by Sax Rohmer
And Nayland Smith, noting that he spoke in English even in this moment of excitement, recognized an unusual character; for he had spoken in Arabic.
Gallaho entered behind Sir Denis. He knew that the latter was not trammelled as he was trammelled; that he was strong enough to trample upon regulations.
“Close the door, Gallaho,” snapped Sir Denis; and, turning to the Egyptian: “Lead the way in. I want to talk to you.”
Ibrahim’s expression changed again. He bowed, smiled, and indicating with an outstretched arm an apartment similar in shape to Nayland Smith’s sitting-room, led the way.
Gallaho and Sir Denis found themselves in an apartment queerly exotic. The bay window which in Smith’s room admitted waves of sunlight, here was obstructed by a mushrabiyeh screen. Dim light from shaded lanterns illuminated the place. It was all divans and brassware, rugs and cushions; a stage-setting of an Oriental interior. Mrs. Crossland’s reputation and financial success rested upon her inaccurate pictures of desert life; of the loves of sheiks and their Western mistresses.
Nayland Smith looked about him.
Ibrahim stood by the door leading into the room in an attitude of humility, eyes lowered. But Sir Denis had sized up the man and knew that the task before them was no easy one.
“You have a Chinese friend, 0 Ibrahim,” he said in Arabic— “a tall, distinguished Chinese friend.”
Nothing in Ibrahim’s attitude indicated that the words had startled him, but:
“I have no such Chinese friend, effendim,” he replied, persistently speaking in English.
“You belong to the Si-Fan.”
“I do not even know what you mean, effendun.”
“Tell me. You may as well speak now——” Sir Denis had abandoned Arabic—”since you will be compelled to speak later if necessary. How long have you been in the service of Mrs. Grassland?”
“For ten years, effendun.”
“And here, in this flat?”
“My lady and gentleman live here for five years.”
“I suggest that Mrs. Crossland or her husband has a tall distinguished Chinese friend, who sometime visits here.”
“I am not acquainted with such a person, effendim.”
Nayland Smith tugged at his ear, whilst Gallaho watched him anxiously. It was a situation of some delicacy; because, always, there was a possibility that they were wrong.
The sinister visitor with the camera-case might have been working from some other base.
“There are no other resident servants?”
“None, effendim.”
It was an impasse. Failing some more definite clue Nayland Smith recognized the fact that despite his contempt for red tape where a major case was concerned he could not possibly force this perfect servant to give him access to the other rooms of the apartment.
He stood there tugging at his ear, and staring from object to object. The very air was impregnated with pseudo Orientalism. It held a faint tang of ambergris. He wished, now, that Petrie had been with him; for Petrie sometimes had queer intuitions. But of course, it had been impossible to leave Fleurette alone.
He glanced at Gallaho.
The latter took the cue immediately, and:
“A mistake, sir, I suppose?” he growled; and to Ibrahim:
“Sorry to have troubled you.”
They returned to the lobby: Gallaho had actually gone out into the corridor, when:
“This is a very fine piece, Ibrahim,” said Sir Denis.
He stood before an Egyptian sarcophagus half hidden in a recess.
“So I am told, effendim.”
“Has Mrs. Crossland had it long?”
“No, effendim.” At last, the Egyptian’s deadly calm was disturbed. “It was bought by Mr. Crossland in Egypt recently. It was delivered less than a week ago.”
“Beautiful example of late eighteenth,” murmured Nayland Smith. “Shipped through to London, I suppose?”
“Yes, effendim.”
They were bowed out by the Egyptian. The door was closed.
“Call to the Yard the moment we reach my flat!” snapped Nayland Smith. “Have this entire block covered.”
“Very good, sir. I was thinking the same thing.”
“We weren’t wrong—but our hands are tied.”
“My idea exactly, sir.”
Fey opened the door in response to their ring.
“How is Miss Petrie?” Nayland Smith challenged.
“The doctor is with her, sir.”
They went in and Gallaho took up the telephone. Sir Denis walked on into the sitting-room, pacing the carpet restlessly.
Gallaho’s gruff voice could be heard as he spoke to someone at Scotland Yard. Presently, Dr. Petrie came in. He shook his head.
“No change, Smith,” he reported. “She declines to leave her room. She is packing, methodically, but refuses all assistance. The idea has been implanted upon her mind that a call to leave here is coming shortly. God help us if we can’t find the man who imposed that thing upon her!”
“What would it mean?” snapped Smith.
“It would mean, I fear, that she would remain in this condition to the end of her life.”
“The poisonous swine! He is very powerful!”
“He has the greatest brain in the world to-day, Smith.”
Gallaho completed his directions at the telephone and came into the room. All idea of dinner had been brushed from their minds. There was a moment of awkward silence. Sounds of faint movement reached them: Fleurette was still engaged in her packing.
Then, the telephone bell rang.
There was something in this call coming at that moment which seemed to possess a special significance. All three waited. All three listened to Fey’s voice, out in the lobby.
And presently, Fey came in.
He had quite recovered his normal self. There was nothing in his appearance or in his behaviour to suggest that he had passed through an amazing ordeal. He bowed slightly to Dr. Petrie.
“Someone wishes to speak to you, sir.”
“What name?”
“Dr. Fu Manchu was the name, sir.”
CHAPTER
57
A CALL FOR PETRIE
As petrie crossed the lobby, Nayland Smith turned to Gallaho.
“Do you realize, Inspector,” he said, “that the greatest menace to the peace of the world who has come on earth since the days ofAttila the Hun, is at the other end of that line?”
“I am beginning to realize that what you say about this man is true, sir.” Gallaho replied. “But I think we can trace him by this call.”
“Wait and see.”
He kept glancing towards the door which communicated with Fleurette’s room. There was silence there. He wondered what she was doing. In this, perhaps, the incomprehensible plan of Dr. Fu Manchu reached its culmination. Nayland Smith walked to the lobby door and listened to Petrie’s words.
These did not help him much, consisting principally of “yes” and “no”. At last, Petrie replaced the receiver, stood up, and faced Smith.
His features were very drawn. Smith recognized how the last year had aged him.
“What am I to do?” he said, speaking almost in a whisper. “What am I to do?”
“Come in here,” said Sir Denis quickly. “Gallaho wants to use the line.”
Gallaho sprang to the telephone as Dr. Petrie and Nayland Smith walked into the sitting-room. They faced one another, and:
“What are his terms?” said Smith.
Petrie nodded.
“I knew you would understand.”
He dropped into an armchair and stared straight before him into the embers of the open fire.
“He wants something,” Nayland Smith went on evenly, “and he demands acceptance of his terms, or——” he pointed in the direction of the door beyond which Fleurette’s room lay. . . .
Petrie nodded again.
“What am I to do? What am I do to?”
“Give me the
facts. Perhaps I can help you.”
“It was Dr. Fu Manchu at the end of the line,” said Petrie, in a monotonous voice. “Any doubts I may have had, disappeared the moment I heard that peculiar intonation. He apologized for troubling me; his courtesy never fails except in moments of madness——”
“I agree,” murmured Nayland Smith.
“He admitted, Smith, that you had made things pretty warm for him, assisted by the English and French police. Access to agents of the Si-Fan in England was denied to him—his financial resources were cut off. Of this he spoke frankly”
“Finally, he reached the point at which he had been aiming. He regretted that it had been necessary to make a clandestine call at this apartment; but Fleurette, the woman he had chosen for his bride” (Petrie spoke in almost a monotone) “had been torn from him. Matters of even greater urgency demanded ...”
He paused, staring into the heart of the fire.
“Demanded what?’ Nayland Smith asked, quietly.
He was listening—but no sound came from the room occupied by Fleurette.
“He has an exaggerated idea of my powers as a physician. He is a man of great age—God knows what age; and it appears that he is cut off from a supply of the strange elixir by means of which, alone, he remains alive. His offer is this:
I am to bring him certain ingredients which he has named, and assist him in preparing the elixir, which apparently he is unable to prepare alone; or——”
“I fully appreciate the alternative,” snapped Nayland Smith. “But one thing I don’t quite understand. I am wondering if something else underlies it, why his need of your services?”
Perrie smiled unmirthfully.
“It appears that he is in a situation—he frankly admits that he is hunted—where the attendance of any physician attached to his group would be impossible. Also, it appears, the pharmaceutical details require adroit manipulation.”
“What does he want you to do?”
Gallaho came in from the lobby.
“That was a Westminster call, sir,” he reported. “The caller was in this area. I expect further details later.”
“Excellent,” murmured Nayland Smith. “Listen to this, Gallaho. Go ahead, Petrie.”
“He assured me,” Dr. Petrie went on, “and neither you nor I, Smith——” he looked at Sir Denis appealingly—”has ever doubted his word, that Fleurette would remain mentally his slave in the state in which she is, now, unless he chose to restore her to normal life.”
“If he said so,” said Nayland Smith solemnly, “I don’t doubt it.”
“Your job is to go, sir,” said Gallaho, with a faint show of excitement. “I’ll have you covered, and we’ll get this yellow devil!”
“Thank you, Inspector.” Dr. Petrie smiled wearily.
“Where Dr. Fu Manchu is concerned, things are not quite so simple as that. You see, my daughter’s sanity is at stake.”
“You mean that no one but this Fu Manchu can put her right?”
“That’s what I mean, Inspector.”
Chief detective-inspector Gallaho picked up his hat, looked at it, and threw it down again. He began to chew invisible gum, glancing from Sir Denis to Dr. Petrie.
“Sir Denis and I know this man,” the latter went on; “we know what he can do—what he has done. You would be entitled officially to take the steps you have mentioned, Inspector;
I can only ask you not to take them; to treat what I have told you as a confidence.”
“As you say, sir.”
“I am ordered to assemble certain drugs; some of them difficult to obtain, but none, I believe, unobtainable. The final ingredient, the indispensable ingredient, is a certain essential oil unknown anywhere in the world except in the laboratory of Dr. Fu Manchu. A small quantity of this still remains in existence.”
“Where?” jerked Nayland Smith.
Dr. Petrie did not reply for a few seconds. He bowed his head, resting it in a raised hand; then:
“At a spot which I have given my word not to name.” He replied. “I am to go there, and get it. And when I have collected the other items of the prescription, and certain chemical apparatus described to me. I am to join Dr. Fu Manchu.”
“Where are you to join him?” Inspector Gallaho asked, hoarsely.
“This I cannot tell you, Inspector. My daughter’s life is at stake.”
There was another silence, and then:
“He is, then, in extremis?” murmured Nayland Smith.
“He is dying,” Dr. Petrie replied. “If I can save him, he will restore Fleurette to me—on the word ofFu Manchu.”
Nayland Smith nodded.
“Which in all my knowledge of his execrable life, he has never broken.”
CHAPTER 58
JOHN KI
“Don’t wake her,” said Dr. Petrie.
He beckoned to the nurse to follow him. Outside in the sitting-room, where misty morning light was just beginning to assert itself, Nayland Smith in pyjamas and dressing-gown was pacing up and down smoking furiously. Petrie was fully dressed, and:
“Hello, Petrie!” said Smith. “You’ll crack up if you go on like this.”
“She is so beautiful,” said the nurse, a dour Scotch woman, but as capable as all London could supply. “She is sleeping like a child. It’s a strange case!”
“It is a very strange case.” Petrie assured her. “But you fully understand my instructions, nurse, and I know you will carry them out.”
“You may count upon that, Doctor.”
“Go back to your patient now, and report to Sir Denis, here, if there is any change when she awakens.”
“I understand, Doctor.”
