by Sax Rohmer
“That is all I was told to say, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Dr. Petrie, wearily. “Have a drink as you go out, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, sir. Good night.”
The assembly of his baggage was a tedious business. A man who travelled light himself, on this occasion he was cumbered with many trunks and boxes belonging to Fleurette. He deposited the bulk of them in the cloakroom, and jumping into a taxi, proceeded to Westminster.
Fey admitted him.
Petrie observed with astonishment, for he knew the man for a perfect servant, that a large briar pipe was fuming in an ash-tray in the lobby.
“Good evening, sir.” Fey turned to the hall porter. “Leave the baggage to me. Your room is prepared, sir.”
“Is Sir Denis at home?”
“No, sir.”
Fey took Petrie’s hat and coat and Petrie walked through into the cheerful, lofty, sitting-room. He observed that the curtains had not been drawn in the bay window.
A premonition of some new disaster began to creep upon his mind. Fey joined him almost immediately.
“Whisky and soda, sir?”
“Thank you.”
Fey prepared one in silence, Petrie watching him; then:
“Where is Sir Denis?” he asked.
Fey handed the doctor his drink upon a silver tray, and then:
“I don’t exactly know, sir,” he replied; “and with regard to the pipe, sir: as you are aware, I am not unlike Sir Denis in build, and my orders are to keep walking up and down in view of the Embankment, below, smoking a pipe, but not to show my face too much.”
Petrie set his glass down.
“Do you mean that he is out on some investigation—and that your job is to pretend that he is at home?”
“Exactly, sir—excuse me.”
Fey went out and returned smoking the briar, strolled forward and stared out of the window. The night was damp but not foggy. The sky was overcast. He turned and walked back into the room.
“Is there any news, Fey, of... my daughter?”
“Sir Denis is certain that she is in London, sir, and alive.”
“Thank God!”
Dr. Petrie finished his whisky and soda at a gulp.
“There’s a bit of a mix up, sir, I am sorry to say. Things have been moving very fast. That Chinese devil has got hold of Mr. Sterling.”
“What!”
“But he was 0. K. this morning; we had a message from him. I am a bit anxious to-night, though, and I’m glad you’ve arrived, sir.”
The unusual volubility of Fey alarmed Dr. Petrie anew.
“Where is Sir Denis?” he asked; “I must get in touch with him.”
“He’s gone to a place called Sam Pak’s, sir, in Limehouse. Somehow, I didn’t like the sound of it to-night, sir. This Chinese devil is desperate; it’s a fight to the death . . .”
CHAPTER
41
THE LAST BUS
Fleurette opened her eyes and looked in the direction where she thought the porthole of her cabin should be.
She closed them again quickly. She saw a small curtained window, but not a porthole. This seemed to be a cottage bedroom, very cleanly and simply furnished. She opened her eyes again.
The room remained as she had first seen it—she was not dreaming.
She clenched her hands tightly and sat up in bed.
Only a few hours before, her brain told her, she had parted from Alan in her cabin on the Oxfordshire. She remembered how much that last smile had cost her, that struggle to restrain her tears. She had heard his footsteps on the deck. And then, she had sat down, she remembered quite well, and had poured out a glass of water . . .
And now, what in heaven’s name had happened? Where was she? And how had she got here?
It was very silent, this place in which she found herself, until a slight movement in an adjoining room told her that there was someone in there.
The room was lighted by moonlight, and although she could see that there was a lamp on the table beside the bed, she was afraid to switch it on. Throwing off the bedclothes she slipped lightly to the floor.
She realized that she was wearing a suit of pyjamas which did not belong to her. But, staring at a heap of garments in an armchair, she recognized the suit which she had actually been wearing when she had parted from Alan on the ship!
Her head ached slightly, and she knew that she had been dreaming. It was difficult to believe that she was not dreaming, now. She stepped to the window, and gently drawing the curtain aside, looked out.
