by Sax Rohmer
I paused. This was not in accordance with our plan. I had made a mistake and lost my way. However, the place in front of me was apparently an uninhabited building, and pushing on I examined it with curiosity.
It was a roughly constructed hut, and I saw that it possessed a sort of crude landing stage overhanging the stream. The only visible entrance from the bank was a door secured by a padlock. The padlock proved to be unfastened. Some recollection of this part of Essex provided by the garrulous sergeant flashed through my mind. At one time these shallow streams running out into the wider estuary had been celebrated for the quality of the eels which came there in certain seasons. As I opened the door I knew that this was a former eel fisher’s hut.
I shone a beam of light into the interior.
At first glance the place appeared to be empty, then I saw something… A recently opened sardine tin lay upon a ledge. Near it was a bottle bearing the label of a local brewer. And as I stepped forward and so obtained a better view I discovered in an alcove on the right of the ledge part of a loaf and a packet of butter.
My heart beat faster. By sheer accident I had found what I sought, for it seemed highly improbable from the appearance of the hut that this evidence had been left by anyone but Sergeant Hythe!
And now I made another discovery.
At one end of the place was what looked like a deep cupboard. Setting my lamp on the ledge I opened the cupboard—and what I saw clinched the matter.
There was a shelf about a foot up from the floor, and on it lay an open knapsack! I saw a clasp knife, a box of bar chocolate, a small tin of biscuits and a number of odds and ends which I was too excited to notice at the time—for, most extraordinary discovery of all, I saw a queer-looking hat surmounted by a coral bead.
At this I stared fascinatedly, and then taking it up, carried it nearer to the light. Its character was unmistakable.
It was a mandarin’s cap!
And as I stared all but incredulously at this thing which I had found in a deserted hut on an Essex marsh, a faint movement made me acutely, coldly alert.
Someone was walking very quietly along the path ouside…
What sounded like the booming call of a bittern came from over the marshes. The footsteps drew nearer. I stood still in an agony of indecision. Like a revelation the truth had come to me: We were searching for the base used by the murdered man. Others were searching, too. And this astounding piece of evidence which I held in my hand—this was the object of their search!
I knew from the nearness of the footsteps that retreat was impossible. Already I had selected my hiding place. What to do with the mandarin’s cap was the only questionable point.
I solved it quickly. I placed the cap upon the ledge littered with the remains of what had probably been poor Hythe’s last meal, extinguished my flashlamp, crept into the cupboard and nearly closed the door…
CHAPTER TEN
THE MANDARIN’S CAP
Through the chink of the opening I stared out. I wondered if the fact that I had left the door open would warn whoever approached that someone was inside. However, he might not be aware that it was ordinarily fastened. Closer and closer drew the footsteps on the muddy path; then the sound gave place to the swishing of long, wet grass, and I knew that the intruder was actually at the door.
What had seemed at first to be impenetrable darkness proved now to allow of some limited vision. Framed in the grey oblong of the doorway I saw a motionless figure.
So still it was in that small building that I wondered if the sound of my breathing might be audible. The booming cry sounded again from near at hand, and I questioned it, listening intently, wondering if it might have been simulated—a signal from some watcher covering the motionless figure framed in the doorway.
During the few seconds that elapsed in this way I managed to make out certain details. The new arrival wore a long raincoat and what looked like a black cap; also I saw leggings or riding boots. So much I had discovered, peering cautiously out, when a beam from an electric torch shot through the darkness, directed straight into the hut. Its light fell upon the mandarin’s cap.
“Ah!” I heard.
That one exclamation revealed an astounding fact: the intruder was a girl!
She stepped in and crossed to the ledge. My heart began to beat irregularly. A queer mingling of fear and hope which had claimed me at the sound of her voice now became focussed in one huge indescribable emotion as I saw that pure profile, the clinging curls under the black cap, the outline, I thought, of a Greek goddess.
As I quietly slipped across to the open door and stood with my back to it, the girl turned in a flash—and I found myself looking into those magnificent eyes which had so strangely and persistently haunted me from the hour of that first brief meeting.
Their expression now in the light reflected from the ray of the torch, which moved unsteadily in her grasp, was compounded of fear and defiance. She was breathing rapidly, and I saw the glitter of white teeth through slightly parted lips.
Quite suddenly, it seemed, she recognised me. As I wore a soft-brimmed hat, perhaps my features were partly indistinguishable.
“You!” she whispered, “you again!”
“Yes,” I said shortly. Now, although it had cost me an effort, I had fully mastered myself. “I again. May I ask what you are doing here?”
A hardness crept over her features; her lips set firmly. She put the torch down on the ledge beside her while I watched her intently, then:
“I might quite well ask you the same question,” she replied, and her enchanting accent gave the words the value of music.
I laughed, standing squarely in the doorway and watching her.
Wisps of fog floated between us.
“I am here because a man was brutally murdered last night—and here, on the ledge beside you, is the clue to his murderer.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked quietly.
“Only about what I know.”
“Suppose what you say is true, what has it to do with you?”
“It is every man’s business to run down a murderer.”