Nurse Craig went out of the room, and Petrie turned to Nayland Smith. The latter paused in his restless promenade, puffing furiously on a cracked briar, and:
“This job is going to crock you, Petrie,” he declared. “Neither you nor I is getting younger; only Dr. Fu Manchu can defy the years. You look like hell, old man. You have been up all night, and now——”
“And now my job begins,” said Petrie quietly. “Oh, I know I am stretching myself to the limit, but the stakes are very high, Smith”
Nayland Smith gripped Petrie’s shoulder and then began walk up and down again.
Petrie dropped into an armchair, clutching his knees, and staring into the heart of the fire. Fey came in unobtrusively and made the fire up. It had been burning all night, and he, too, had not slept.
“Can I get you anything, sir?”
“Yes,” said Nayland Smith, “Dr. Petrie has to go out in an hour. Get bacon and eggs, Fey, and coffee.”
“Very good, sir.”
Fey went out.
“I haven’t slept,” rapped Nayland Smith; “couldn’t sleep, but at least I have relaxed physically. You,” he stared at Petrie, “haven’t even undressed.
“No——” Petrie smiled; “but as you may have observed, I have shaved.”
“A hit, Petrie. I haven’t. But I propose to do so immediately. Take my advice. Strip and have a bath before bacon and eggs. You’ll feel a new man.”
“I believe you are right, Smith.”
And when presently, the two, who many years before had set out to combat the menace represented by Dr. Fu Manchu, sat down to breakfast, except for asides to Fey who waited at table, they were strangely silent. But when Fey had withdrawn:
“I don’t doubt,” said Nayland Smith, “and you cannot doubt, that Fleurette would live in a borderland to the end of her days if the man who has set her there does not will it otherwise. We are compromising with a remorseless enemy, Petrie, but in this compromise I am wholly with you. Gallaho is out for the moment. He is the most fearless and the most conscientious officer I have met with in recent years. He will go far. It rests between us now, old man, and I suppose it means defeat.”
“I suppose it does,” said Petrie, dully.
“Naturally, you know where to assemble the drugs and paraphernalia demanded by Dr. Fu Manchu.
You have passed your word about the place where the particular ingredient is to be found.”
He ceased speaking and glanced at the clock on the mantle-piece.
“I shall have to be going, Smith,” said Petrie, wearily. “It is utterly preposterous and utterly horrible. But——”
He stood up.
Nayland Smith grasped his hand.
“It’s just Fate,” he said. “Dr. Fu Manchu seems to be our fate, Petrie.”
“You don’t blame me for consenting?” “Petrie, you had no choice.”
* * *
Dr. Petrie discharged his taxicab at a spot in Vauxhaull Bridge Road where he had been told by Dr. Fu Manchu to discharge it. Carrying the suitcase with which he had set out from Nayland Smith’s flat, and which now contained drugs and apparatus which must have surprised any physician who examined them, and which indeed surprised Dr. Petrie, he walked along that dingy thoroughfare until he came to a certain house.
It was a grey and a gloomy house, its door approached by three dirty steps.
Battersea was coming to life.
Battersea is one of London’s oddest suburbs—a suburb which produced John Burns, a big man frustrated;
Communist to-day, if votes count for anything, encircled in red on the Crimes’ Map; yet housing thousands of honest citizens, staunch men and true. A queer district—and just such a district as might harbour an agent of Dr. Fu Manchu.
Laden tramcars went rocking by, bound cityward. There were many pedestrians. Battersea was alert, alive—it was a nest of workers.
But of all this Dr. Petrie was only vaguely conscious: his interest lay far from Battersea.
He went up the three steps and rang the bell.
In response to his ringing, the door, presently, was opened by a very old Chinaman.
Petrie stared at an intricate map of wrinkles which decorated that ape-like face. Memory bridged the years; he knew that this was John Ki, once keeper of the notorious “Joy Shop” in the older Chinatown, and now known as Sam Pak.
A sort of false gaiety claimed him. He had gone over to the enemy, become one with them, and accordingly:
“Good morning, John,” he said; “a long time since I saw you.”
“Velly much long time before.”
The toothless mouth opened in a grin, and old Sam Pak ceremoniously stood aside, bowing his visitor in.
