by Sax Rohmer
* * *
Weather remained fresh, but clear and fine throughout the Lauretania’s run. Thurston, that unimaginative man of business, had no suspicion as yet of the rôle for which Fate had cast him. But he found a magnetic attraction in the personality of Mrs van Roorden.
This beautiful enigma, always correctly but exquisitely dressed, engrossed his attention to the exclusion of everybody else on board. Nor was he alone in this. Mrs van Roorden would have become a focus of interest in any community.
She was much in the company of Mr Fordwich. He was a man of middle height and spare build, his skin yellowed as if by long residence in the tropics. A heavy stick with a rubber ferule was never far from his hand, for he was afflicted by a slight limp. His keen, dark eyes lighted up at times, as if a laughing dare-devil lay hidden under the cool facade which he showed to the world. Without being handsome in the Hollywood sense, Thurston could well believe that Fordwich might be attractive to women. They were an intriguing pair.
Mrs van Roorden rarely permitted her graceful languor to become disturbed. She possessed an aura of sublime self-confidence, as if some invulnerable power protected her from any intrusion upon her queenly serenity. Sometimes, when in Fordwich’s company, she smiled. It was a strange smile, secretly voluptuous. But it promised little and revealed nothing.
There was acid comment amongst the passengers and ship’s officers concerning the strange arrangement whereby no one was permitted to enter Mrs van Roorden’s cabin except her dangerous looking Burmese manservant. Whenever she took one of her leisurely constitutional strolls, a barrage of glances fell upon her from the massed batteries of deck-chairs.
The Sphinx could not have shown more perfect indifference.
Thurston, in his quest of information, seized every opportunity to talk to Mr Fordwich, with whom he sometimes had a drink in the smoking room. But Mr Fordwich proved himself a master of reticence.
And so it was not until their last night at sea that Thurston met Mrs van Roorden. She was one of the guests at a cocktail party in the purser’s quarters. Somewhat to his surprise, Mr Fordwich was not present. Mrs van Roorden wore a green backless frock entirely justified by her faultless ivory arms and shoulders. A band of emeralds was clasped around her throat.
Burns presented his friend, at the same time treating him to a sly wink.
“I’m very glad to meet you at last, Mrs van Roorden,” Thurston declared. “It would be annoying to have to leave the ship without making the acquaintance of the most beautiful woman on board.”
That vague smile curved disdainful lips as she glanced at him when he sat down beside her. Her eyes slanted very slightly.
“A compliment from an Englishman is as unexpected as an Ave Maria from a tabby.”
What a lovely voice she had, Thurston thought! A wall-lamp just behind her touched bronze highlights in her hair, which he had believed to be quite black.
“A compliment may sometimes be a fact. Are you staying in New York, Mrs van Roorden?”
She shrugged slightly.
“Perhaps for a little while. This journey is not of my choosing. But there are some duties which must override personal inclination.”
“Then what does personal inclination suggest?”
She turned and looked at him directly. He started, rebuked himself. He was an experienced man of the world… But he had the utmost difficulty in meeting that penetrating gaze. Then Mrs van Roorden seemed to be satisfied. She turned her head aside again, languidly.
“I belong to the old world. The new world has little to offer me.”
Thurston recovered himself.
“You are too young to be cynical.”
“I am too old to embrace shadows. Truth is dying today. We are all so smug, although we dance on the edge of a precipice. Where are the men, who can see—the great adventurers who put self last?”
“Not all dead, I assure you! I should like you to meet my friend, Nayland Smith, for instance.”
Mrs van Roorden seemed to become quite still, statuesque. At last, she stirred, turned her head, and again he found himself claimed by those jade-green eyes.
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
Her lips curved in that provocative, voluptuous yet impersonal smile. She glanced aside as a steward offered a selection of cocktails. Taking one:
“I used to know him,” she replied, a deep, caressing note in her musical voice. “Were you ever in Java, Mr Thurston?”
