by Sax Rohmer
“Niu-fo-Tu!” she said. “Somewhere here we turn off.”
* * *
General Huan personally conducted Andre Skobolov to the apartment in his country residence reserved for distinguished guests. The Russian agent, a native of a Far Eastern province, had marked Mongolian features and spoke almost flawless Chinese. He had requested his host to invite no other guests to meet him, as he wished to talk business and to avoid attention. He was traveling by unfrequented roads, he explained, as he had many contacts in out-of-the-way places.
He had been entertained in a manner which recalled the magnificence of pre-Communist days, a fact upon which he congratulated General Huan so warmly that that monument of cunning knew that Skobolov suspected his loyalty to the present regime.
The “business” which Skobolov discussed introduced the names of so many members of the Order of the Si-Fan that the old strategist began to wonder if Skobolov might be an expert cryptographer who had already broken the cipher in which the Si- Fan Register was written. He had carefully inspected the visitor’s light baggage and had noted a large briefcase which Skobolov kept with him even during dinner. The Russian had apologized, explaining that it contained dispatches and must never be out of his sight.
General Huan bade Andre Skobolov good-night, regretting that some other method could not have been found to silence him; for he had a soldier’s respect for brave men.
Skobolov, when the door had closed, placed the briefcase under his pillow and once more, as he had already done on his arrival, checked every item of his baggage, locked the door, examined the window which opened on a balcony overlooking the beautiful gardens, and reexamined every compartment of a large and priceless lacquered cabinet which was set against one wall.
He did this so carefully, with the aid of a flashlamp that Dr. Fu Manchu, who was watching his every movement through a spy-hole in a part of the cabinet which formed the back of a closet in an adjoining room, was compelled to close the aperture.
Such devices for ensuring the comfort of guests were known in China long before the days of the Borgias.
When Skobolov, who had dined and wined well, finally retired, the spacious double room became dark except for furtive moonbeams stealing through the windows.
There was a brief silence, presently broken by the snores of the sleeping man.
Fu Manchu flashed a signal from the next room and returned to his observation post at the back of the closet.
He had watched and listened no longer than half a minute when the shadow of a man swept down past the moonlighted window and temporarily vanished. A moment later, the shadow reappeared as the man outside stood slowly upright. He had dropped from the roof to the balcony silent as a panther.
A nearly soundless manipulation, and the window opened. Although the night was warm, this resulted in a draft of cold air penetrating the room, perceptible even at the spy-hole.
The ghostly figure of the Cold Man became visible briefly in moonlight. His body, as well as his face, had an unearthly grey tinge. He wore only a grey loincloth. His eyes were lifeless as the eyes of a dead fish. He carried what looked like a small cage covered with gauze. Gliding nearer to the sleeping Skobolov, he removed the gauze.
A high, dim buzzing sound became audible in the suddenly chilly room.
The Cold Man, carrying the cage, crept back to the window, climbed out, and closed it. The keen ears of Dr. Fu Manchu heard a dull thud far below. The Cold Man had dropped from the balcony to the garden—where the Japanese, Matsukata, awaited him.
Dr. Fu Manchu watched and listened.
The high-pitched droning ceased by degrees . . . and suddenly the sleeper awoke.
Came a torrent of Russian curses, a sound of slapping . . . Skobolov was out of bed, the ray of his flashlamp shining now right, now left, now down below. With a slipper he began to kill flies, of which there seemed to be a number in the room, chasing them wherever that faint, high note led him.
When, at last, he had killed all he could find, shuddering coldly, he opened a bag and took out a tube of ointment which he began to rub on to his face, neck and arms.
Dr. Fu Manchu closed the little trap, smiling his mirthless smile . .
Chapter VII
It was a long way up the creek to the canal behind Niu-fo-Tu. And having found it. Tony had to go on for another mile or more before finding a suitable mooring where they might safely tie up. Dawn was very near by the time they made fast.
