by Sax Rohmer
“When he finally came in, I told him about one or two queer things that had happened, and he said boredom was getting on my nerves and ordered me to forget the job and play a while.”
He looked up at a waiter who had just appeared and ordered two more Martinis.
Lola checked him. “No more for me, Brian. I’ll finish on this one.”
Brian didn’t argue, but when the waiter went off he asked, “Surely you’re through work for the day, Lola?”
“Yes.” She was watching him, smiling. “But I like to stay sober all the same. What were these queer things that happened, Brian?”
“Oh!” He lighted a cigarette. “We seem to have some curious neighbors up above us in the penthouse. I overheard somebody talking a queer sort of jargon, and I mentioned it to Sir Denis.”
“He probably said that some United Nations representatives lived there?”
“No. He didn’t say that.” Brian tried to draw a cloak of secrecy about himself, but wasn’t quite, successful. “For a man on a dangerous mission—or so I understand—he brushed it off very lightly. Between ourselves, there are times when I wonder if Sir Denis is really up to his old form.”
“Please, Brian!” Lola smiled her one-sided smile. “Don’t talk Oxford. After all, you’re still an American.”
Brian grinned almost happily. Lola’s impudent criticism of his occasional traces of English idiom and speech, far from annoying, delighted him. It proved her interest, or so he argued. His drink arrived; he sampled it.
“Maybe I mean he’s getting too old for his job.”
Lola frowned thoughtfully, twirling her glass between sensitive fingers.
“As I haven’t met him, I can’t judge, Brian. But there’s just one thing I’d like to know: the first time you saw him in Cairo, did you think he had changed?”
Brian considered the question. “The first time I saw him was from a rooftop, and he looked the same as ever then. But later—”
“From a rooftop! What on earth were you doing on a roof? And where was Nayland Smith?”
Brian outlined the incident that had led him to take refuge on the roof of a house overlooking that of the Sherîf Mohammed, and told her what he had seen from there.
“There was no mistake about it, dear. The way he gripped his pipe, the trick of twitching the lobe of his ear. I knew I was looking at Nayland Smith.”
“How excited you must have been! And after that?”
Brian told her how Nayland Smith had been hiding in the house of the Sherîf Mohammed until he could make contact with the Embassy. It was a fine story, and now that Sir Denis was safe in New York there could be no harm in telling it. He told her how he had demanded an interview with the Sherîf.
“When did you see Nayland Smith again?” Lola asked.
Brian gave her an account of Sir Denis’ secret entrance to his hotel apartment, and equally secret exit.
“Was it then, Brian, when you actually talked to him, that you began to wonder if he had outlived what you call ‘his old form’?”
“Not exactly right then, Lola.”
Brian paused and drained his glass. He had thought of something; and the thing, though perhaps trivial, had staggered him, chiefly because he had never thought of it before.
“Then when, dear?”
“Later, I guess. But—when Sir Denis came to see me he had a strip of surgical plaster on the bridge of his nose.”
“Had he been in a fight?” Lola asked the question jokingly, but her gray eyes weren’t smiling.
“He’d had one hell of a time getting out of the hands of the Reds. But that’s not the point. Something that he didn’t tell me must have happened right there in Cairo. Because, when I saw him pacing around that room, and I saw him clearly, there was no plaster on his nose!”
One of the hourly reports ordered by Dr. Fu Manchu was just coming in. That solitary spark of green light glowed in the darkness.
“Brian Merrick’s complete ignorance of Operation Zero confirmed.”
“He has served his purpose, and could, be dispensed with. Henceforward he becomes a possible source of danger. Where is he now?”
“In the Sunset Room.”
“He is covered?”
“Closely, Excellency.”
“What federal operatives are on duty there?”
“Two FBI agents.”
The green light disappeared. And, invisible in the darkness, Dr. Fu Manchu laughed.
