“America!”
“Yes.” She slipped free—for I had kept my arm about her shoulders. “I just could not bear to . . . say good-bye. Please, look away for only a moment—if you really care for my happiness: I beg of you!”
There was abandonment, despair, in her pleading voice. No man could have refused; and after all I was not a police officer.
I looked long and hungrily into those eyes which tonight were like twin amethysts, and walked across to the fire.
“I will try, I will try to see you again—to speak to you.” Only the faintest sound, a light tread on the stair, told me that Ardatha was gone . . . .
CHAPTER X
BARTON’S SECRET
“I don’t blame you, Kerrigan,” said Nayland Smith; “in fact I cannot see what else you could have done.”
“Damn it, nor can I!” growled Barton.
We were back in my flat, after a night of frustration for which, in part, I held myself responsible. Barton had admitted us. He had returned an hour earlier, having borrowed my key. The police had forced a way into the old warehouse; they were still searching it when I rejoined the party. The room, the very bench on which Dr. Oster’s corpse had lain, fragments of twine, they had found, but nothing else. The River was being dragged for the body.
That laboratory which smelt like the Morgue was below water leveclass="underline" it had been flooded. Only by means of elaborate pumping operations could we hope to learn what evidence still remained there of the nature of the Doctor’s mysterious, and merciless, experiments.
“Infernally narrow escape for both of us, Kerrigan,” said Sir Lionel; and crossing to the buffet he replenished his glass. “Good shot, that of yours.” He squirted soda water from a syphon. “I owe my life to you: you owe yours to Ardatha. Gad! there’s a girl! But what an impossible situation!”
Smith stood up, and passing, grasped my shoulder.
“Even worse situations have been dealt with,” he said.“I am wondering, Kerrigan, if you have recognized the clue to Ardatha’s loss of memory?”
As he began to pace to and fro across my dining-room: “I think so!” I replied. “That yellow devil decided to reclaim her, and it was he who destroyed her memory!”
“Exactly—as he has done before, with others. I said to you some time ago, Fu Manchu once had a daughter—s”
“Smith!” I interrupted excitedly, “it was not until I saw Ardatha in Felling Street that the meaning of those words came to me. If he did not hesitate in the case of his own flesh and blood to efface all memories of identity, why should he hesitate in the case of Ardatha?”
“He didn’t! Ardatha remembers only that she is called Ardatha. Fu Manchu’s daughter, whom once I knew by her childish name of Fah-lo-Suee, became Koreani. You can bear me out, Kerrigan: you have met her.”
“Yes, but—“
“Ardathas and Koreanis are rare. Fu Manchu has always employed beauty as one of his most potent weapons. His own daughter he regarded merely as a useful instrument when he saw that she was beautiful. He found Ardatha difficult to replace; therefore, he recalled her. Oh! she had no choice. But she has the proud spirit of her race—and so he bound her to him by this damnable living death from which there is no escape!”
He was pacing the carpet at an ever-increasing speed, his pipe bubbling furiously; and something which emanated from that vital personality gave me new courage. I was not alone in my fight to save Ardatha from the devil doctor.
“Smith,” said Sir Lionel, leaning back against the buffet—for even his tough constitution had suffered in the night’s work and he was comparatively subdued—”this infernal thing means that if I saw Fu Manchu before me, now, I couldn’t shoot him!”
“It does,” Smith replied. “He was prepared to hold Kerrigan as a hostage. He overlooked the fact that whilst Kerrigan lived, Ardatha served the same purpose.”
Barton plunged his hands in his trouser pockets and became lost in reflection. His deep-set blue eyes danced queerly.
“We both know the Chinese,” he murmured. “I don’t think I should give up hope, Kerrigan. There may be a way.”
“I’m sure there is—there must be!” I broke in. “Dr. Fu Manchu is subject, after all, to human laws. He is supernormal, but not immortal. We all have our weaknesses. Mine, perhaps, is my love for Ardatha. He must have his. Smith, we must find Koreani!”
“I found her two months ago.”
“What!”
“She was then in Cuba. Where she is now I cannot say. But if you suppose that Fu Manchu would turn a hair’s breadth from his path to save his daughter, you are backing the wrong horse. Assuming that we could capture her, well—as an exchange for Ardatha (freed from the living death; for I have known others who have suffered it but who live today) she would be a worthless hostage. He would sacrifice Korean! without a moment’s hesitation!”
I was silent.
“Buck up, Kerrigan;’ said Sir Lionel. “I said there might be a way, and I stick to it.”
Smith stared at him curiously, and then: “As for you,” he remarked, “as usual you are an infernal nuisance.”
“Don’t mention it!”
“I must. Your inquiries in Haiti last year, followed by your studies in Norfolk and, finally, your conversations with the War Office, attracted the attention of Dr. Fu Manchu.”
“Very likely.”
“It was these conversations, reported to me whilst I was in the West Indies, that brought me back, post haste—“
“Fu Manchu got here first,” Barton interrupted. “There were two attempts to burgle my house. Queer-looking people were watching Abbots Hold. Finally, I received a notice signed “President of the Seven’, informing me that I had twenty-four hours in which to hand over certain documents.”
“You have this notice?” Smith asked eagerly. “I had: it was in the stolen bag.” Smith snapped his fingers irritably. “And when you received it what did you do?”
“Bolted. I was followed all the way to London. That was why I phoned Kerrigan and came here. I didn’t want to be alone.”
“You were right,” said Smith. “But you came to your senses too late. I am prepared to hear that the fact of Fu Manchu’s interest in your affairs did not dawn upon you until you got this notice?”
“Suspected it before that. These reports from the Caribbean suggested that something very queer was afoot there. It occurred to me that bigger things than a mere treasure hunt were involved, so I offered my services to the War Office—“
“And behaved so badly that you were practically thrown out! Let me explain what happened. Your earlier correspondence with the War Office, although obscure, was considered to be of sufficient importance to be transmitted in code to me. I was then in Kingston, Jamaica. I dashed home. I went first to Norfolk, learned you had left for London, and followed. That was yesterday morning. I was dashing about Town trying to pick you up. I practically followed you into the War Office, and what you had said there convinced me that at all costs I must find you.’“
“The War Office can go to the devil,” growled Barton, refilling his glass.
“I say,” Smith went on patiently, “that I tried to tail you in London. I still have facilities, you know!” He smiled suddenly. “I gathered that you had gone to the British Museum
“Yes—I had.”
“I failed to find you there.”
“Didn’t look in the right room.”
“Possibly not. But I looked into one room which offered certain information.” He paused to relight his pipe. “You have been working for years hunting down the few clues which remain to the hiding-place of the vast treasure accumulated by Christophe of Haiti. You know your business. Barton; you haven’t your equal in Europe or America when it comes to archaeological research.”