After a scant breakfast, he made Yueh Hua promise not to leave the boat until he returned. Reluctantly, she did so, and Tony set out.
He found a road lined with cypress trees which evidently led to the town. Already the sun was very warm. It promised to be a hot day. Soon he found himself in the shadow of one of several memorial arches which spanned the road outside the gate. Not without misgivings, for he was a marked man, he pressed on.
Entering the town, he saw the market place directly on his right, and the stalls of dealers in everything from sugar cane, water chestnuts, pork and pumpkins to clothing and millet whiskey
As he turned in, for he expected to get information here, a rickshaw coolie came out and nearly knocked him down. A fat Chinese woman smoking a cigarette sat in the rickshaw. The wife of some sort of official, he judged.
“Why don’t you look where you’re going?” she snapped at him.
He lowered his head humbly and passed on.
An old woman selling preserved duck stuck on long sticks and other Chinese hors d’oeuvres, gave him a toothless grin.
“There she goes! See what it is to be the wife of a jailer!”
“A jailer. Mother?”
“Don’t you know her? Her husband is head jailer at Chia-Ting! Give me the old days!”
Head jailer at Chia-Ting! The leering brute who used to gloat over his misery! The man Yueh Hua had claimed as her father!
Yueh Hua’s instincts hadn’t misled her. Niu-fo-Tu was dangerous.
“Can you tell me the way to the house of the Lama?” he asked.
“You can’t miss it, son. Straight up the main street. The second turning on the right, and his house faces you.”
He bought two of her smelly delicacies and returned to the main street.
It was just possible to see part of the waterfront, sails and masts of junks. Then, he saw the fat woman in the rickshaw. She was talking to an excited boy who stood beside her.
This time, his heart really seemed to miss a beat.
It was the cross-eyed little monster Tony had thought, and prayed, they had shaken off!
Under other circumstances he might have admired the deductive powers of this young Chinese Sherlock. As things stood, he could cheerfully have strangled him.
He must make a decision—and swiftly.
The group was some distance away down the narrow, crowded street. But even so, he heard the shrill voice of the fat woman.
“Impudent liar! My daughter indeed! My husband will flog the skin off her back!”
Tony cast one swift, longing glance toward the gate, and as he did so, Mahmud, Dr. Fu Manchu’s giant bodyguard, came in!
Instinctively, Tony swung around, forced his way through a surge of people hurrying in the direction of the disturbance, and plunged into a narrow and odorous alley on the right which would lead him from the point of danger. Some heads craned from windows, but they were all turned in the direction of the main street.
He cursed the hour that he had entered Niu-fo-Tu . . . for now, from behind, he heard a renewed uproar and detected the words, “Escaped prisoner! Reward . . .”
Swift footsteps were following him. To run would be to betray himself. But he knew that his life hung in the balance. He went on walking fast. The following footsteps drew nearer still. A hand touched his shoulder.
“Have you seen a man with a crutch?” came a crisp inquiry.
The password! Gulping in his relief. Tony gave the countersign:
“What is the name of his crutch?”
He twisted around. The speaker was a Buddhist lama, his head closely shaved; he wore horn-rimmed glasses. The proper reply was “Freedom”. But the monk gave another.
“Nayland Smith!” he snapped and went on in English, “I wasn’t sure, McKay, but, thank God! I was right. Your disguise is perfect. Keep calm, and keep walking. I came to look for you. Don’t bother to say anything. Look! We’re in another street. Walk on left two blocks and the lama’s house is right opposite. Jump to it! It’s urgent!”
Giving Tony’s arm a reassuring squeeze, Nayland Smith turned and hurried back along the way they had come.
Tony gave a parting glance to the tall figure, then turned left and hurried along the narrow street. He passed the first alley he came to, reached the second and pulled up, staring anxiously at the house indicated.
It was an old house, the front quaintly decorated, and as he slipped into a small passage, immediately he noticed a smell of incense.