* * *
In the popular but expensive Sunset Room, high up in the Babylon-Lido, with its celebrated dance band and star-spangled floor show, Brian found himself transported to paradise. With Lola in his arms, he was lost to the world, lifted above all its petty troubles—a man rapturously in love. His frustrations, doubts, and fears had dispersed like mist-under the morning sun.
“Are you happy, dearest?” he whispered.
“Very happy, Brian.”
He was silent for a long time, living in a dream.
“I often wonder, Lola, in your wanderings about the world, if you ever met someone else who meant more to you than I do.”
“There’s no one who means more to me than you, Brian. But, like you, dear, I have a job to do. We’re both young enough to enjoy ourselves without spoiling it by getting serious for a while yet.”
Brian drew a long breath, made fragrant by the perfume of her hair. “You mean you’d rather stay with Michel than marry me?”
Lola sighed. “I reminded you once before, Brian dear, that early marriages often don’t work out.”
“But not always.”
“Brian, we’re happy! Maybe we’ll never capture this wonderful thing again. Please don’t get serious and spoil it all—not tonight.”
He swallowed, but found enough discretion to respect her wishes. As always, Lola was elusive—and so all the more maddeningly desirable.
He was silent for some time, and then he said, “There’s a man standing over by the door. See him? He seems to be watching us.”
“Which one do you mean, Brian?”
“The tall, dark fellow just lighting a cigarette.”
Lola laughed. “No friend of mine. Maybe he’s the house detective!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Brian returned to the suite earlier than he had intended. Lola had been paged just before the star entertainer appeared, and returned, looking very wretched, to tell him that Madame Baudin had checked in at the Babylon-Lido that night and would remain until her forthcoming fashion show there took place. Madame insisted upon an immediate conference in her apartment.
Brian found Nayland Smith at the desk reading what looked like an official document. As usual, his pipe was going like a factory chimney. A tall, painted Italian screen enclosed the desk, and the limited space around it had the quality of a fog. Sir Denis looked up when Brian came in.
“Hello, Merrick. A rumor reaches me that you were seen in the Sunset Room with a very pretty girl. Don’t apologize! You’ve had a dull time, I know. Glad you can find agreeable company.”
“Thanks, Sir Denis—though I can’t imagine who told you.”
Nayland Smith smiled. But again it wasn’t the happy smile that Brian remembered—a smile that had seemed to sweep the years aside and reveal an eager boy.
“One of the FBI men detailed to keep an eye on you.”
“On me? Why?”
Sir Denis tossed the typescript aside and stood up. “Merrick, we’re marked men.” The smile vanished. His face became grim. “If Fu Manchu could trap either of us, it would give him a lever with Washington—and he’d know how to use it. I’ve warned you before. Trust nobody—not even a taxi driver you may pick up outside the hotel.”
“But—” A hot protest burned on Brian’s tongue, for he detested an implication that Lola was suspect. He checked the words. “You suggest that this man would try to hold us?”
“And could succeed, Merrick. Remember how long I was held. He has not only the Si-Fan behind him, but the Reds as well.�
�� He began to pace up and down. “Dr. Fu Manchu has little time left. Tomorrow night Dr. Hessian has agreed to give a demonstration.”
“Tomorrow night!”
“A committee formed by your father, and approved by the President, will be here. Not one word of this must leak out. Their visit is a top secret… and Fu Manchu would stop at nothing to prevent it!”
* * *
Sleep didn’t come easily to Brian that night. Between uneasy dozes, he found himself trying to figure out if Lola really had been called to confer with Madame Baudin, or if she was avoiding being left alone with him, and trying to convince himself that Dr. Hessian’s invention was not a mirage, the dream of a mad scientist, but all that Nayland Smith believed it to be.
That Sir Denis deliberately kept him in the dark concerning certain vital facts of the business was beyond dispute. Why? Didn’t he trust him?
The crowning mystery, which he had never been able to fathom, was the reason he had been employed. Those qualifications, stipulated in the Times advertisement, all of which he possessed, had never been called upon. For all that had happened to date, almost anybody, Ph.D. or coal miner, athlete or cripple, would have done as well.
