“Obviously they knew of his appointment with Osaki.”
“Why not have just removed the model and the plans?”
“They knew that neither model nor plans were of any avail if their inventor still defied the Si-Fan. Doctor Fu Manchu’s object, Kerrigan, was not to steal the plans of the vacuum charger, but to prevent those plans falling into the hands of the Power represented by Mr. Osaki. I am convinced that Osaki’s death was an accident, but it probably suited the Si-Fan.”
In the bumping of the car over a badly paved road I seemed to hear the beating of drums.
The Red Button
“Sir Denis evidently detained, sir. Expect any moment.”
It was the evening of the following day and I had called at Smith’s flat iri Whitehall by appointment. I looked at the expressionless face of the speaker.
“That’s all right. Fey. I’ll come in and wait.”
As I crossed the lobby and entered the sitting room which contained the big radio and that television set upon which miraculously once Dr Fu Manchu had manifested himself I heard the phone ringing. Staring at the apparatus, I took out a cigarette. I could detect Fey’s monosyllables in the lobby. A few moments later he entered.
“Going out, sir,” he reported. “Whisky-soda? Buffet at disposal. Sir Denis at Yard with Inspector Gallaho. Will be here inside ten minutes.”
He prepared a drink for me and went out.
I sipped my whisky and soda and inspected some of the pictures and photographs which the room contained. The pictures were landscapes, almost exclusively Oriental. A fine photograph of a handsome grey-haired man I was able to identify as that of Dr Petrie, Nayland Smith’s old friend who had been associated with him in those early phases of his battle with Fu Manchu, of which I knew so little. Another, a grimly humorous, square-jawed, mustached face, I was unable to place, but I learned later that it represented Superintendent Weymouth, once of the Criminal Investigation Department, but now attached to the Cairo police.
There were others, not so characteristic. And on a small easel on top of a bookcase I came across a water color of an ethereally beautiful woman. Upon it was written:
“To our best and dearest friend from Karamaneh.” I stared out of a window across the embankment to where old Father Thames moved tunelessly on. A reluctant moon, veiled from moment to moment, sometimes gleamed upon the water. For many years, as Nayland Smith had told me, the Thames had been Dr Fu Manchu’s highway. His earliest base had been at Limehouse in the Chinese quarter. London River had served his purpose well.
Nothing passed along the stream as I watched and my thoughts wandered to that Essex creek on the banks of which stood the Monks’ Arms. How hopelessly they wandered there!
Ardatha!—a strange name and a strange character. To me, lover of freedom, it was appalling to think that in those enigmatical amethyst eyes I had lost myself—had seen my philosophy crumble, had read the doom of many a cherished principle. Almost certainly she was evil; for how, otherwise, could she be a member of so evil a thing as the Si-Fan?
I tried to cease contemplating that bewitching image. Crossing to an armchair, I was about to sit down when I heard the phone bell in the lobby. I set my glass on a table and went out to answer the call.
“Hello,” said a voice, “can I speak to Sir Denis Nayland Smith?”
“Sir Denis is out. But can I take a message?”
The speaker was a man who used good but not perfect English—a foreigner of some kind.
“Thank you. I will call again.”
I returned to the armchair and lighted a cigarette.
What was the mystery of the Green Death? Where medical analysis had failed, where Nayland Smith had failed, what hope had I of solving it? It was an appalling exhibition of that power possessed by the awful man I had met out on the Essex marshes. A monster had been reborn—and I had stood face to face with him.
Closing my eyes I lay back in the chair . . .
“If you will be good enough to lower the light, Mr. Kerrigan”—the voice was unmistakable—”and sit closer to the screen. There is something important to yourself and to Sir Denis which I have to communicate.”
I sprang up—I could not have sprung up more suddenly if a bomb had exploded at my feet. The screen was illuminated, as once before I had seen it illuminated . . . And there looking out at me was Dr Fu Manchu!
Perhaps for a decimal moment I doubted what course to take; and then (I think almost anyone would have done the same) I extinguished the light.
The switches were remote from the television screen; and I confess, as I turned and stood in darkness before that wonderful evil face which apparently regarded me, I was touched by swift fear. In fact I had to tell myself that this was not the real Dr Fu Manchu but merely his image before I summoned up courage enough to approach and to watch.
“Will you please touch the red button on the right of the screen, 7 the sibilant voice went on, “merely to indicate that you have observed my wishes.”
I touched the red button. My heart was beating much too rapidly; but sitting down on an ottoman, I compelled myself to study that wonderful face.
It might have been the face of an emperor. I found myself thinking of Zenghis Khan. Intellectually the brow was phenomenal, the dignity of the lined features might have belonged to a Pharaoh, but the soul of the great Chinese doctor lay in his eyes. Never had I seen before, and never have I seen since, such power in a man’s eyes as lay in those of Dr Fu Manchu.
Then he spoke, and his voice, too, was unforgettable. One hearing its alternate sibilants and gutturals must have remembered every intonation to the end of his days.
“I regret, Mr. Kerrigan,” he said, “that you are still alive. Your rescue meant that an old and useful base is now destroyed. I suspect that some member of the Si-Fan has failed me in this matter. If so, there will be retribution.”
His words chilled me coldly.
Ardatha!
She had defied me, jeered at me, fought with me, but in the end she had saved me. It was a strange romance but I knew that on my side it was real. Ardatha was my woman, and if I lost her I should have lost all that made life worth-while. I think, except for that unreadable expression which seemed to tell me that her words did not mean all they conveyed, I had had but little hope, in spite of my masculine vanity, until I had realized that she had risked everything to rescue me from the cellars of the Monks’ Arms.
I was watching the image of those strange eyes as this thought flashed through my mind.
Good Good! Did he suspect Ardatha?
“In the absence of Sir Denis”—the words seemed to reach me indistinctly—”I must request you, Mr. Kerrigan, to take my message. It is very simple. It is this: Sir Denis has fought with me for many years. I have come to respect him as one respects an honorable enemy, but forces difficult to control now demand that I should act swiftly. Listen, and I will explain what I mean to do.”
That forceful voice died away unaccountably. My brain suggested that the instrument, operated by an unknown principle, had failed. But then conscious thought petered out altogether, I suppose. The eyes regarding me from the screen, although the image was colorless, seemed, aided by memory, to become green . . . Then they merged together and became one contemplative eye. That eye grew enormous—it dominated the picture—it became a green lake—and a remorseless urge impelled me to plunge into its depths . . .
I stood up, or so I thought, from the ottoman on which I had been seated and walked forward into the lake.
Miraculously I did not sink. Stepping across a glittering green expanse, I found myself upon solid land. Here I paused, and the voice of Dr Fu Manchu spoke: