by Sax Rohmer
A hope that the caller was Lola died. “Yes, this is Brian Merrick.”
“Hold the line for Mr. Wellingham.”
Peter Wellingham came on. Even without seeing the pale face, Brian was chilled by those tones of false geniality.
“Good morning, Merrick. Hope I haven’t waked you up. Your instructions are just to hand, in the form of a reservation for a BOAC flight to Cairo leaving at the uncomfortable hour of five-thirty tomorrow morning. You’ll be picked up at your hotel at four, so I thought I’d give you time to pack.”
“Very thoughtful,” Brian murmured.
“A member of Sir Denis’ staff, a Mr. Ahmad, will contact you when, you arrive in Cairo. You’ll like him. I’ll send all papers along right away. Everything else in order?”
“Everything.”
“I’m off to Paris in an hour, or I should have loved to have you lunch with me. But I expect you’ll be well occupied with your own affairs. I saw you in Pall Mall one afternoon with an uncommonly pretty girl. You Americans seem to be damned popular!”
When Wellingham hung up, Brian lay back on his ruffled pillow and tried to figure out just where he stood and how he felt about it.
He had sent a long airmail letter to his father, telling him that a chance to travel had come his way in the form of a job as assistant to Sir Denis Nayland Smith. The Senator had replied, offering good advice and assuring Brian of his support if ever it should be needed. Then had followed some disturbing facts about the situation in the Near East.
‘The public,” his father wrote, “doesn’t appreciate the seriousness of the situation out there. Here at home they think it doesn’t concern them, as the trouble is so far away. But I can assure you that the President is deeply disturbed. The U.S. is the only partner in the Western bloc with any cash in the bank. This piles a terrible responsibility on us. I’m sure you know how to take care of yourself, my boy, but be very careful when you get to Egypt. You couldn’t have a better man beside you than Nayland Smith.”
But now that the moment of departure was near, it all seemed unreal. A dream had been realized. He had knocked, and the gate of adventure had opened.
And it meant that he had only one more day with Lola!
He snatched up the phone and asked to be connected with her room. There was no reply. But she had probably slept late, as he had done, and was now in her bath. He hung up, waited impatiently for ten minutes, and then called again.
No reply.
He jumped out of bed, called room service, ordered coffee, and went into the bathroom. The waiter came while Brian was in there. He rapped on the door.
“Your coffee, sir—and a note for you.”
Brian came out wrapped in a towel before the man had left the room. On the tray he saw a hotel envelope addressed to him in Lola’s handwriting.
He tore it open impatiently and read:
Brian dear:
I found instructions when I got in last night to take a 9:35 a.m. train to Nottingham, where there’s a sale of old lace. Which means I can’t get back until tomorrow! But I called the office this morning and asked for tomorrow off. I had to leave at 8:30 and didn’t like to wake you. But we can spend the whole day together tomorrow.
Love, Brian dear.
LOLA
Native Cairo slept. No sound came from the narrow street upon which the gate of a tree-shadowed courtyard opened. Inside the house there was unbroken silence. And Matsukata and the old Arab physician never stirred.
They had witnessed the appalling convulsions brought about by the injection of the secret elixir. In intervals of exhaustion, the Japanese surgeon had anxiously tested Dr. Fu Manchu’s heart, and had shaken his head. Even his wonderful composure had almost deserted him.
“It is always so,” the old Arab had murmured. “Only his heart is ten years older than the last time.”
For four hours they had been watching there, tirelessly. The convulsive struggles had subsided long before. Dr. Fu Manchu lay still as a dead man, so that his resemblance to the mummy of the long dead Pharaoh Seti I was uncannily increased.
The great change came slowly. First the gray tinge faded from the face of the apparently dead man. Then the hollow cheeks seemed to fill out. Faintly, and soon more clearly, Fu Manchu’s breath became audible. The two doctors exchanged glances. The old Arab drew a handkerchief from the sleeve of his robe and dried his forehead.
And at last Dr. Fu Manchu awoke—a dead man snatched from the tomb by his own superhuman knowledge.
