by Sax Rohmer
The time occupied in these methodical preparations had driven Gallaho to the verge of lunacy, and now:
“Come on!” he shouted, making for the head of a descending stairway concealed behind the curtain at the end of the bar. “There’s been time for a hundred murders. Let’s hope we’re not too late!”
The stairway led to a kitchen in which was the ingenious door which in turn communicated with that long underground corridor. The masked door was open now and a length of cable lay along the passage.
“Wait for the fumes to clear,” came a voice from behind.
“Fumes be damned!” growled Gallaho; then: “Hell! What’s that?”
A black jagged hole appeared in the wall beside the iron door. A bluish acrid vapour showed in the torch-light But at the moment that the party led by Gallaho entered the passage-way, there came from somewhere beyond the iron door a rending crash as if a battering ram had been driven through concrete.
Now, hard upon it, followed an awful sound of rushing waters echoing, roaring down into some unsuspected depth!
Part of the wall above and to the right of the gap collapsed, and water began to spray out into the passage ....
“I was afraid of this—did I not warn you?” The voice was Schumann’s. “This place is below the tidal level. It is the Thames breaking in!”
“God help them!” groaned Trench, “if they’re down there!”
Ignoring the vapour and the drenching spray, Galllaho, shining the ray of his torch ahead, ducked, and peered through the jagged opening.
“Be careful! The whole place may collapse!”
The spectacle before the detective was an awe-inspiring one. Within a foot of his right hand, a smooth torrent of yellowish water poured out of some unseen gap, crashed upon a dim structure of wood and iron beneath, and from thence leapt out into the darkness of an incredible pit.
His iron nerve was momentarily shaken.
The depth indicated by the tumult of that falling water staggered him. Trench entered behind Gallaho.
“Stand clear of the water!” the latter bellowed in his ear. “It would sweep you off like a fly!”
He shone the powerful light downwards. There were wooden stairs in an iron framework. The torrent was breaking upon the first platform below, and thence descending, a great, shimmering, yellow coil, to unknown depths. Others were pushing through, but:
“Stand back!” Gallaho shouted. “There’s no more room between the water and the edge!”
Trench pressed his lips to Gallaho’s ear.
“This must be the shaft leading down to the tunnel.” He yelled. “But no one could pass that platform where the water is falling.”
Gallaho turned and pushed the speaker back through the opening into the passage. Startled faces watched them climbing through.
“Forester!” he cried. “Up to the room in the wooden outbuilding. We want all the rope and all the ladder you have!”
“Right!” said Forester, whose usually fresh colouring had quite deserted him, and set off at a run.
Gallaho turned to Trench.
“Did you notice the heat coming up from that place?”
Trench nodded, moistening his dry lips.
“And the smell?”
“I don’t like to think about the smell, Inspector,” he said unsteadily.
At which moment:
“Inspector Gallaho!” came a cry, “you’re wanted on the telephone upstairs.”
“What’s this?” growled Gallaho and ran off.
It was possible to make oneself heard in the corridor, and: “I believe that place leads down to hell,” said Trench. “If so it will run the Thames dry.”
“What’s the inspector’s idea about a rope ladder, Sergeant?”
“I don’t know, unless he thinks he can swing clear of the waterfall to a lower platform. He’s a braver man than I am if he is going to try it.”
There were muttered questions and doubtful answers; fearful glances cast upward at the roof of the passage. Schumann and the works manager had gone out and around to the river front, to endeavour to locate the spot at which the water was entering the cellars.
And now, came Merton, the exA.B. trailing a long rope ladder. As he reached the passage way he pulled up, brushing perspiration from his eyes, and:
“Here I say!” he exclaimed, staring at the spray-masked gap beside the iron door. “I’m not going in there for anybody!”
“You haven’t been asked to,” came Gallaho’s growling voice.
All turned as the detective-inspector came along the dimly lighted passage with his curious, lurching walk.
“Any news?” Trench asked.
“The Old Man’s on his way down.” (The Old Man referred to was the Commissioner of Police.) Dr. Petrie’s with him— the girl’s father.”
“Whew!” whistled Trench.
“The queer thing is, though, that the girl’s turned up.”
“What!”
“She’s at Sir Denis’s flat; they had the report at the Yard only a few minutes ago.”
He divested himself of his tightly fitting blue overcoat, and, turning to Merton:
“I want you to come through there with me,” he said, “because you understand knots and ropes, and I can rely on you. I want you to lash that ladder where I’ll show you to lash it.”
“But I say, Gallaho!” Forester exclaimed . . .
“Unless, of course,” said Gallaho ironically, “you consider, Inspector Forester, that this properly belongs to your province.”
CHAPTER 47
THE WATERSPOUT
Sterling groped his way through darkness in the direction of the foot of the stairs. The roar of falling water was deafening. At one point he was drenched in spray, and hesitated. A small ray shone through the gloom, higherto unbroken except for stabs of yellowish light through chinks in the furnace door. He turned sharply, aware from the pain in his chest that he was fit for little more.
The light came nearer and a grip fastened upon his arm. Close to his ear:
“Around this way—we can’t reach the steps direct.”