Her wonderful eyes opened more widely; she stared at me like a bewildered child—a pose, I told myself, perfectly acted.
“But I mean—what brings you here, to this place? You are not of the police.”
“No, I am not ‘of the police.’ My name is Bart Kerrigan; I am a journalist by profession. Now I am going to ask you what brings you here to this place. What is your name?”
Her expression changed again; she lowered her lashes disdainfully.
“You could never understand and it does not matter. My name—my name—would mean nothing to you. It is a name you have never heard before.”
“All the more reason why I should hear it now.”
Unwittingly I said the words softly, for as she stood there wrapped in that soiled raincoat, her little feet in muddy riding boots, I thought there could be no more desirable woman in the world.
“My name is Ardatha,” she replied in a low voice.
“Ardatha! A charming name, but as you say one I have never heard before. To what country does it belong?” Suddenly she opened her eyes widely.
“Why do you keep me here talking to you?” she flashed, and clenched her hand. “I will tell you nothing. I have as much right to be here as you. Please stand away from that door and let me go.”
The demand was made imperiously, but unless my vanity invented a paradox her eyes were denying the urgency of her words.
“It is the duty of every decent Christian,” I said, reluctantly forcing myself to face facts, “to detain any man or any woman belonging to the black organisation of which you are a member.”
“Every Christian!” she flashed back. “I am a Christian. I was educated in Cairo.”
“Coptic?”
“Yes, Coptic.”
“But you are not a Copt!”
“Did I say I was a Copt?”
“You belong to the
Si-Fan.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about. Even if I did, what then?”
I was drifting again and I knew it. The words came almost against my will:
“Do you understand what this society stands for? Do you know that they employ stranglers, garroters, poisoners, cut-throats, that they trade in assassination?”
“Is that so?” She was watching me closely and now spoke in a quiet voice. “And your Christian rulers, your rulers of the West—yes? What do they do? If the Si-Fan kills a man, that man is an active enemy. But when your Western murderers kill they kill men, women and children—hundreds—thousands who never harmed them—who never sought to harm anybody. My whole family—do you hear me?—my whole family, was wiped from life in one bombing raid. I alone escaped. General Quinto ordered that raid. You have seen what became of General Quinto…”
I felt the platform of my argument slipping from beneath my feet. This was the sophistry of Fu-Manchu! Yet I hadn’t the wit to answer her. The stern face of Nayland Smith seemed to rise up before me; I read reproach in the grey eyes.
“I think we’ve talked long enough,” I said. “If you will walk out in front of me, we will go and discuss the matter with those able to decide between us.”
She was silent for a moment, seeming to be studying my considerable bulk, firmly planted between herself and freedom.
“Very well.” I saw the gleam of little white teeth as she bit her lip. “I am not afraid. What I have done I am proud to have done. In any case I don’t matter. But bring the notebook—it might help me if I am to be arrested.”
“The notebook?”
She pointed to the open cupboard out of which I had stepped. I turned and saw in the dim light among the other objects which I have mentioned what certainly looked like a small notebook. Three steps and I had it in my hand.
But those three steps were fatal.
From behind me came a sound which I can only describe as a rush. I turned and sprang to the doorway. She was through—she must have reached it in one bound! The door was slammed in my face, dealing me a staggering blow on the forehead. I took a step back to hurl myself against it and heard the click of the padlock.
Undeterred, I dashed my weight against the closed door; but although old it was solid. The padlock held.
“Don’t try to follow me!” I heard. “They will kill you if you try to follow me!”
I stood still, listening, but not the faintest sound reached my ears to inform me in which direction Ardatha had gone. Switching on my lamp I stared about the hut.
Yes, she had taken the mandarin’s cap! I had shown less resource than a schoolboy! I had been tricked, outwitted by a girl not yet out of her teens, I judged. I grew hot with humiliation. How could I ever tell such a story to Nayland Smith?
The mood passed. I became cool again and began to search for some means of getting out. Barely glancing at the notebook, I thrust it into my pocket. That the girl had deliberately drawn my attention to it I did not believe. She had had no more idea than I what it was, but its presence had served her purpose. I could find nothing else of importance.
And now I set to work on the small shuttered window at the back of the ledge upon which those fragments of food remained. I soon had the shutter open, and as I had hoped, the window was unglazed. I climbed through on to a rickety landing stage and from there made my way around to the path. Here I stood stock still, listening.
One mournful boom of that strange solitary bird disturbed the oppressive silence, this and the whispering of reeds in a faint breeze. I could not recall ever to have found myself in a more desolate spot.
Fog was rapidly growing impenetrable.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AT THE MONKS’ ARMS
I found myself mentally reviewing the ordnance map I had seen at the policeman’s cottage, listening to the discursive instructions of the sinister but well-informed Constable Weldon.