He opened his eyes. They were clouded no longer. They were brilliantly green. He looked from face to face.
“Mankind is spared.” His voice had all its old authority. “My star rises in the East.”
* * *
Brian spent a most unhappy morning. He decided that he needed company, and called up everybody he could think of to join him for lunch. But everybody either was away or had a prior engagement.
His packing was done in half an hour, for he traveled light, and he lunched alone in the hotel grill room, wondering if he would ever lunch there again with Lola. Now that separation had come, swift as a sword stroke, he realized acutely how much she meant to him. He thought of the wildest plans, such as chartering a plane to Nottingham, but common sense rejected them. He wouldn’t see her again before he left for Cairo.
After a miserable lunch he walked across to Hyde Park, a hotel writing pad in his pocket, and took a chair at a spot where he could see the boats on the Serpentine. Lola and he had often sat there. He settled down to write her a long letter. It proved to be even a longer letter than he had intended it to be, and he decided to read it through and see if he had repeated himself.
It was at this point that he became aware of a voice. This voice was in some way familiar. The speaker seemed to be seated somewhere behind him, but too far away for Brian to make out what he was saying. Yet he seemed to recognize the voice, its curious intonations.
He tried to blot out other sounds—oars in rowlocks, shouts of young oarsmen, splashing—and to pick out words. And, up to a point, he succeeded.
“… no choice… instructions are… break off… association… Sorry… all that…”
Brian’s curiosity had to be satisfied. Taking out a cigarette, he sparked his lighter and turned aside as if to guard the flame from a trifling breeze, but really so that he could glance over his shoulder.
His curiosity was satisfied.
The Honorable Peter Wellingham sat in the shade of a fine old oak tree talking animatedly to a girl whose face was shadowed by a large wide-brimmed hat, but who almost certainly was Lola.
Brian turned his head quickly. He had a sudden sensation almost of nausea. Desperately he told himself that he couldn’t be sure the girl was Lola.
Although Wellingham had called him on several occasions, this was the first time he had seen him since that morning when the agreement had been signed. And Wellingham had told him only a few hours ago that he was leaving for Paris almost immediately!
Brian put his pen back in his pocket and stared at the long, unfinished letter. First, he must regain control of himself, then make sure that he hadn’t been mistaken about the identity of the girl with Wellingham. He must be cautious. If he had been lured into some kind of trap, if Wellingham and Lola (his heart seemed to miss a beat or two) were in league, what was their purpose?
He became calmer; he listened again. He could no longer hear Wellingham’s voice. He turned cautiously and looked back. They were walking away.
Brian jumped up and followed. Already they had a long start, and they were headed for the highway parallel to Rotten Row, where cars could be parked. He began to run.
The graceful carriage of the girl, her figure, even the dress she wore told him that she was Lola. The big floppy hat he had never seen. But it might be worn to shade her face if they chanced to see him.
He was still ten yards behind when Wellingham opened the door of a smart convertible for the girl, walked around, and got into th
e driving seat. The car glided off.
Brian called Peter Wellingham’s number, but was told by the Eurasian secretary that Mr. Wellingham was not at home. He gave his name and asked where Mr. Wellingham had gone. She was so sorry, but she didn’t know. Was there any message?
His next impulse was to call Michel’s. But Lola had been so insistent on this point all along that he hesitated. After all, even now he wasn’t sure that the girl with Wellingham had been Lola. And Lola had told him that “Madame” simply wouldn’t tolerate personal calls to members of her staff.
All his old distrust of Wellingham had swept over him again like an avalanche. Of Lola he hardly dared to think, except that he flogged his memory of the girl in the Park in search of something about her to prove that she was not Lola.
In any case, he was committed to go to Egypt. He couldn’t allow his personal doubts and frustrations to make him break faith with Sir Denis.
An Oxford friend invited Brian to dine with him, which revived his drooping spirits. He managed that evening to forget his problems for an hour or two, had a few drinks, and felt better. He returned fairly early, remembering his four-o’clock appointment, and tried to hypnotize himself to sleep by conjuring up mental pictures of Cairo. But somehow Lola got into the pictures.