The voice was Nayland Smith’s.
A pocket-torch had been amongst the latter’s equipment, and now it was invaluable. Using it sparingly, Nayland Smith indicated the edge of a great column of water which was pouring down into the pit, so that anywhere within ten feet of it one was drenched in the spray of its fall. A rushing stream was pouring down the tunnel, the entrance to which they were now passing.
Even as Sterling, horrified as he had never been in his life, stared along that whispering gallery, a distant lantern went out, swept away by the torrent.
Then they turned left; and, stumbling onwards, presently Sterling saw the foot of the wooden steps. But Dr. Fu Manchu was not there.
His lips close to Sterling’s ear:
“It’s only a matter of minutes,” shouted Nayland Smith, “before the water reaches that ghastly furnace. Then ... we’re done!”
Spray drenched them—a sort of mist was rising. The booming of the water was awful. Sterling had been along those rock galleries cut beneath Niagara Falls: he was reminded of them now. This was a rivulet compared with the mighty Horseshoe Fall; but, descending from so great a height and crashing upon concrete so near to where they stood, the effect was at least as dreadful.
Into the inadequate light, penetrating spray and mist, of Nayland Smith’s pocket torch there stumbled a strange figure—a drenched, half-drowned figure moving his arms blindly as he groped forward.
It was Murphy!
Suddenly, he saw the light, and sweeping his wet hair back from his forehead, he showed for a moment a white bloodstained face in the ray of the torch.
From that white mask his eyes glared out almost madly.
Nayland Smith turned the light upon his own face, then stepping forward, grasped Murphy’s arm.
Far above, a dim light shone through the mist and spray. It revealed that horror-inspiring shaft with its rusty g
irders, and the skeleton staircase clinging to its walls: this, eerily, vaguely, as a dream within a dream. But it revealed something else:
That ever-increasing cataract descending from some unseen place, sprouted forth remorselessly from one of the upper platforms!
No human being could pass that point. . . .
Nayland Smith staring upward flashed the feeble light of his torch in a rather vain hope that it would be seen by those at the top of the shaft; for that at long last a raiding party had penetrated, he was convinced.
The light above became obscured in ever increasing mist; it disappeared altogether.
Much of that stair which zigzagged from side to side had remained mantled in impenetrable shadow during the few seconds that light had shone through at the head of the pit. If Fu Manchu and those of his servants who remained alive were on the stairs they were invisible.
To one memory Nayland Smith clung tenaciously.
Dr. Fu Manchu at the moment that his killings had been interrupted, had descended three steps and extinguished the lamps. Somewhere, hereabouts, there was a switch.
Suddenly, he came upon it, and reversed it.
There was no result.
The explosion had disconnected the current.
He glanced back ere beginning to climb. Water was creeping up to the first step. Spray and mist obstructed this view of the furnace. He wondered if the Burmese horror, to whom human life meant no more than wood to a circular saw, had triumphed over injury, or if he was doomed to be swallowed in that unnatural tide.
Smith started up the stairs.
He was planning for the imminent catastrophe, nor thinking any further ahead than the moment when the rising water should reach the furnace. He had placed the direction of the fall, and knew that except at one point where the waterspout came perilously near to the stairs, these were navigable to within one stage of the top.
Beyond that point, progress was impossible—and the volume of water was increasing minute by minute.
His feet were wet when he began to mount. The tunnel must be full, now, right to the dead end. It was only a question of time for this forgotten shaft to be filled to its brim.
Sterling was breathing heavily and Sergeant Murphy was giving him some assistance, when Nayland Smith caught up with them on the stairs.
He shouted in Sterling’s ear:
“Did that yellow swine crock you?”
Sterling grasped his arm and gripped it strongly, pressing his lips to the speaker’s ear.
“It’s only my wind,” he explained; “otherwise O.K.”
Smith who had momentarily snapped his torch on, snapped it off again, nursing the precious light. Fighting against the brain-damning clamour of falling water, he tried to estimate their chances.
He guessed that now the tunnel would be full. The flood would rise in the shaft at least a foot a minute. Failing inspiration on the part of the police, ultimate escape was problematical.
But he was thinking at the moment of that white hot furnace when steam was generated. That one point on the stairs almost touched by the waterspout was the only possible shelter. That an explosion there in the depths might wreck the entire shaft, was a possibility which one could not calculate.
Up they went, and up, until the spray cut off by an iron girder lashed them stingingly. Nayland Smith pressed the switch of his torch.
Sterling had sunk down upon the step—Murphy was supporting him. Smith bent to Murphy’s ear. “Stay where you are!” he shouted He groped his way upward.
CHAPTER 48
GALLAHO BRINGS UP THE REAR
“Is it fast?” shouted Gallaho.
“It’s fast,” Merton shouted back, “but you’re not going down there!”
Gallaho bent to Merton’s ear.
“Mind your own bloody business, my lad,” he roared. “If ever I want your advice I shall ask for it.”
Chief detective-inspector Gallaho climbed over the hand rail and began to descend the rope ladder, his bowler hat firmly screwed on to his bullet skull. Immediately, he was drenched to the skin.