“After you leave the cottage where old Mother Abel hanged herself”—a stubby finger moved over the map—“there’s a path along beside a little stream. You don’t take that”—I had—“you go straight on. This other road, bearin’ left, would bring you to the Monks’ Arms, one of the oldest pubs in Essex. Since the by-pass was made I don’t know what trade is done there. It’s kept by an old prize fighter, a Jerseyman, or claims to be; Jim Pallant they call him—a mighty tough customer; Seaman Pallant was his fightin’ name. The revenue officers have been watchin’ him for years, but he’s too clever for ’em. We’ve checked up on him, of course. He seems to have a clean slate in this business…”
Visualising the map, I decided that the route back via the Monks’ Arms was no longer than the other, and I determined to revive my drooping spirits before facing Nayland Smith. Licensed hours did not apply in my case for I was a “bona-fide traveller” within the meaning of the act.
I set out on my return journey.
At one time I thought I had lost my way again, until presently through the gloom I saw a signboard projecting above a hedge, and found myself before one of those timbered hostelries of which once there were so many in their neighbourhood, but of which few remain today! I saw that the Monks’ Arms stood on the bank of a stream.
I stepped into a stuffy bar. Low, age-blackened beams supported the ceiling; there were some prints of dogs and prize fighters; a full-rigged ship in a glass case. The place might have stood there when all but unbroken forest covered Essex. As a matter of fact though not so old as this, part of it actually dated back to the time of Henry VII.
There was no one in the barroom, dimly lighted by two paper-shaded lamps. In the bar I saw bottle-laden shelves, rows of mugs, beer engines. Beyond was an opening in which hung a curtain composed of strings of coloured rushes. Since no one appeared I banged upon the counter. This produced a sound of footsteps; the rush curtain was parted, and Pallant, the landlord, came out.
He was as fine a specimen of a retired prize fighter as one could hope to find, with short thick nose, slightly out of true, deep-set eyes and several battle scars. His rolled-up shirt sleeves revealed muscular forearms and he had all the appearance of being, as Constable Weldon had said, “a tough customer.”
I called for a double scotch and soda.
“Traveller?”
“Yes. London.”
He stared at me with his curiously unblinking deep-set brown eyes, then turned, tipped out two measures from an inverted bottle, squirted soda into the glass and set it before me. I paid, and he banged down my change on the counter. A cigarette drooping from his thick underlip he stood, arms folded, just in front of the rush curtain, watching me with that unmoving stare. I sipped my drink, and:
“Weather bad for trade?” I suggested.
He nodded but did not speak.
“I found you almost by accident. Lost my way. How far is it to the station?”
“What station?”
This was rather a poser, but:
“The nearest, of course,” I replied.
“Mile and a half, straight along the lane from my door.”
“Thanks.” I glanced at my watch. “What time does the next train leave?”
“Where for?”
“London.”
“Six-eleven.”
I lingered over my drink and knocking out my pipe began to refill it. The unmoving stare of those wicked little eyes was vaguely disconcerting, and as I stood there stuffing tobacco into the hot bowl, a possible explanation occurred to me: perhaps Pallant mistook me for a revenue officer!
“Is the fishing good about here?” I asked.
“No.”
“You don’t cater for fishermen then?”
“I don’t.”
Then with a final penetrating stare he turned, swept the rush curtain aside and went out. I heard his curiously light retreating footsteps.
As I had paid for my drink he evidently took it for granted that I should depart now, and clearly was not interested in the possibility that I might order an
other. However, I sat for a while on a stool, lighted my pipe and finished my whisky and soda at leisure. A moment later no doubt I should have left, but a slight, a very slight movement beyond the curtain drew my glance in that direction.
Through the strings of rushes, almost, invisible, except that dim light from the bar shone upon her eyes, I saw a girl watching me. Nor was it humanly possible to mistake those eyes!
The formidable Jim Pallant was forgotten—everything was forgotten. Raising a flap in one end of the counter I stepped into the bar, crossed it and just as she turned to run along a narrow passage beyond, threw my arms around Ardatha!
“Let me go!” She struggled violently. “Let me go! I warned you, and you are mad—mad, to come here. For God’s sake if you value your life, or mine, let me go!”
But I pulled her through the curtain into the dingy bar and held her firmly.
“Ardatha!” I spoke in a guarded, low voice. “God knows why you can’t see what it means to be mixed up with these people, but I can, and I can’t bear it. Listen! You have nothing, nothing in the world to fear. Come away! My friend who is in charge of the case will absolutely guarantee your safety. But please, please, come away with me now!”
She wore a silk pullover, riding breeches and the muddy boots which I remembered. Her slender body writhed in my grasp with all the agility of a captured eel.
One swift upward glance she gave me, a glance I was to remember many, many times, waking and sleeping. Then with a sudden unexpected movement she buried her wicked little teeth in my hand!
Pained and startled I momentarily released her. The reed curtain crackled as she turned and ran. I heard her pattering footsteps on an uncarpeted stair.
Clenching my fist I stood there undetermined what to do—until, realising that an uncommonly dangerous man for whom I might not prove to be a match was somewhere in the house, for once I chose discretion.
I was crossing to the barroom door when, heralded only by a crash of the curtain and a dull thud, Pallant vaulted over the counter behind me, twisted my right arm into the small of my back and locked the other in a hold which I knew myself powerless to break!