She saw a little hedge-bordered garden with a smooth patch of grass in the centre of which stood a stone bird bath.
There was a gaunt looking apple tree on the left, leafless now, a weird silhouette against the moon. Over the hedge, she could see the tops of other trees; but apparently the ground fell away there. She was, as she had supposed, in a cottage.
Whose cottage? And how had she got there?
Above all, where was Alan, and where was her father?
Was it possible that she had been seriously, dangerously ill?—that there had been a hiatus of which she knew nothing—that now she was convalescent?
Perhaps that person whose movements she had detected in the next room was a nurse. She retraced her steps, her bare feet making no sound upon the carpet, and looked for evidence to support this theory. There were no medicine bottles or cooling draughts upon the table beside the bed; nothing but a cigarette case—her own—and a box of matches.
A further slight movement in the adjoining room indicated that someone was seated there, reading. Fleurette had heard the rustle of a turned page.
She recognized with gratitude that despite this insane, this inexplicable awakening, she was cool and self-controlled. The theory of serious illness did not hold good. She felt perfectly fit except for that slight headache. She seated herself on the side of the bed, thinking deeply.
Her first impulse, to open the door and demand of whoever was in the next room what it was all about, she conquered. Fleurette had had the advantage of a very singular training. She had been taught to think, and this teaching availed her now. She crossed to the door very quietly, and by minute fractions of an inch began to turn the handle.
The door was locked.
Fleurette nodded.
A louder movement in the next room warned her that someone might be approaching. She slipped back into bed, drawing the clothes up close to her chin, but preparing to peep under her long lashes at anyone who should come in.
A key was quietly turned in the lock and the door opened.
Light shone in from a little sitting-room; Fleurette could see one end of it from where she lay. A newspaper and some illustrated magazines were upon a table beside which an armchair was drawn up. Her nostrils were assailed by that stuffy smell which tells of a gas fire. A strange looking old woman came into the bedroom.
She was big and very fat. In the glimpse which Fleurette had of her face in the lamplight, before she crossed the threshold, she saw that this was a puffy, yellow, wrinkled face, decorated by wide rimmed spectacles. The woman wore a costume which might possibly have been that of a hospital nurse. In silence she stood just within the little room, looking down at Fleurette.
To her horror, Fleurette saw that the woman carried a hypodermic syringe in her hand.
“Are you asleep?” she whispered softly.
She spoke in English, but with a strange accent. There was something in the crouching attitude of this huge woman, and something in the tones of her voice so threatening and sinister, that Fleurette clenched her hands beneath the coverlet. She lay quite still.
“Ah hah!” the woman sighed, evidently satisfied.
She returned quietly to the outer room, closing and gently relocking the door.
Fleurette listened intently, and whilst she listened she was thinking hard.
Sounds of subdued movements came from the outer room:—the chinking of glass, that subdued popping sound which indi
cates that a gas fire has been turned off; then a click—and the streak of light beneath the door vanished. Soft footsteps, evidently the woman wore padded slippers, moved beyond the partition against which Fleurette’s bed was set. A door was closed.
Her guardian had gone to bed.
Controlling her impatience only by means of a great effort, Fleurette waited, her ear pressed to the wooden partition.
She could hear the woman moving about in what was evidently an adjoining bedroom, and at last came the creak of a bed, as the heavily built custodian retired. Finally, she heard the click of an extinguished electric light.
Fleurette got up quietly, and began to dress. It did not take her long, but she could find no hat and no shoes. But she found a pair of red bedroom slippers; these would serve her purpose. A handbag, her own, lay on the cheap dressing-table.
Its contents seemed to be undisturbed since she had laid it on the sofa berth in her cabin.
Dropping cigarette case and matches into the bag, Fleurette very quietly drew the curtains aside from the low square window.
It was latched, and the room, though cold, was stuffy. The latch was a difficult problem—it was a very old fitting, much worn and warped. Once, it emitted a terrifying squeak.
