Fog met them in the London suburbs . . .
It was at some hour not far removed from that when dawn should have been breaking over London, that Nayland Smith prepared a whisky and soda for Gallaho and passing it to him raised his glass silently.
“I know sir,” said Gallaho; “it’s been a very bad show for us to-night.”
“A bad show all along,” snapped Sir Denis.
“Cramped, trammelled, cut off from his resources, Fu Manchu is still powerful. First, he gets Petrie’s daughter, a wonderful hostage, by one of the most amazing tricks in my experience. He smuggles her into England. And now . . .”
“That’s the devil of it, sir.”
“The devil indeed. He’s got Sterling.”
“Dead or alive?”
“Since he is a friend and a first-class type of man (I have worked with him in the past) I prefer to think, Inspector— alive. I doubt if Dr. Fu Manchu would burden himself with—”
“A corpse?”
“A corpse, yes.”
Nayland Smith’s gaze became abstracted, and plucking at his ear, he crossed the room and pulled a heavy curtain aside, gazing out upon the foggy Embankment.
There came a rap on the door.
“Come in!”
Fey entered, despite the approach of dawn, immaculate and unperturbed. Nayland Smith was still holding the heavy curtain aside, and:
“Have you noticed the window, sir?” Fey asked.
“No.”
Nayland Smith turned, and examined the window.
“By gad!” he rapped.
There was a neat, but slightly jagged hole an inch in circumference in one of the panes! He closed the curtains, and faced Fey. Gallaho, glass in hand, was staring from man to man.
“While I was walking up and down sir.” Fey went on coolly, “as you told me to do, earlier to-night, or rather, last night, sir, this came through the window—missed me by no more than an inch.”
He handed a small feathered dart to Nayland Smith.
The latter stepped to a lamp and examined it closely.
“Gallaho”, he said, “I should say that this thing had been fired from an air gun. But examine the point.”
The Scotland Yard man came forward, eagerly bending over the table.
“It seems to be covered in gum.”
“I won’t say curari, but a very brief analysis will settle the point. The cornered rat is showing his teeth . . . and they are poisoned teeth.”
CHAPTER 26
DR.
FU MANCHU
Alan Sterling looked around the cellar in which he lay.
It was brick-paved; its roof was formed by half an arch. There was a very stout looking door in the corner opposite that in which he found himself. An unshaded electric bulb hung on a piece of flexible cable from the roof. He could trace the cable down the sloping brickwork to a roughly hollowed gap through which it disappeared.
There was no furniture of any kind in the cellar, but the place was singularly hot, and it seemed to be informed by a ceaseless buzzing which, however, presently he identified with his own skull.
He had an agonizing headache. Raising his hand, he found a great lump immediately above his left ear.
The first idea which flashed through his bemused mind was a message of thanksgiving. He must have had a very narrow escape from death. Then came memories—chaotic, torturing.
He had had Fleurette in his arms: then, something had happened.
What had happened?
It was beyond him. He could recall nothing but the fact that she had screamed unnaturally, that he had struggled with her. Then there was a gap, and now . . . where was this place in which he found himself? Where had he been when he had struggled with Fleurette?
He clutched his throbbing skull, trying to force thought. Memories began to return to him in fragments; then, as a complete story.
He tried to stand up. The effort was too much for his strength. He dropped back again upon the stone pavement. By God! He had had a devil of a whack! Gingerly he touched the swelling on his skull, leaning back against the wall and still trying to think.
Fleurette was alive—thank God for that! But in some way, she had changed towards him. He was not quite clear about it. But for this he must be thankfuclass="underline" that she, whom he had thought was dead—was alive. The minor difficulty, no doubt, would resolve itself.
Nayland Smith! Of course! He had been with Nayland Smith! . . . And Gallaho? What had become ofGallaho?
Above all—where was he? Where was this unfurnished cellar located? He made another attempt to stand up; but it was not entirely successful. He was anxious to find out if that heavy door was locked, or bolted. But the journey, one of four paces, was too much for him.
He sank down on to the floor again, leaning back against the wall. The throbbing in his head was all but unendurable, and the heat was stifling—unless, like the buzzing, due to internal conditions.
Separate now from that buzzing, which he knew to belong to his injured skull, Sterling became aware of a muted roaring sound. It was somewhere beneath his feet. It was uncanny; when first he accepted the reality of its existence, he was dismayed; for what could it be? From where could it come?
He was about to make a third attempt to stand up, when the heavy door opened.
A very tall, gaunt man stood in the opening, looking at him. He wore a long, white linen coat, linen trousers, and white rubber-soled shoes. The coat, tunic fashion, was buttoned to his neck—a lean, sinewy neck supporting a head which might have been that of Dante.
The brow was even finer than the traditional portraits of Shakespeare, crowned with scanty, neutral coloured hair. The face of the white-clad man was a wonderful face, and might once have been beautiful. It was that of a man of indeterminable age, heavily lined, but lighted by a pair of such long, narrow, brilliant green eyes that one’s thoughts flashed to Satan—Lucifer, Son of the Morning: an angel, but a fallen angel. His slender hands, with long, polished nails, were clasped before him. Although no trace of expression crossed that extraordinary face, perhaps a close observer watching the green eyes might have said that the man motionless in the doorway was surprised.
Alan Sterling succeeded in his third attempt to stand up. He was very unsteady, but by means of supporting himself against the wall with his left hand, he succeeded in remaining upright.
So standing, he faced Dr. Fu Manchu.
“The fact that you are alive—” the words came sibilantly from thin lips which scarcely seemed to move—”surprises me.”
Sterling stared at the speaker. Every instinct in his mind, his body, his soul, prompted: “Kill him! Kill him!” But Sterling knew something of Dr. Fu Manchu, and he knew that he must temporize.
“I am surprised, too,” he said.
His voice shook, and he hated his weakness.
The green eyes watched him hypnotically. Sterling, leaning against the wall, wrenched his gaze away.
“It is not my custom,” the harsh voice continued, “to employ coarse methods. You were, to put it bluntly, bludgeoned in Rowan House. Your constitution, Alan Sterling, must resemble that of a weazel. I had intended to incinerate your body. I am not displeased to find that life survives.”
“Nor am I,” said Sterling, calculating his chances of a swift spring, and a blow over the heart of this Chinese fiend whom he knew to be of incalculable age; then a hook to that angular jaw—and a way to freedom would be open.
With the instinct of a boxer he had been watching the green eyes whilst these thoughts had flashed through his mind, and now:
“You could not strike me over the heart,” said Dr. Fu Manchu;
“I am trained in more subtle arts than the crudities of boxing have ever appreciated. As to your second blow aimed, I believe, at my jaw, this would not occur—you would be disabled.”