The passage was very dark. He began to walk quietly along. As his eyes became used to this gloom, he saw two doors ahead. The one directly before him was closed. The other, on the right, was open a few inches, and light showed through the cranny.
Walking on tiptoe, he reached it, hesitated . . .
“Please come in,” a pleasant old voice invited, speaking a pure Chinese of a kind he rarely heard.
He pushed the door open.
He was in a room furnished as a library. Shelves were packed with scrolls of parchment and bound books. There was a shrine directly facing the door. Incense burned in a bronze bowl. And squatting behind a long, low table on which a yellow manuscript was spread, he saw a very old man who wore just such a lama robe as that which Nayland Smith had worn.
The old man removed his spectacles and looked up. Tony found himself being analyzed by a pair of eyes which seemed—like the dreadful eyes of Fu Manchu—to read his thoughts. But these were kindly eyes.
There was a wooden stool near the door. He sat down, and listened for sounds from the street. He had to say something.
“Your door was open. Excellency—”
“My door is always open to those who may need me. Nor have I achieved excellency, my son.”
Tony became tongue-tied.
“I perceive,” the gentle voice went on, “that you are in some urgent danger. Give me the facts, and leave it to me to decide if I may justly help you.”
“There are people out there who want to arrest me.”
This confession was considered quietly.
“Have you committed any crime?”
“No, my father. My only crime is that I tried to help China, where I was born.”
Then the lama smiled again and said an unexpected but welcome thing.
“Have you seen a man with a crutch?”
Tony jumped up in his glad excitement.
“What is the name of his crutch?” he asked hoarsely.
“Freedom, my son. You are welcome.” He began to speak almost faultless English. “You are Captain McKay, for whom Sir Denis Nayland Smith is searching.^
“By God’s mercy, he found me out there and saved me from the mob!”
“He felt responsible for your safety. I hope he will join us shortly. No one saw you together?”
“I believe and hope not. A big Nubian, who is personal bodyguard of the man you call “The Master’ and who knows me, has just come into the town.”
“Has he seen you?”
“Not to my knowledge. But there’s a boy—”
He got no further. Splitting the perfumed quiet of the room, came uproar: “Escaped prisoner! . . . Search all the houses! . . . Reward for whoever . . .”
Tony felt the sharp pang of despair. A group had gathered just outside the house. The old lama raised his hand.
“Pray don’t disturb yourself, my son.”
He stood up. He proved to be much taller than Tony had judged. There was quiet dignity in his bearing. He went out, leaving the door ajar. Tony reached it in one stride and stood there, breathlessly listening.
Communist China might be irreligious, but the old beliefs still swayed the masses. On the babel outside fell sudden silence. It was broken by the gentle voice.
“What troubles you, my children?”
A chorus replied. There was a dangerous criminal hiding in the town. They were going to search all the houses.
“As you please. Search by all means—but not here. There is no criminal, dangerous or otherwise, in my house. And you are interrupting my studies.”
Tony heard him coming back. He heard mutterings outside as well. But when the lama re-entered the room his calm remained unruffled.
“My door is still open. But no one will come in.”
“You have great courage, father—and I thank you.”
The priest returned to his place behind the low table.
“Courage is a myth. There are only faith and doubt. Nor have you cause to thank me. You owe me nothing. If what I do has merit then mine is the debt to you.”
Tony dropped back on the stool, conscious of perspiration on his forehead. The noise of the crowd outside faded away. But, almost immediately, came a swift step along the passage and Nayland Smith walked in. He nodded to Tony and addressed the old lama in English.
“Dr. Li Wu Chang, you are a magician. I was on the fringe of the crowd outside and heard you dismiss them. Those people would eat out of your hand!”
“Because they know. Sir Denis, that I never told them a lie.”
“Misdirection is an art.” Nayland Smith grinned at Tony. “I prefer to call it magic!”
“Between you,” Tony burst out, “you have surely saved my life. But what do I do now?”