Fleurette stopped dead in her operations, and creeping across the room, applied her ear to the wooden partition.
Sonorous snores sounded from the adjoining bedroom.
She raised the window steadily but firmly. To her great surprise it made very little noise. She looked out and saw a neglected flower border immediately below. Then came a moss-grown, paved path leading on the right to a little pergola. This, in turn, communicated with a gate.
Fleurette dropped her bag on to the flower-bed, put on her slippers, and wriggled through the opening. It was not a particularly easy business, but Fleurette was fit and very athletic. She knew that her hands were filthy dirty and her feet muddy, when at last she stood outside; but these things did not matter.
Picking up her bag, she walked quickly around to the gate, opened it, and found herself in a narrow, hedge-bordered lane.
An oak tree overhung it a few paces back on the left—there were other dark buildings ahead. But in none of them did any light show. She looked around her eagerly, sniffing the cold night air, then climbed the opposite bank and saw that where the ground fell away, there were farm buildings, beyond, backed by trees, and beyond these trees, evidently several miles beyond, a searchlight moved regularly. This, she decided, was an aerodrome.
It was utterly, horribly, mysterious, for she should have been far out in the Mediterranean, whereas the very scent of the air told her that she was in England!
In one direction, the lane terminated, beyond the cottage from which she had come, at a gate, with a stile. She decided to proceed the other way. The lane was very roughly paved;
and now, banks of cloud suddenly obscured the moon.
She was forced to walk slowly, for trees overhung the way and it was very dark. She passed two other buildings lying back from the lane on her right, but they showed no signs of life and she pressed on. She came to a wider lane, much better paved, hesitated whether to turn left or right, and finally decided upon right.
From the position of the moon and the darkness in the houses she passed (and these were few,) she realized that it must be late at night, how late, she could only guess.
On the corner of the second lane there was a large house surrounded by a high brick wall; also a post box and an electric lamp standard.
She pulled up, breathing quickly. She had reached a main road.
The lodge of some large residence directly faced her; but, whilst she had been hurrying along, she had been thinking clearly. She heard the sound made by the approach of a heavy vehicle; and presently came the glare of its headlights.
A green motor bus pulled up directly by the lodge gates.
There were very few passengers, but she saw that at least two were alighting. She raced across.
In the light of the standard lamp she read upon the side of the bus: “Reigate—Sutton—London”.
She sprang on to the step, the vehicle restarted. The conductor helped her on board.
“Are you going to London?” she asked, breathlessly.
“Yes, miss. This is the last bus.”
CHAPTER
42
NAYLAND SMITH REFUSES
In the depths below Sam Pak’s the furnace roared hungrily.
Sterling groped his way back through imaginary horrors to the real and greater horror of his actual surroundings.
If he had ever doubted, he knew now what his end was to be. He believed that he was no greater coward than the average man, but just as life with Fleurette had beckoned to him so sweetly, it must end. And what an end!
“Are you all right?” came a shaky whisper from the darkness.
It was Sergeant Murphy.
“Yes, thank you, Sergeant.”
“We’re in hell before our time, sir.”
Sterling tried to control his nerves, to concentrate upon one thing to the exiusion of all others. He must not give this fiendish maniac the satisfaction of seeing him quail. If a woman could meet death as Fah Lo Suee had met it, then— by heaven!—it was up to the Middle West to show its mettle!
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith.” The tones of that implacable voice fell upon Sterling like a cold douche.
“The hour of our parting has come.”
There was a pause; a guttural order.
The sound of a groan from the darkness where Nayland Smith lay, completed the horror of the scene. It was a groan of defeat, of bitter humiliation; then:
“Dr. Fu Manchu,” came Smith’s voice, and—to Sterling it seemed a miracle—its tone was steady, “order your human baboon to untie my ankles. I prefer to walk to death rather than to be carried. This, I think, I am entitled to ask.”
