I’ll ask Murphy about it.”

  “Nothing of the kind,” snapped Nayland Smith. He was still staring up at that spot above the roof of Sam Pak’s where the queer, spirituous flame had appeared. “Certain sects in India burn their dead on burning ghats. Were you ever in India, Gallaho?”

  “No sir. But whatever do you mean?”

  “You would know what I meant if you had ever seen a burning ghat at night. . . .”

  CHAPTER 17

  THE GAME FLIES

  WEST

  “Whichever way the dame comes out,” said Gallaho, “she’s got to pass this corner to get on to the main road. It’s a pound to a penny there’s another way out into that yard which adjoins the restaurant, and I’m told that a car is sometimes garaged there. It may be there to-night.”

  “Evidently it is,” said Nayland Smith. “Listen.”

  Gallaho ceased speaking and he and Sterling listened intently. Someone had started a car at no great distance away.

  “Quick!” snapped Nayland Smith. “Your man’s standing by?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll wait here. I want to see who is in the car. Directly it has passed, pick me up. ...”

  Gallaho and Sterling set off down a side-turning. In a narrow opening between a deserted warehouse and the adjoining building, the Flying Squad car was hidden, all lights out. They had no more than reached it, when the car from the yard beside Sam Pak’s passed the head of the street.

  The Scotland Yard driver pulled out smartly. On the corner he checked and Nayland Smith jumped in.

  “Fah Lo Suee!” he said simply.

  Sam Pak’s remained under cover. Anyone leaving would be shadowed to his destination, but Smith’s instructions were urgent upon the point that the suspicions of the old Chinaman must not be aroused. . .

  Deserted Commercial Road East reached, the police car drew up closer to the quarry—for at one point a curtain of fog threatened to descend again. Beyond, however, it became clearer.

  “What car is it, Gallaho?” Nayland Smith asked. “I can’t quite make out.”

  “It’s a Morris, sir, and they’re making it shift a bit.” Nayland Smith laughed shortly.

  “Once, it would have been at least a Delage,” he murmured.

  Silence fell again as they proceeded along one of the most depressing thoroughfares in Europe. Occasional lorries bound dockward constituted practically the only traffic: pedestrians were very few indeed. The occasional figure of a policeman wearing his waterproof cape brought the reflection to Sterling’s mind that the duties of the Metropolitan Police force would not appeal to every man. Entering the City boundaries, the driver pulled up much closer to the pursued car. By the Mansion House the fog had disappeared altogether. Sterling glanced aside at Sir Denis. The bright light of a street lamp was shining in. He started, then laughed aloud. Shadow came again.

  “What is it?” snapped Sir Denis.

  “I had forgotten what you looked like,” Sterling explained , “and your appearance was rather a shock.”

  “Anyone seeing us,” growled Gallaho, “would take it for granted that I had one of you chained to each wrist.”

  He turned to Sir Denis. “I don’t quite understand, sir, why you have handed the Limehouse end of the inquiry over to Forester. You have got definite evidence that it’s the base of this Fu Manchu. Why not raid it? There’s every excuse, if ever we want to do it. It’s only necessary to find a single opium pipe on the premises!”

  “I know,” Nayland Smith replied, speaking unusually slowly. “But in dealing with Dr. Fu Manchu, I have found it necessary to follow certain instincts. These may be the result of an intimate knowledge of the Doctor’s methods. But having been inside Sam Pak’s to-night, I am prepared to assert with complete confidence that Dr. Fu Manchu is not there. I think it highly probable that his beautiful and talented daughter is leading us to him now, however.”

  “Oh, I see,” Gallaho growled. “You don’t think by any chance that this fly dame spotted you through your disguise, and is making a getaway?”

  “I don’t think so. But it is a possibility, nevertheless.”

  “I mean,” the detective went on doggedly, “it isn’t clear to me what she was doing down there, unless her job was that of a lookout. You tell me she’s very much the lady, so that her idea of fun wouldn’t be serving beer to drunken sailormen?”

  “Quite,” murmured Nayland Smith.

  After which staccato remark he fell into a reverie which he did not break until the great bell of St. Paul’s boomed out from high above their heads.

  “Two o’clock,” he murmured, and peered ahead. “Hello! Fleet Street. The game flies West, Gallaho.”

  The Street of Ink was filled with nocturnal activity, in contrast to the deserted City thoroughfares along which, hitherto, their route had lain. Into the Strand, across Trafalgar Square and on to Piccadilly, the hunt led; then the Morris turned into Bond Street, and Gallaho broke a long silence.

  “I’ve just remembered,” he remarked, “that they’ve got an extension at the Ambassadors’ Club to-night. Funny if that’s where she’s going.”

  “H’m!” and Nayland Smith, glancing aside at Sterling, as the light from the window of a picture dealer’s shone into the car. “We sha’n’t be able to obtain admittance!”

  “Just what I was thinking,” growled Gallaho. “Yes—look, sir! That is where she’s going!”

  The Morris pulled up before the door of the club, and a commissionaire assisted a slender, fur-wrapped figure to alight. Fah Lo Suee, her jade coloured shoes queerly reflected upon the wet pavement, her gossamer frock concealed beneath a white wrap, went in at the lighted doorway.

  “I can soon find out who she’s with and what she’s up to,” growled Gallaho. “You two gentlemen had better stay out of sight.”

  He stepped out and proceeded in the direction of the club.

  By the entrance he paused for a moment as another car pulled up and the be-medalled commissionaire sprang forward to the door. A distinguished looking gentleman who might have been a diplomat, who affected a grey, pointed beard and who wore a monocle, stepped out hurriedly, discarded a French cape and, tossing it back into the c
ar, nodded to the commissionaire and went in. He vibrated nervous energy.

  “H’m!” muttered Gallaho, watching the long, fawn and silver car disappearing in the direction of Bruton Street. “Sir Bertram Morgan!”

  The last arrival was the newly appointed governor of the Bank of England.

  Gallaho was about to turn to the commissionaire, with whom he was acquainted, when, following from the tail of his eye the slim, debonaire figure of the banker, he saw a slender woman dressed in jade green rise from a settee in the lobby and advance with extended hand to meet Sir Bertram.

  In the brief glimpse which he had of her, Gallaho recognized the fact that she was the woman they had followed from Limehouse—according to Sir Denis Nayland Smith, the daughter of Dr. Fu Manchu. She was exotically beautiful. The strange pair disappeared.

  Gallaho changed his mind.

  “Good evening, sir,” said the commissionaire, and was about to salute; then grinned broadly and nodded instead.

  “Good,” said Gallaho. “I am glad you remembered. Never salute a plain clothes officer.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  Gallaho walked on as though his presence there had been merely accidental. Within his limitations he was an artist. It was no uncommon thing for the tracker to be tracked; keen eyes might be watching his every movement.

  He crossed to Grafton Street, stood on the corner for a while, and looked back. Accustomed to the ways of spies, he was satisfied that no one was on his trail. He retraced his steps—but on the other side of Bond Street.

  CHAPTER 18

  “I BELONG TO CHINA”

  Sir Bertram Morgan was deeply intrigued with Madame Ingomar. He had met her three years before at the villa of a mutual friend in Cairo. Anglo-Egyptian society is not exactly Bohemian, and Sir Bertram, at first, had been surprised to find an obvious, if beautiful, half-caste a guest at this somewhat exclusive establishment.