Steam was rising from the shaft. The touch of the water was icy, numbing. But he knew that unless the ladder was too short he could reach a point of the staircase just below that ever-increasing cataract, and follow it down. He was a man with a clear-cut idea of what duty demanded.
The ladder proved to be of ample length. Gallaho gained the wooden steps, flashed his powerful torch, and saw that he stood near the waterfall thundering down into those unimaginable depths.
A faint light flickered far below.
Gallaho, his torch in his left hand, held well clear of his body, directed its ray towards that spot of light visible through the mist.
At first, what he saw was no more than a moving shadow, then it became concrete; and in the light, haggard, staggering, he saw Sir Denis Nayland Smith!
Gallaho ran down the intervening steps, and as the light showed more and more clearly the lean angular features, the detective saw the ghost of a smile break through their hag-gar dness.
An unfamiliar wave of emotion claimed him. He threw his arm around Sir Denis’s shoulder, and, shouting:
“Thank God I’ve found you, sir!” he said.
Smith bent to his ear.
“Good man!” he replied.
“The others sir?”
Nayland Smith indicated the steps below, and Gallaho lighting the way, the two began to descend. A sheet of water swept the point at which Smith had left Sterling and Sergeant Murphy.
Their situation had become untenable and they had mounted half-way up to the next platform. Smith’s chief worry was concerned with Sterling who was obviously in bad shape. But the sight of Gallaho afforded just that stimulus which he required. And the detective, throwing an arm around him to help him upwards, and recognizing that he was nearly spent, had an inspiration.
Bending close to his ear:
“Stick it, sir!” he shouted. ‘Your friend Miss Petrie is safe and well in Sir Denis’s flat!”
That stimulus was magical.
Nevertheless, the rope ladder, now nearly submerged in the ever widening waterspout, taxed Sterling to the limit. Murphy followed up behind. Merton, at the top, when collapse threatened, at the critical moment craned over and hauled Sterling to safety.
Nayland Smith came next—Gallaho truculently having claimed the right to bring up the rear.
He had earned that perilous honour.
The men in the brick passage-way broke into unorthodox cheers; nor did Forester check them.
“All out!” cried Nayland Smith. “Anything may happen when the furnace goes!”
The passage already was an inch deep in water, but they retreated along it, Gallaho and Nayland Smith last of the party.
They had reached the masked door in Sam Pak’s kitchen when the furnace exploded. Steam belched out of the corridor as from a huge exhaust. The ancient building shook.
Nayland Smith turned to Gallaho and very solemnly held out his hand.
CHAPTER 49
WAITING
“Nothing to report,” said Inspector Gallaho.
Nayland Smith nodded and glanced at Alan Sterling seated smoking in the armchair. It was the evening of the sixth day after the subterranean explosion in Chinatown, an explosion which had had several remarkable results.
The top of that forgotten pit leading down to the abandoned tunnel was actually covered, as later investigations showed, by the paved yard which adjoined Sam Pak’s restaurant. The ventilation shaft passed right through his premises; and there seemed to be a distinct possibility that the old house as well as the wooden superstructure, were actually part of the abandoned workings, modified and adapted to their later purpose.
A great crack had appeared in one wall of the restaurant. But no other visible damage appeared upon the surface.
Something resembling a phenomenal tide had disturbed Limehouse Reach that night, and was widely reported from crafts upon the river. The shaft with i
ts horrible secrets was filled to within fifteen feet of the top.
Even allowing for secret getaways communicating with adjoining premises, it was reasonable to assume that neither Dr. Fu Manchu nor any of those attached to his service had escaped alive from the fire and flood.
A cordon had been thrown around the entire area with the cooperation of the River Police. Of old Sam Pak and the other Asiatics who had been in the Sailors’ Club, nothing had been seen. A house to house search in the yellow light of dawn satisfied Gallaho that they were not concealed in the neighbourhood. Nothing came of these researches to afford a clue to the mystery.
A guarded communication was issued to the newspapers under the Commissioner’s direction, to the effect that in forcing a way into suspected premises a buttress had collapsed and an old tunnel working been flooded by the river.
Fleet Street suspected that there was a wonderful story behind this communique, but the real story if ever discovered was never published.
Mrs. Sam Pak was let off with a fine and had been covered assiduously ever since. Her movements had afforded no clue to those who watched her. She accepted the disappearance of her aged husband as philosophically as she had accepted his presence. She was permitted to re-open the shop but not the Sailors’ Club.
Enquiries at Dovelands Cottage, Lower Kingswood, revealed the fact that the place belonged to a Mrs. Ryatt, who lived in Streatham and who used it in the summer but let it when possible during the winter months.
The place had been vacant for a long time, but had recently been leased by a gentleman whose address proved to be untraceable, for the convalescence of his daughter who had had a nervous breakdown. Mrs. Ryatt had actually visited the cottage on the evening that her new tenant entered into occupation, and reported that the daughter was an uncommonly pretty girl whose manner was very strange; and the nurse in charge was an elderly foreign woman of rather forbidding appearance.
She had been satisfied, however, of the respectability of her tenant and had returned to London.