Another order was spoken rapidly. There was a faint scuffling sound—and Nayland Smith walked into the circle of light before the furnace door.
“Oh, my God!” Murphy whispered. “What are they doing up there. Why don’t they break through?”
The Burmese executioner followed Sir Denis out of the shadows, and stood at his elbow.
“Because in your long battle with me, Sir Denis,” Dr. Fu Manchu continued, stressing now a note of insane exaltation, “you have always observed those rules of clean warfare which, rightly or wrongly, are an English tradition, I respect you. I, too, have traditions to which I have always adhered.”
Nayland Smith, his hands behind him, stared up into the darkness which concealed the speaker.
“I bear you no personal animosity; indeed, I admire you. I have won—although my triumph may have come too late;
and, therefore, Sir Denis, I offer you the Lotus Gate of escape.”
“I thank you, but I decline.”
Sterling struggled on to his elbow, watching, and listening.
“He’s playing for time, Murphy! Can’t we do anything to help him?”
“What can we do?”
“You prefer the sword? The end of the common criminal?”
“I decline that also, if I have any choice.”
“You reduce me——” there was repressed frenzy now in the tones of Dr. Fu Manchu—”to the third alternative of ... the fire.”
There followed a moment of silence which Sterling knew that if he lived, he should never forget. Nayland Smith stood in the circle of light, motionless, looking upward. Beside Sterling, Murphy was breathing so heavily that he was almost panting in his suppressed emotion.
“Is there no other alternative?”
“None.”
An order was spoken—one sibilant word. The Burman sprang forward. . . .
CHAPTER 43
CATASTROPHE
Now events began to move rapidly to that astounding conclusion which, although it was the result of men’s combined efforts, seemed to Sergeant Murphy, a devout Roman Catholic who had begun to pray fer
vently, to be an intervention by a Higher Power.
Sir Denis Nayland Smith in the course of his long career as a police officer, had studied assiduously whenever the opportunity offered, those branches of practical criminology with which his work had brought him in contact, East and West. He was something of a physician, understanding poisons and antidotes. Lock combinations had no mysteries for him, and there were few locks he could not force if called upon to do so. Knot-tying in all its intricacies, as practised by the late Harry Houdini, he had studied in Rangoon, his professor being a Chinese malefactor who was a master of the art.
When the ape-like Burman had come to tie him up, Smith had recognized at a glance that physical resistance was out of the question. It would have called for three powerful men and trained wrestlers at that to deal with him. His peculiar development warned Smith that the man was an expert in the art ofju-jitsu, which, together with his herculean strength, set him in a class apart.
Fah Lo Suee had gone when the tying took place. Nayland Smith submitted, feigning weakness. When he saw the narrow twine that was to be used, he anticipated what was coming, and permitting the man to wrench his arms behind his back, he put into practice a trick whereby many illusionists have mystified their audiences; Chinese in origin, but long well-known to professional magicians of the West. The man tied his thumbs, as well as his wrists. By means of maintaining a certain muscular stress during this painful operation, the result, though satisfactory to Dr. Fu Manchu’s private executioner, was also acceptable to Nayland Smith.
The latter knew that he could withdraw his hands at any moment convenient to him!
The lashings of his ankles was a different matter. Here, he knew himself to be helpless, and recognized expert handiwork.
He had preceded Alan Sterling down the stairs of the shaft, slung sackwise across one incredible shoulder of the Burmese killer . . .
Now, as he stood, his arms apparently tied behind him, but his ankles unlashed, staring up to where Dr. Fu Manchu sat veiled in darkness, he was actually a free man. He held the twine which had confined his wrists tightly clenched in his left hand.
He was calculating his chances—tensing himself for what he must do.
With the exception of his automatic, his personal possessions had not been disturbed; these included a pocket knife. He had opened its most serviceable blade, and held it now concealed in his right hand. He knew but one mode of attack calculated to give him the slightest chance against his scarcely human enemy.