Her wish to change the subject was so unmistakable that Thurston had no choice but that of following her lead. So that when the party broke up, although he knew that the Communists in the Dutch Indies were worse than the Japanese, he knew no more about Mrs van Roorden than he had ever known.
But he wondered very much why she had steered him off the subject of Nayland Smith…
During belated dinner, an urgent message came for the purser. He excused himself and hurried out.
Thurston, later, passing his door and finding it open, rapped and went in.
Burns was sitting in an armchair, smoking his pipe.
“Sit down, old man. There’s something very queer going on aboard this ship.”
“Why—what’s happened?”
Thurston sat down.
“Well, the steward who generally looks after the room occupied by Mrs van Roorden nearly ran into her as she rushed out into the alleyway. She said that a thief had been in there!”
“What!”
“Fact. The man reported to Jenkins, and Jenkins sent for me. I went along. Mrs van Roorden opened the door when I knocked. She was as cool as an icicle, but those eyes of hers were just blazing. She stuck to the story, but said that she didn’t intend to make an official complaint. Insisted, in fact.”
“This is all very strange.”
“There’s more to come. This man of hers, who I believe acts as her bodyguard as much as anything else, was found in his cabin—insensible!”
“You mean—he’d been assaulted?”
“Rubber truncheon, the doctor thinks! This is all off the record. Not a word. The cops would hold us up for hours if they got on to it.”
“But, what—”
“Yes.” Burns stood up. “That’s what I’m wondering. Let’s have a drink.”
* * *
Landing was delayed the next day by unexpected mist which blanketed East River. Thurston, taking a final look into closets and drawers, heard a rap on the door, and supposed his steward had come for the baggage.
“All ready!”
Mr Fordwich entered, leaning on his stick.
“Thought I might catch you,” he said, smiling. “The fact is, I owe you a drink, and I don’t know a better time to balance the account than when the bars are sealed on a foggy morning!”
From his pockets he produced a large flask and a bottle of soda water.
“That’s a pleasant sight,” Thurston confessed. “I admit my own reserve is exhausted. Thought we’d be ashore by now.”
Fordwich mixed two tepid drinks and glanced around. His eyes rested on a well-filled golf bag.
“I see you’re a golfer? Expect to get much play?”
“Well, I’m spending a week with a friend in Connecticut who lives near a good course. I’m no plus man. Never got below eighteen!”
They talked about golf, and other things. Thurston gave Fordwich the name of his New York hotel and Fordwich promised to call him later. He wondered if Fordwich knew what had happened to Mrs van Roorden and her Burmese servant, but, although burning with curiosity, he was bound to silence.
Another rap on the door interrupted them. A page came in.
“Mr Thurston?”
“I am Mr Thurston.”
“Note for you, sir.”
Thurston glanced at the scribbled chit. It said, “Please call at Purser’s office immediately.”
“Excuse me.” He turned to Fordwich. “Make yourself comfortable. Shan’t be a minute.”
He went out and along the alleyway to the office. Pandemonium reigned in that area, but Thurston managed to catch the eye of an assistant whom he knew.
“Want to see me?” he asked.
He handed in the note.
The assistant purser stared at it, with a puzzled frown, then went away. He wasn’t gone long.
“There must be some mistake, Mr Thurston, I can find no one who sent you this thing.”
Deeply mystified, Thurston returned to his room, when he had a second surprise.
The silver flask and the soda water remained on the table, but Mr Fordwich had disappeared. Thurston concluded that he had been called away and would return, but as the steward came at that moment to collect his things, he put the flask in his pocket and left the room.
Up to the time that the Lauretania docked, he never had a glimpse of Mr Fordwich, nor, which disappointed him more, of Mrs van Roorden. As he waited under the letter T for his steward with the baggage, he watched all the passengers in sight, but failed to find either of those he was looking for.
He was quietly clear of the Customs, for he carried only a suitcase, a valise and his golf bag. These he gave to a porter and headed for the exit. This route took him past the letter F, and here he pulled up.
