Detective-Inspector Yale nodded gloomily. I had met him several times before, and I knew that with Fletcher he had been put in charge of this case, which, in his eyes, had neither beginning nor end. "
"It's a blank mystery to me," he confessed. "Excepting one badly murdered dwarf, there wasn't a thing of any use to us in the Lime- house raid. "
"You're rather overlooking me!"
Detective-Inspector Yale smiled; Weymouth laughed aloud.
"Sorry, sir," said Yale. "But the fact remains--we drew blank. The house was undoubtedly used by these Si Fan people. But where are they? I knew when Sir Denis took personal control there was something serious in the wind. He was overdue leave, it's true, but he was a demon for work; and I saw when he started for Egypt with Fletcher he'd gone for business, not pleasure. Besides, there was a big dossier accumulating."
He smiled again, turning slightly in my direction.
"The death of Professor Zeitland was a bad show for the Yard," he admitted. "It was long after the event that we realized his death wasn't due to natural causes. This in strict confidence, Mr. Greville. There's been no publicity about the absence of Sir Denis, because we've kept on hoping from day to day, and his instructions on that point were explicit. But personally...."
He turned aside and stared out of the window.
"I'm afraid so," Weymouth whispered.
"It's a job," Yale went on, "which I admit is above my weight. Most extraordinary reports are accumulating and the Foreign Office has nearly driven me crazy. I never knew very much about this Dr. Fu Manchu, outside department records. I was just a plain detective officer in those days. But it looks to me--and this is where I am badly out of my depth, Superintendent--as though this delayed visit of Swazi Pasha comes into the case! "
"I'm sure it does!" I replied. "The woman you knew as Madame Ingomar regards the present rulers of Turkey as her enemies. Swazi Pasha is probably the biggest man in Stamboul to-day. She told me with her own lips that he was marked! "
"Amazing!" said Yale. "He is to occupy Suite Number 5 in this hotel, and apart from routine measures, I'm going to satisfy myself about the staff."
I accompanied Weymouth and Yale on their tour of inspection. The suite was on the floor below, and we went down the stairs. Yale had the key and we entered. Everything had been prepared for the comfort of the distinguished visitor and his confidential private secretary.
Suite Number 5 consisted of a reception room entered from a lobby, a dining room, and two bedrooms with bathrooms adjoining. Swazi Pasha had been detained by illness in Paris, so the Press informed us, but would arrive at Victoria that evening.
Detective-Inspector Yale seemed to suspect everything in the place. The principal bedroom he explored as though he antici- pated discovering there trap-doors, sliding panels, or other mediaeval devices. He even turned on the electric heater, an excellent imitation of a coal fire, and considered it carefully; unticlass="underline"
"Once he gets here," said Weymouth, "he's safe enough. It's outside that he's in danger."
Yale turned to him, one eyebrow raised interrogatively, and:
"Queer you should say that," he replied. "I've been going carefully through the records--and you ought to know better than I do that if we're really up against this Asiatic group the best hotel in London isn't safe!"
I glanced at Weymouth, and saw his expression change.
"True enough," he admitted. "Dr. Fu Manchu got a man in the New Louvre once, under our very eyes. Yes, you're right."
With enthusiasm he also began to sound walls and to examine fittings, unticlass="underline"
"I have had painful personal evidence of what these people can do," I said, "but I rather feel that any attempt on the life of Swazi Pasha will be made outside."
Yale turned and:
"Outside," he assured me stolidly, "short of a fanatic who is prepared to pay the price with his life, Swazi Pasha is as safe as any man in Europe. But in the absence of Sir Denis, I'm responsible for him and, knowing what I know now, I'm prepared for anything."
5
When presently I left Weymouth and Yale, I became selfishly absorbed in my own affairs again. The chief had engaged rooms by radio for himself and Rima here at the Park Avenue, and as I wandered back to my own apartment I found myself wondering which rooms they were. Indeed, a perfectly childish impulse prompted me to go down and inquire of the office.
As I entered the corridor in which my own quarters were located as well as those of Dr. Petrie and his wife, I saw a figure hurrying ahead of me. Reaching the door next to my own, he inserted and turned the key in the lock. As he did so, I had a view of his face in profile....
Then he went in, and I heard the door shut.
Entering my own room, I sat down on the bed, lighted a cigarette, and wondered why this chance encounter seemed so important. It was striking discords of memory which I couldn't solve. I smoked one cigarette and lighted a second, thinking hard all the time, before the solution came, then:
"I've got it!" I cried.
This man in the next room was the Turk who had attended the Council of Seven! I glanced at the telephone. Here was a mystery completely beyond my powers-- something which Weymouth and Yale should know about at once. I hesitated, realising that in all probability they were on their way to Victoria. A tremendous unrest seized me. What did it mean? That it meant mischief-- and bloody mischief--I felt certain. But what should I do?
I lighted a pipe and stared down into Piccadilly. Inaction was intolerable. What could I do? I couldn't give this man in charge of the police. Apart from the possibility of a mistake, what evidence had I against him? Finally I grabbed my hat and went out into the corridor. I had detected no sound of movement in the neighbouring room.
Walking over to the lift, I rang the bell. The cage had just arrived and I was on the point of stepping in, when I thought someone passed swiftly behind me.
I turned. My nerves were badly over- tuned. The figure had gone, but:
"Who was that?" I said to the lift-boy "Who do you mean, sir," he asked. "I didn't see anyone."
I thought that he was looking at me rather oddly, and:
"Ground floor," I said.
Had this thing got me more deeply than I realized? Small wonder if it were so, consid- ering my own experience. But was I begin- ning to imagine creatures of Dr. Fu Manchu, shadows, menaces, where really there was no physical presence? It was a dreadful thought, one to be repelled at all costs by a man who had passed through the nightmare of that month which I had survived.
For I had been dead and I lived again.
Sometimes the horror of it wakened me in the middle of the night. A drug, unknown to Western science, had been pumped into my veins. The skill of an Asiatic physician had brought me back to life. Petrie's experience-- aided by the mysterious "Dr. Amber"--had done the rest. But there might be an after- math, beyond the control even of this dreadful Chinaman whose shadow again was creeping over Europe.
My present intention was to walk across to Cook's and learn at what time the s. s. Andaman, in which Sir Lionel and Rima were travelling, docked, and when the boat-train arrived. I was in that state of anxiety in which one ceases to trust that high authority, the hotel hall porter.
This purpose was frustrated by the sudden appearance, as I came down the steps, of Dr. Petrie and his wife. I was instantly struck by the fact that something had terrified Mrs. Petrie. The doctor was almost supporting her....
"Hello, Greville," he said. "My wife has had rather a shock. Come back with us for a minute."
The fact was obvious enough. Filled with a sudden new concern, I realized, as I took Mrs. Petrie's arm and walked back up the hotel steps, that she was in a condition bordering on collapse. Well enough I knew that this could mean only one thing. As I had suspected, as Weymouth had suspected--the enemy was near us!