Amazed beyond understanding, I watched. He crossed to the meticulously neat desk, took up the document with those imposing signatures which lay there, and tore it into fragments!
“Smith!”
“Quiet—or we’re lost!”
Crossing to the switch beside the door, he put out all the lights. It is mortifying to remember now that at the time I doubted his sanity. He raised them again, put them out . . .
In the second darkness came comprehension:
He was obeying the order of the Si-Fan!
“Help me, Kerrigan. In here!”
A curtained alcove, luxuriously appointed as the bedroom of a screen star, adjoined the study. We laid Delibes upon a cushioned divan. And as we did so and I raised inquiring eyes, there came a sound from the room outside which made me catch my breath.
It resembled a guttural command, in a tongue unknown to me. It was followed by an odd scuffling, not unlike that of a rat . . . It seemed to flash a message to Nayland Smith’s brain. With no glance at the insensible man upon the divan he dashed out.
I followed—and all I saw was this:
Some thing—I could not otherwise define it, nor can I say if it went on four or upon two legs—merged into the shadow on the balcony!
Smith pistol in hand, leapt out.
There was a rustling in the clematis below. The rustling ceased.
His face a grim mask in the light of the moon. Smith turned to me.
“There went death to Marcel Delibes!” he said, “but here”—he pointed to the torn-up document on the carpet—”went death to a million Frenchmen.”
“But the voice. Smith, the voice! Someone spoke—and there’s nobody here!”
“Yes—I heard it. The speaker must have been in the garden below.”
“And in heaven’s name what was the thing we saw?”
“That, Kerrigan, is beyond me. The garden must be searched, but I doubt if anything will be found.”
“But . . .” I stared about me apprehensively. “We must do something! Delibes may be dead!”
Nayland Smith shook his head.
“He would have been dead if I had not saved him.”
“I don’t understand at all!”
“Another leaf from the book of Doctor Fu Manchu. Tonight I came prepared for the opposition of Delibes. I had previously wired to my old friend Doctor Petrie in Cairo. He is a modest genius. He cabled a prescription; Lord Moreton endorsed it; and it was made up by the best firm of druggists in London. A rapidly soluble tablet, Kerrigan. According to Petrie, Delibes will be insensible for eighteen hours but will suffer no unpleasant after-effects—nor will he recall exactly what occurred.”
I could think of no reply.
“We will now ring for assistance,” Smith continued, “report that the document was torn up in our presence, and express our proper regret for the sudden seizure of M. Delibes.”
He poured water from the ice bucket into the glass used by Delibes, and emptied it over the balcony. He then partly refilled the glass.
“Having advised Marshal Brieux that Paris may sleep in peace, we can return to our hotel.”
Ardatha’s Message
I think the bizarre drama of those last few minutes in the house of Marcel Delibes did more than anything else I could have accomplished to dull the agony of bereavement which even amid the turmoil of this secret world war shadowed every moment of my life.
Ardatha was lost to me . . . She belonged to the Si-Fan.
Once too often she had risked everything in order to give me warning. Her punishment was to work henceforth under the eye of the dreadful Dr Fu Manchu. Perhaps, as Smith believed, he was no longer president. But always while he lived I knew that he must dominate any group of men with whom he might be associated.
Leaving no less than four helpless physicians around the bed of the insensible Minister, we returned to our hotel. Gallaho was with us, and Jussac of the French police. As in London one car drove ahead and another followed.
As we entered the hotel lobby:
“This sudden illness of M. Delibes,” said Jussac, “is a dreadful thing. He would be a loss to France. But for myself”—he brushed his short moustache reflectively—”since you tell me that before his seizure he changed his mind, why, if this was due to a rising temperature, I am not sorry!”
Smith was making for the lift, and I was following when something drew my attention to the behavior of a girl who had been talking to the reception clerk. She was hurrying away, and the man’s blank expression told me that she had abruptly broken off the conversation.
Already she was disappearing across a large, partially lighted lounge beyond which lay the entrance from the Rue de Rivoli.
Without a word to my companions I set off in pursuit. Seeing me, she made as if to run out, but I leapt forward and threw my arms around her.
“Not this time, Ardatha—darling!”
The amethyst eyes glanced swiftly right and left and then flamed into sudden revolt. But beyond the flame I read a paradox.
“Let me go!”
I did not obey the words, for her eyes were bidding me to hold her fast. I crushed her against me.
“Never again, Ardatha.”
“Bart,” she whispered close to my ear, “call to your English policeman . . . Someone is watching us—”
At that, she began to struggle furiously!
“Hullo, Kerrigan! A capture, I see—”
Nayland Smith stood at my elbow.
“Gallaho,” he called, “a prisoner for you!”
I glared at him, but:
“Bart!”—I loved the quaint accent with which she pronounced my name—”he is right. I must be arrested—I want to be arrested!”
Gallaho hurried up. His brow remained decorated with plaster.
“Who’s this?”
“She is known as Ardatha, Inspector,” said Smith. “There are several questions which she may be able to answer.”
“You are wanted by Scotland Yard”—said Gallaho formally, “to give information regarding certain inquiries. I must ask you to be good enough to come with me.”
Smith glanced swiftly around. Jussac joined the party. Two men, their backs to us, stood talking just outside in Rue de Rivoli.
“I won’t!” blazed Ardatha, “unless you force me to!”
Gallaho clearly was nonplussed. To Jussac:
“Grab that pair outside the door!” said Smith rapidly. “Lock them up for the night. If I’m wrong I’ll face the consequences. Inspector, this lady is in your charge. Bring her upstairs . . .”
Jussac stepped outside and whistled. I did not wait to see what happened. Ardatha, between Inspector Gallaho and Nayland Smith, was walking towards the lift . . .
Having reached our apartment and switched all lights up:
“Inspector,” said Smith, “examine the lobby and the smaller bedroom and bathroom. I will search the others.”
In the sitting room he looked hard at Ardatha: “I am going to have you locked in the end room,” he remarked, “as soon as Inspector Gallaho reports that it is a safe place.”
He went out. No sooner was the door closed than I had Ardatha in my arms.
She seemed to search me with her glance: it was the look which a woman gives a man before she stakes all upon her choice.
“I have run away, Bart—to you. I was followed, but they could do nothing while I stood there at the desk. Now they have seen me arrested, and if ever he gets me back, perhaps this may save me—”
“No one shall get you back!”
“You do not understand!” She clutched me convulsively. “Shall I never make you understand that unless we can get away from Paris, nothing can save us—nothing!” She clenched her hands and stared like a frightened hare as Nayland Smith came in. “It is the order of the Council. I do not know if there is anywhere in the world you can hide from them—but this place you must leave at once!”