CHAPTER THREE
Cairo, from the air, while not so breath-taking as Damascus seen from above, proved exciting enough all the same to Brian. His urge to visit the Near East had been gratified. But every human blessing has a string to it. The string in this case was one he had knotted himself—Lola.
He had left a letter at the reception desk for her, but not the letter he had been writing in the park. The second one had been even harder to write than the first; for although he had no positive proof that it was she he had seen with Wellingham, he remained obstinately convinced that it had been no one else.
The terms of the Times advertisement, the fact that Lola had drawn his attention to it, heir words—“It read like a job created purposely for you”—added up to a dark, a horrible suspicion. Had it been created purposely for him? Was it a new variety of the old confidence trick? Until he actually met Nayland Smith he couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t.
But its purpose? The money in his wallet was real enough. His fare had been paid to Cairo. Why? Could it be a case of abduction—a plot to bring about his disappearance? His father was a wealthy man… But this idea was too preposterous. He had to laugh it off.
In fact, he was really trying all the time to convince himself that there was nothing wrong in the business. If Lola was really Peter Wellingham’s girl friend and had merely been fooling with him—well, she wasn’t the only pretty girl who enjoyed the attentions of more than one man.
He would get over it. Anyway, he must wait and see…
Accommodations had been reserved for him, and an Egyptian wearing hotel uniform was standing by when the plane taxied to a stop on the runway. This experienced courier brushed him through customs as if by magic, and in no time Brian found himself speeding along a lebbekh-lined avenue into the ancient city. The colorful crowds, the palm trees, the unfamiliar buildings, and the queer smell that belongs to Cairo, all came up to his expectations.
His apartment had a balcony overlooking a busy street and the Esbekîyeh Gardens. The ruins of Shepheard’s Hotel, nearby, which the driver pointed out, struck a warning note, recalling his father’s advice, but it wasn’t sufficient to, depress him. While he was having a shower, a boy brought him a message. It was neatly typed on paper headed with an address in Sharîa Abdin and a phone number. It said:
Dear Mr. Merrick:
I shall give myself the pleasure of calling upon you in the morning. Probably you are tired after your long journey, but if you want to do any sightseeing, please don’t go out without a reliable dragoman. Sir Denis is expected to arrive at any moment.
Yours, obediently,
A. J. AHMAD
This suited Brian well enough. He was certainly tired, and. beyond a stroll in the surrounding streets he had no wish to go sightseeing. He planned to go to bed soon after dinner, and he did.
He was at breakfast when Mr. Ahmad arrived.
Mr. Ahmad, correctly dressed in European clothes, proved to be a good-looking Egyptian with a marked resemblance to Egypt’s prime minister. He spoke perfect English, but his phrasing was French.
“The cause of Sir Denis’ delay,” he told Brian, “is unknown. But his movements are always unpredictable. We expect him hourly. He appears like the jinn. There is a draft of air, a door opens, and Sir Denis Nayland Smith is with us.”
“That’s good fun for the staff!” Brian grinned. “I suppose the moment he appears I’m expected to report?”
Mr. Ahmad shrugged slightly. “As soon as possible.”
“Of course. I mean he wouldn’t want me to hang around the hotel?”
“Most certainly not. You know him. Judge for yourself. Provided you don’t leave Cairo, so that I can find you at short notice—it is sufficient. But a word of warning. If you are disposed to wander in the older parts of the city—”
“Take a dragoman? Now listen, Mr. Ahmad. Is that an order from Sir Denis?”
“But certainly not! It is merely a suggestion.”
“Meaning I can do as I like? You see, I don’t favor the idea of being taken in tow by a guide. I like to find my own way, go where I please, and stay as long as I want to.”
Mr. Ahmad smiled a dazzling smile. ‘The true sentiments of your freedom-loving country! Please yourself.
“But take care. European and American travelers are not too popular in certain districts. If any trouble should start, take cover.”