He switched on the bedside lamp, saw that the time was two a.m., and got up to get a drink. There was beer in the refrigerator. He made his way to the kitchenette and opened a can.
As he poured put the cold beer, he wondered if Nayland Smith had gone to sleep. Carrying the glass in his hand, he walked barefooted to Sir Denis’ door to find out.
His door was open, and even in the dim light Brian could see that the bed was unoccupied. There was no light in the living room.
He stood for a moment, hesitating. Then he went out to the foyer.
The door of the suite was unlocked.
In view of what Nayland Smith had told him earlier that night, and of his insistence that the door must always be locked and bolted at night, this was more than puzzling.
Brian knew that he had dozed more than once, but if there had been any struggle it couldn’t have failed to arouse him.
While he stood there in a state of indecision, a shot sounded from the penthouse. It was quickly followed by a second and a third. Then a muffled explosion shook the apartment.
Brian ran back to the living room. He switched the light on, set the can of beer down, and crossed to the penthouse phone. Before his hand touched it the instrument rang.
“That you, Merrick?” came Nayland Smith’s voice.
“Yes. What’s happened? Shall I come up?”
“No. Stay where you are. Dr. Hessian called me an hour ago. He had decided upon a test experiment. It was successful. Thought you might have heard something and would be wondering. Turn in. All’s well.” Sir Denis hung up.
Brian wondered if he should obey orders and lock the outer door. He decided against it and went back to bed.
* * *
He woke early in the morning, vaguely aware of disturbed dreams, in which Nayland Smith had become transformed into a sort of prehistoric monster about to devour him and had then vanished in a dense cloud of smoke.
Wondering why he felt so jaded, he gave an order for coffee and went into the bathroom. If Sir Denis had returned or not he didn’t know, and for some reason he didn’t care. There was no sound in the suite. He was finishing up with a cold shower when the waiter came into the living room.
Brian called out, “Leave my coffee in there, waiter.”
“Yes, sir.” But the man lingered, drew nearer the open bathroom door. “Explosion upstairs last night, I hear. Did it wake you?”
Brian hesitated, towel in hand. He must be cautious.
“Yes, it did. Any damage?”
“Not that I’ve heard. One of those pressure cookers blew up, they say. But nobody hurt.”
“Lucky. I wondered what had happened.”
He was drinking his coffee and glancing over the morning newspapers that the man had brought up when Sir Denis burst in. He was dressed in one of his well-cut and well-worn tweed suits, so that evidently he, too, had been an early riser.
“Good morning, Merrick. Sorry about last night. Started a lot of rumors. Not good for us. One thing’s certain—Einstein was an amateur compared to Hessian! I want you with me up there tonight. You’re going to see a miracle.”
When, soon afterward, Nayland Smith dashed out again, saying that he had an important conference at police headquarters, Brian was left as much in the dark as he had been before Sir Denis dashed in. Mingled with the promised excitement of what the night had in store was a growing resentment at being treated like a figure of no consequence where the big issues at stake were concerned.
Irritably Brian looked at his watch, and decided that it wasn’t too early to call Lola. She answered almost at once.
“Did I wake you, dear?”
“No, Brian. I’m all ready to go out. A long day ahead at Michel’s, and I was up so late last night. Heaven only knows when I’ll be through. This was the job I was brought here to do. I have to pass on all the models who’ll display Michel’s creations at the show.”
“Poor darling! Any hope for lunch?”
“I’m afraid not. It will be sandwiches and coffee from the nearest delicatessen for me. If I can make it between seven and eight for a quick drink I’ll call you.”
Brian’s spirits sank to zero. The Washington committee, headed by his father, was due at eight o’clock.
“I’m afraid I may be tied up by then, Lola. But call anyway. We might fix something for later.”
It was a seemingly interminable morning. Around one o’clock Sir Denis called to say that Brian could leave the suite for his lunch, provided he didn’t leave the building. “Acting on your advice, I’ve made other arrangements to safeguard the penthouse. But in case I’m delayed, stand by to receive, your father’s party from seven on.”