Fordwich, leaning on his heavy stick, was explaining something to two Customs officers bending over an open handbag.
Thurston’s insatiable curiosity prompted him to draw nearer. Across the shoulder of an interested bystander he saw what lay in the bag.
It was a grotesque green mask of Eastern workmanship. He had a hazy idea that it should be described as a devil mask. He could hear Fordwich’s voice:
“I picked it up in Java. It’s of small intrinsic value. Merely a curiosity…”
Thurston moved on. He didn’t want to appear to be eavesdropping. But his glimpse of the green mask had given him an uncomfortable, and indescribable sensation. Who was this man, Fordwich? He had felt all along there was something mysterious about him. And what lay behind the raid on Mrs van Roorden’s cabin and the assault on her servant?
Above all, why had she declined an official inquiry?
* * *
If, at about the time the Lauretania had reached mid-ocean, Thurston could have been transported to that old Arab mansion near the Mosque of El Ashraf, he might now have held a clue to some of these riddles.
It was midnight, and the lofty saloon was dimly lighted by a number of hanging lamps of perforated brass. The screen had been moved from the mushrabiyeh window. Dr Fu-Manchu, seated in a chair of native inlay workmanship, bent over the padded basket in which the tiny monkey lay.
He had been seated there for four hours.
It was literally true that vast issues hung upon the life or death of a marmoset.
Native Cairo slumbered. No sound came from the narrow street upon which the gate of a tree-shaded courtyard opened. Inside the house there was unbroken silence. And Dr Fu-Manchu never stirred.
His elbows resting on the chair arms, his long fingers pressed together, he watched, tirelessly. An emerald signet ring which he wore glittered in the light of a shaded lamp. He was so still that a marked resemblance which his gaunt features bore to those of the mummy of Seti I in the Cairo Museum became uncannily increased. It was as if the dead Pharaoh had awakened from his age-long sleep.
Sometimes the strange green eyes filmed over queerly, as if from great weariness. Then at the appearance of some symptom so slight as to be visible only to the inspired physician, they glowed again like living gems.
But when the great change came, it was unmistakable.
Peko moved his tiny arms, almost exactly like a human baby waking up, yawned, stretched and opened beady eyes.
Fu-Manchu’s lips moved, but no sound issued from them. A spot of perspiration trickled from under the black cap and crept down his high forehead. Peko looked up at him, chattered furiously, and then sprung in one bound onto the bowed shoulders.
There the little creature perched, slapping the yellow face of his master in an ecstasy either of rage or of happiness. Only Dr Fu-Manchu could know.
Rising and stepping down into the saloon, Fu-Manchu struck a silver gong. Peko responded with a sound like a shrill whistle and leapt onto a brass lamp hanging directly overhead. Here he swung, looking down and chattering volubly.
Matsukata came in from the laboratory.
“Triumph!”
Dr Fu-Manchu pointed to the swinging marmoset.
Matsukata bowed deeply.
“I salute the genius of the master scientist.”
“Advise General Huan Tsung that we leave in an hour. It is still possible to be there in time. Proceed.”
Matsukata bowed again, and went out. Dr Fu-Manchu dried his high forehead with a silk handkerchief which he drew from the sleeve of his robe, and crossing the saloon, his gait slow and catlike, he mounted a leewan at the further end and opened a cupboard.
From the cupboard he took a flat cedarwood box and raised the lid.
Inside lay a green mask—identical with that which, later, George Thurston was to see in a Manhattan Customs shed…
* * *
The phone buzzed in Thurston’s hotel apartment.
He was unpacking his suitcase. He crossed and called:
“Hullo!”
“That you, Thurston?” came a vaguely familiar voice. “Fordwich here. Got my flask, haven’t you?”
“Yes. I lost sight of you. What happened?”
“Called away. Hang on to the flask. Be seeing you around cocktail time. That all right?”
“Quite.”
“Did you get your golf clubs through safely?”
“Golf clubs? Of course. Why not?”