“First,” snapped Nayland Smith, “reverting to the last report I had before you were compelled to scrap your walkie-talkie. You explored some village on the pretext of looking for a mythical relative, or somebody. Sound strategy. Confirmation of your story, if questioned. You reported that you came across a large barbed-wire enclosure on the outskirts, with several buildings, resembling isolation hospital. Guards. You retired unobserved. Remember?”
“Clearly”
“What was the name of this village?”
Tony clutched his head, thought hard, and then: “Hua-Tzu,” he said.
“Good,” came the gentle voice of the lama. “As I suspected. That is the Soviet research plant!”
Nayland Smith, a strange figure with his shaven skull and monk’s robe, clapped Tony on the shoulder. “Sound work! And have you fathomed the identity of the Master?”
“I have. He cross-examined me in jail! The Master is Dr. Fu Manchu!”
* * *
Half an hour later, wearing a new outfit and a bamboo hat, supplied by the lama, the size of a car tire, and bending under a load of lumber, Tony set out along a narrow track formed by a dried-up ditch which ran at the foot of the lama’s little garden. It joined the canal not far from the sampan.
He was sweating, his new suit soiled, when he broke out on to the bank above the boat.
“Yueh Hua! Yueh Hua!”
There was no reply.
“Yueh Hua!”
He couldn’t keep a sudden terror out of his voice as he jumped on board.
Then he dropped down and buried his face in his hands.
He had saved himself.
They had caught Moon Flower.
That abominable boy must have seen the boat and raced into the town to report it.
A wave of madness swept over him. He heard again the shrill voice of the fat wife of the jailer. He knew what Yueh Hua’s fate would be. And he had left her to it.
There was a mist before his eyes. He clenched his teeth, tried to think.
He leaped ashore like a madman and began to run. He had reached the road when he stopped running and dropped into a slow walk. Sanity, of sorts, was returning.
Why, as he still remained free, had no watch been posted over the sampan?
If only he could think clearly. He had
avoided any reference to Yueh Hua during his interview with Nayland Smith and the lama. He was too sensitive on the subject to have faced the embarrassment of such an explanation, the quizzical smile of Sir Denis. So although he had another of the remarkable walkie-talkies and could easily get in touch with him in any emergency, the present emergency was one in which that resourceful man couldn’t be consulted.
So he must handle this situation alone.
He kept on his way toward the town. His huge hat and new clothes altered his appearance, but he was sure, by now, that his enemies would be hard to deceive.
Along the road ahead, he began to count the trees: One-two-three, up to seven, then straining his eyes, looking for the little figure.
In his sorrow and fury, he had thought of a lone-hand rescue of Yueh Hua from wherever they had her locked up, saw himself shooting a way out in the best Western tradition. But, even had this wild plan succeeded, they were still many miles behind the second Bamboo Curtain. It was certain they would never get through alive.
Head down, he thought miserable thoughts as he walked past a bend in the tree-lined road. Then he looked up unhappily and began counting again—One-two-three- four-five.,.
He stood still, as if checked by a blow in the face.
A small figure was hurrying along ahead, making for the town!
As if the sound of his racing footsteps had been a dreaded warning, the figure suddenly turned aside, and disappeared among the banks of golden grain.
Wondering if he was going mad, if grief had led to illusion, he ran on until he came to the spot, as well as he could judge, where the disappearance had taken place. He stood, panting, and staring into a golden sea, billowing softly in a slight breeze.
He could find no track, see no broken stalks. Nothing stirred, except those gentle waves which passed over the sunny yellow sea.
“Yueh Hua!” he shouted hoarsely “Yueh Hua! This is Chi Foh!”
And then the second illusion took place. Like a dark little Venus arising from golden foam, Yueh Hua stood up—not two yards from the road!
She stretched out her arms.
“Chi Foh! Chi Foh! I didn’t know it was you . . . thought they . . . I was going to look for you . . .”