Brian lingered over his lunch and then wandered about the huge hotel, hoping to find somebody he knew, but without success. Merely to kill time, he dropped onto a sofa in one of the public rooms and ordered coffee.
A strange-looking man sauntered by. He was young and handsome in a sinister way, with large brilliant black eyes and a dark complexion. Otherwise conventionally dressed, he wore a blue turban. He seemed to have an absorbing interest in the younger women present.
When the waiter brought Brian’s coffee, Brian asked, “Is the character in the blue turban staying here?”
The waiter nodded. “Yes, sir. They tell me he’s an Indian prince. All I know is he has a servant with him who looks like a gorilla.”
* * *
Almost on the stroke of seven, Senator Merrick arrived. He was alone.
“This is a very wonderful occasion, my boy,” he declared, “and you should be proud that you’ve been chosen to take part in it. The, Secretary of State is coming, General Jennings, General Rawlins of the Air Force, and Admiral Druce, representing the Navy, And last but not least, Dr. Jurgenson, the physicist and the President’s personal adviser on development of atomic projects. Where is Sir Denis? With Dr. Hessian, I suppose?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Brian confessed. “But he warned me that he might be late.”
The Senator nodded. “He has a heavy load of responsibility on his shoulders.”
The party assembled in ones and twos, Nayland Smith last except for Dr. Jurgenson. Sir Denis looked physically exhausted, Brian thought. The three officers, all of them in civilian clothes, showed one trait in common: a reserved but unmistakable hostility for each other.
At three minutes after eight the scientist arrived, a spare gray man in powerful spectacles and a bad temper. He looked around irritably.
“These damn taxi drivers,” he muttered. “The one I got tried to bring me up here by way of the Queens Midtown Tunnel!”
The three officers transferred their mutual hostility to the civilian. Nayland Smith said, “If you will be good enough to follow me, gentlemen, we will now proceed to the demonstration.”
>
They filed out and along the corridor to the penthouse door, which proved to be open. Brian’s curiosity rose to fever pitch. This was his first visit to Dr. Hessian’s hideaway. There was another door at the top of the stairs, which was opened by an expressionless Japanese in a white tunic.
He led them through a foyer crowded with oversize trunks and cases and into what was evidently the main room of the penthouse. Although French windows were opened, so that the light-studded panorama of Manhattan could be seen stretched out below the terrace, the air was heavy with some pungent chemical odor.
The Japanese, apparently Dr. Hessian’s assistant, closed the door as the last of the party came in.
“Here, gentlemen, we shall witness a demonstration of Dr. Hessian’s supreme achievement.”
All eyes became focused on a long, narrow table in the middle of the room. It was entirely covered by a large-scale plan of New York City, from the Battery to the Bronx. Roughly midway on the plan a miniature radio mast stood.
Three large metal balls of some dull metal that looked like lead were suspended above the table from the high ceiling. Hanging down lower than these was a small box.
Ten chairs were placed around the table, four on either side and one at each end.
“Your places are marked, gentlemen,” the Japanese told them in perfect English. “Writing materials are provided.”
They sorted themselves out, and Brian found himself beside Nayland Smith. Senator Merrick had been placed at one end of the long table.
“Stand by to make notes of anything worth remembering, Merrick,” Sir Denis said in his staccato fashion.
He seemed to be highly strung, or so Brian thought. Nor was he the only one. When, everybody was seated, only two chairs remained vacant: the one to the left of Dr. Jurgenson and the one facing Senator Merrick at the other end of the table. A hum of conversation arose, and Brian detected a theme of incredulity running through it.
“Looks like a new gambling game,” Admiral Druce growled. “Where do we put our chips?”
But silence fell suddenly when a strange figure appeared in an inner doorway. A tall man, stooping slightly, he too wore a white tunic, as well as tinted glasses, a small skullcap, and gloves that appeared to be made of black rubber.
