She snapped her fingers.
Before I could move further, collect my scattered thoughts, the Nubian was on me! I got in one straight right, perfectly timed. It didn't even check him....
As his Herculean grip deprived me of all power of movement, Fah Lo Suee turned and went out. She hissed an order.
The Nubian threw me face downward on the settee. Never, in the whole of my experi- ence of rough-houses, had I been so handled. I was helpless as a rat in the grip of a bull terrier. My knowledge of boxing as well as a smattering of jiu-jitsu were about as useful as botany!
I honestly believe he could have broken any normally strong man across his knee.
One of the ghastly Burmans, with the mark of Kali on his. forehead, came to assist. I was trussed up like a chicken, tossed on to the Negro's mighty shoulder, and carried from the room.
This was the end.
I had played my hand badly. On me the ultimate issue had rested... and I had failed. That swift revulsion, at the sound of my name--that sudden, irrational reversion to type--had sealed the doom of... how many?
Helpless, a mere inanimate bundle, I was carried down to the room where the image of Kali sat on a lacquer cabinet.
The Nubian threw me roughly on the divan, so that I had no view beyond that of the lacquer cabinet and the wall against which it stood. He withdrew. I heard the closing of a door.
I turned....
In the big, carved chair which formerly I had occupied. Nayland Smith was firmly lashed! There were bloodstains on his collar.
"Sir Denis! How did you know I was here?"
He glanced down at the coffee-table.
"You left you cigarette case!" he replied. "I shouted for you--but a dacoif--he indi- cated the bloodstains--"silenced me."
I stared at him. No words came.
"Weymouth and Yale," he went on, and the tone of his voice struck the death-knell of lingering hope, "are watching the wrong house. I have made my last mistake, Greville."
Chapter Twelfth
LORD OF THE SI FAN
"I thought I had found a secret base of operations," said Nayland Smith. "It's one I have used before--the house of Dr. Murray who bought Petrie's practice years ago. Evidently it's been known for some time past that I employed it in this way. I discovered-- too late--that a parlour maid in Murray's service is a spy. She doesn't know the real identity other employers, but she has been none the less useful to them...."
As he spoke, he was studying every detail of the room in which we lay trapped. Appar- ently he had accepted his fastenings as immovable; and evidently divining my thoughts:
"These lashings are the work of a Sea- Dyak," he explained-- "palpably a specialist. Though seemingly simple, no one except the late Houdini could hope to escape from them. "
"A fellow with the mark on his forehead? He tied me up! I mistook him for Burmese!"
Nayland Smith shook his head irritably.
"A member of the murder group--yes. But no Burman. He belongs to Borneo..... The story of my stupidity, Greville, for which so many may be called upon to pay a ghastly price, is a short one. Yale brought me a clue to-day. Its history doesn't matter--now. It was a fake. But it consisted of fragments of tom-up correspondence written in Chinese and a few cipher notes in another hand. I grappled with it: no easy task. But by about four o'clock I saw daylight. I phoned Weymouth to stand by between six and seven. "
"He told me so. "
"Yale also was in touch. At six o'clock I had got all the facts--including an address in Finchley Road; and at six-thirty I called Weymouth at the Park Avenue giving him full instructions. I arranged to meet him outside Lord's at half-past nine to-night.
"By sheer accident, ten minutes later, I caught Palmer, the parlourmaid, at the tele- phone. Murray was in his consulting-room, and there was nothing in itself remarkable about the girl's presence at the phone. She makes appointments and receives patients.
"But I heard my own name mentioned! "I taxed her--and she got muddled. She was clever enough to wriggle out of the diffi- culty, verbally; but I had become gravely suspicious. Bearing this in mind, Greville, it's all the less excusable that I should have fallen into the trap planted for me.
"Murray's house overlooks a common, and it's usually safe to trust to picking up a taxi on the main road, although sometimes one has to wait. During dinner I said nothing about Palmer, being still in two minds as to her complicity. But when I left, I made a blunder for which I should certainly condemn the rawest recruit.
"The door of Murray's house opens on a side turning--and as I came out a taxi, proceeding slowly in the direction of the common, passed me. The man looked out as I came down the steps and slowed up. I counted it a stroke of luck, said 'Lord's cricket ground--main entrance'--and jumped in."
Nayland Smith smiled. It was not the genial, revealing smile that I knew.
"End of story!" he added. The windows were unopenable. As I closed the door, which locked automatically, a charge of gas was puffed into the interior. That taxi, Greville, had been waiting for me! "
"Then Weymouth and Yale-- "
"Weymouth and Yale, with a Flying Squad party, are covering the house of some perfectly harmless citizen in Finchley Road! What they'll do when I fail to turn up, I can't say. But they haven't a ghost of a clue to this place--wherever it is! "
"It's beside the Regent Canal," I replied slowly "That's all I know about it. "
"Quite sufficient," he rapped. "In your amazing interview with Li King Su I detect our only ray of hope...."
An interruption came. Dimly--for sounds were muffled in this room--I heard the ringing of a bell. I saw Nayland Smith start. We both listened. We had not long to wait for the nest development.
Into the room the huge Nubian came running--followed by the man whom I knew now to be a Dyak. They swept down upon Nayland Smith!
I became tongue-tied. Horror had robbed me of speech.
The man with the mark of Kali on his brow bent swiftly. I tugged at my bonds. Nayland Smith caught my glance.. Don't worry, Greville," he said. "A hasty removal of prisoners is evidently--"
The Nubian clapped a huge black hand over the speaker's mouth!
I saw Nayland Smith, released from the chair, but rebound by the Dyak expert, lifted in the grasp of the giant Negro. He carried Sir Denis as he might have carried a toy dog under one arm--but he kept his free hand pressed to the captive's mouth.
There came a breathless interval. That dim ringing was renewed. The devotee of Kali considered me, his eyes lascivious with murder. Then, as the ringing persisted, he grasped my bound ankles, jerked me to the carpet, and dragged me out of the room! Where, formerly, I had been carried up, now I was hauled down and down, until I knew I was in the cellars of the house.
That I arrived there without sprained wrists or a cracked skull was something of a miracle. Arms fastened behind me, I had nevertheless done all I could to protect my head as I was dragged down many steps to the basement.
Into some dark, paved place, I was finally bundled. I divined, rather than knew, that Nayland Smith lay beside me.
"Sir Denis," I gasped.
Wiry fingers gripped my throat, squeezing me to silence; but:
"Here!" Smith replied.
The word was cut off shortly--significantly.
There came a stirring up above--a sound of voices--of movement... shuffling.
My brain began to work rapidly, despite all the maltreatment my skull had received. This was an unexpected visit of some kind! The house was being cleared of its noxious elements, of its prisoners; made presentable for inspection! Possibly--the thought set my heart hammering-- Weymouth, after all, had secured some clue which had led him here.