“Thank you.”
When, a short time later, Brian set out, brushing off the beggars, the guides, and the vendors of scarabs and amulets, and trying to brush off the flies, he looked up to a fleckless sky and found, paradoxically, that he was no longer unhappy.
He wondered if the atmosphere of Cairo had some magical soothing quality; for he seemed, now, to be prepared for whatever lay in store for him. He had suddenly become a fatalist. If he had been made the victim of some mysterious plot, it didn’t matter. The plotters had gained nothing so far, and he was living in luxury. If Lola didn’t answer his letter, never mind. He had had a good time with her in London. He wondered if the mood would last, or if later there would be a sharp reaction.
Sauntering across the Esbekîyeh, he was deeply interested in all he saw, and he went on into a street bisected by a maze of narrower streets, all teeming with noisy humanity. He was in the Mûski, artery of many bazaars. Beggars and stallkeepers buzzed around him like flies around a honey pot. He smilingly ignored them, which the head hall porter had told him was the best method. From passers-by who wore European dress, and therefore might speak English, he inquired the way to the Khân Khalîl, where, the same authority had informed him, swords, daggers, silk robes, amber mouthpieces, and other colorful products were on view.
And presently he found it. The hall porter had advised him, if he wished to make any purchases, to consult a certain Achmed es-Salah, whose shop anyone would point out. (“He sells very good cigarettes.”) It proved to resemble nothing so much as an artificial cave. The venerable Achmed sat in the entrance smoking, and at sight of the card that Brian had brought along he waved him to a chair and offered coffee and cigarettes.
Brian had a low opinion of the sirupy Arab coffee, but he found the Egyptian cigarettes, with their unfamiliar aroma, a pleasant change from the American variety. He asked if he could buy some.
Achmed reached behind him, opened a drawer, and produced a flat tin box containing a hundred. Smilingly he began to explain that only from him could these cigarettes be obtained. But his customer’s attention was wandering. Farther back in the shadows of the shop a female figure was vaguely visible to Brian—a girl who held a veil around the lower part of her face. She appeared to be watching him. He glanced away again.
“I’ll take the cigare
ttes,” he told Achmed. “If I want more I’ll write and send dollars, as you suggest.”
“I supply them to many American gentlemen,” Achmed declared, accepting the ten dollars that he claimed to be their price.
Brian concluded that many American gentlemen who visited Cairo must be wealthy American gentlemen. Achmed, indicating those shops that were in sight, told him where amber goods, silk robes, authentic antique pieces might be bought cheaply. Brian thanked him and stood up to go.
Glancing once more into the shadows, he saw that the girl’s remarkable eyes—they were amber eyes—seemed to be fixed upon him…
He looked in briefly at some of the shops Achmed had recommended, but bought nothing. Coming out of the last one, which stocked scimitars, Saracen daggers, and other queer Oriental weapons, he found himself staring into a shady alley nearly opposite. He had caught a glimpse of lustrous amber eyes!
The girl from Achmed’s had followed him. Why? Was she a prostitute, or had she some other purpose? Perhaps she was a member of Achmed’s household, instructed to find out if he did any business upon which Achmed could claim a commission.
He strode off at a pace that gave many of the leisurely Egyptians a jolt and called down on him dreadful curses, which, fortunately, he didn’t understand. He recovered his good humor in a street that seemed to lead to a city gate, turned right into another, now hopelessly lost, and saw the minaret of a mosque right ahead. He glanced back quickly. There was no sign of the Arab girl.
But from behind came shouts and a sound of many running feet. The sound drew nearer. Brian wondered if he had started a riot. The word “Inglizi” sometimes rose above the roar of voices. He might be the person referred to!
He put on a spurt, passed the mosque, and, looking back, saw the head of what was evidently an excited mob pouring around the corner.
Just as he was clear of the mosque, out from its courtyard spurted a party of Egyptian police. He noticed an open doorway almost beside him, darted in, and found it led to nowhere but a rickety staircase. He heard wild shouting and the sounds of fighting outside, then a shot.