A chuckle of laughter.
“Just asking! See you about six.”
Fordwich hung up.
Thurston scratched his head reflectively, then returned to his unpacking. He took out a lounge suit, a Tuxedo and black trousers. He put them on hangers in the wardrobe, turned, and stared at his golf-bag.
Slowly, he went over and inspected it.
Amongst the club-heads he saw a rubber ferule sticking out!
He grabbed it, trying to pull the thing free. But he had to remove a niblick, a mid-iron and a mashie before he succeeded.
Then—he held Fordwich’s walking stick in his hand!
“Phew!”
Thurston sat down on the side of the bed. The stick was unmistakable. It was of some dark, heavy wood, smooth, nearly black. The handle curved above a plain gold band. There was no inscription.
He couldn’t doubt that the stick he held in his hands was the one upon which Fordwich had been leaning in the Customs shed!
“It isn’t possible!”
Thurston spoke the words aloud. He was startled out of his normal self. This inexplicable incident crowned all the others. What on earth did it mean? Why should the mysterious Mr Fordwich assume that he was a suitable subject for conjuring tricks? And when had the trick been performed?
He thought of the green devil mask. He recalled a conversation with an Anglo-Indian at his club. This man had assured him that, for all science might say to the contrary, the powers of magic were very real in the East.
Hurriedly completing his unpacking, he went down to the bar.
The delay in getting ashore had upset his plans. He didn’t know what to do with himself, or how to spend the evening.
Six o’clock came; half past.
Still there was no word from Fordwich. Thurston sat down and stared at the black walking stick. He didn’t touch it. He was aroused from amorous musings, in which the ivory arms of Mrs van Roorden figured prominently, by a disturbance in the corridor outside.
Someone seemed to be persistently banging on a door, and he could hear the dim ringing of a bell.
As the row continued, Thurston stood up, crossed the apartment and looked out.
The disturbance came from a door almost immediately opposite his own… and the main who rang
and banged was Nayland Smith!
“Smith!”
Nayland Smith had turned, was staring at Thurston across the width of the corridor. His skin had been permanently darkened by years of tropical suns, so that it was impossible to detect pallor. But Thurston thought that some of the old, eager vitality was lacking tonight. The silver at his temples had become more marked.
“Hullo, Thurston!” he rapped (the quick-fire speech remained unimpaired). “Didn’t expect to see you here. Come into your apartment and phone if I may.”
“You’re very welcome.”
But, when the door was closed, Nayland Smith dropped wearily into an armchair, and Thurston saw that he looked almost haggard. Something had taxed this man of iron to the limit of his endurance.
“I’m up against one of my toughest problems, Thurston,” he began in his abrupt, staccato way. “Can talk to you. Glad to. There’s a gigantic plot about to mature—a plot to destroy Fort Knox, and the gold reserve upon which the financial power of the United States largely depends!”
“Destroy Fort Knox! It’s just impossible! Communists?”
Nayland Smith shook his head, smiled grimly, and taking out a charred briar pipe, began to charge it from a dilapidated pouch.
“No. What d’you think I’m doing here? If it had been the Communists I might have agreed with you. But it’s something far more serious. Did you ever hear of the Si-Fan?”
Thurston stared blankly.
“Never.”
“It’s the most powerful secret society in the world today. It is directed by a man who is probably the supreme genius of all time. He has more scientific knowledge in that one phenomenal brain than any ten men alive. He is called Dr Fu-Manchu. You have heard the name?”
“As a name, yes.” Thurston was awed. “No more!”
Nayland Smith replaced his pouch and lighted his pipe.
“I sincerely hope you may never have occasion to learn more! We are uncertain of the details of the scheme. But we think some kind of guided missile is involved—probably with an atomic warhead, or something even more destructive!”
“But where could such a thing be assembled?”
“Several thousand men are engaged, at this very moment, trying to find out! One man, a brilliant FBI operative, has actually succeeded in becoming a member of the Si-Fan!”
