“Step back a pace, lower your head, and go in.”
Sterling obeyed. He knew that the alternative was suicide. This place, he began to realize, in addition to its heat, had a vague but ghastly charnel-house odour. . . .
He went ahead along a narrow passage; someone who had opened the door stood aside to allow him to pass. He found himself in a small, square, brick chamber illuminated by one unshaded bulb hanging on a length of cable. He heard the outer door being bolted.
There was a camp bed, a chair and a table on which stood a glass and a bottle of water. This square brick chamber had never been designed for habitation; he was in the bowels of some uncompleted engineering plant. . . .
The man who had admitted him—who had stood aside when he had entered—appeared now in the doorway—a huge negro with a pock-scarred face.
For one breathless moment Alan Sterling stared, not daring to believe what he saw—then:
“Alt Oke!” he whispered.
The expression on the black face of the man so oddly named defied definition—but it resolved itself into a grin. Ali Oke raised a finger to his lips in warning—and closed the heavy door. Sterling heard the sound of a bolt being shot. . . .
Ali Oke! It was all but incredible!
Ali-called “Oke” because this term was his equivalent for “I understand” or “very good, sir”—had been Sterling’s right-hand man on his Uganda expedition! He found it hard to believe that the faithful Ali, pride of the American Mission School, could be a servant of Dr. Fu Manchu. . . .
Complete silence. Even that queer dim roaring had ceased....
Yet—Sterling reflected—better men than Ali Oke had slaved for the Chinese doctor. He stared at the massive wooden door. A faint, sibilant sound drew his gaze floorward.
A piece of paper was being pushed under the door!
Sterling stooped and snatched it up. It was a fragment from the margin of a newspaper, and on it in child-like handwriting was written in penciclass="underline" —
Not speak. Somebody listen. Write something. Can send somebody. Ali.
CHAPTER 28
TUNNEL
BELOW WATER
Investigations in surrey brought some curious points to light
It was late in the afternoon when Gallaho came to Sir Denis’s apartment to make his report. To be on duty for twenty-four hours was no novelty to the C.I.D. man, but he was compelled to admit to himself that he felt extremely tired. Sir Denis, who wore a dressing-gown, but who was fully dressed beneath, simply radiated vitality. He was smoking furiously, and his blue-grey eyes were as keen as if, after a long and dreamless sleep, he had emerged fresh from his bath.
Gallaho, who guessed Sir Denis to be ten years his senior— as a matter of fact, he was wrong—found a constant source of amazement in Nayland Smith’s energy.
He reported that the mews to which Sir Bertram Morgan’s car had been driven was known to have accommodated a Ford lorry belonging to a local contractor.
Nayland Smith laughed shortly, pacing up and down the carpet.
“When it comes to making important engagements in an unoccupied house, but one with which in the past—and he never forgets anything—the Doctor has been familiar; when, above all, he condescends to travel in a decorator’s lorry . . .”
He laughed again, and this time it was a joyous, boyish laugh, which magically lifted the years and showed him to be a young man.
“It’s all very funny,” Gallaho agreed, “especially as Sir Bertram, according to his own statement, examined an ingot of pure gold which this Chinese magician offered to sell to him!”
Nayland Smith turned, and stared at the speaker.
“Have you ever realized the difficulty of selling gold, assuming you had any—I mean, in bulk?”
Gallaho scratched his upstanding hair, closed one eye, and cocked the other one up at the ceiling.
“I suppose it would be difficult, in bulk,” he admitted; “especially if the gold merchant was forced to operate under cover.”
“I assure you it would,” said Nayland Smith. “No further clues from Rowan House, I suppose?”
“Nothing. It’s amazing. But it accounts for an appointment at half-past two in the morning. They just dressed the lobby and two rooms of the house like preparing a stage-set for a one-night show.”
“Obviously they did, Gallaho—and it is amazing, as you say. I remember the place very well; I was there on many occasions during the time Sir Lionel Barton occupied it. I remember, particularly, the Chinese Room, with its sliding doors and lacquer appointments. Those decorations which were not Barton relics—I refer to the preserved snakes, the chemical furnace, and so forth—were imported for Sir Bertram Morgan’s benefit.”
“That’s where the Ford lorry came in!”
Nayland Smith dashed his right fist into his left palm.
“Right! You’re right! That’s where the lorry came in! The missing caretaker?”
“He’s just described by local tradesmen as ‘an old foreigner’——”
“Someone employed by, or bought by, Fu Manchu. We shall never trace him.”
Gallaho chewed invisible gum.
“Funny business,” he muttered.
“Rowan House has known even more sinister happenings in the past. However, I will look it over myself—some time today if possible. What about the lorry?”
“I have seen the former owner” Gallaho pulled out a book and consulted some notes. “He sold it on the fourteenth instant. The purchase price was thirty pounds. The purchaser he describes as ‘a foreign bloke.’ I may say, sir—” looking up at Sir Denis—”said contractor isn’t too intelligent; but I gather that the ‘foreign bloke’ was some kind of Asiatic. It was up to the purchaser to remove the lorry at his convenience.”
“How was the payment made?”
“Thirty one-pound notes.”
“Very curious,” murmured Sir Denis. “Very , very curious. I am wondering what the real object could be in the purchase of this lorry. Its use last night was an emergency measure. I think we may take that for granted. Have you traced it?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
“Has any constable reported having seen it?”
“No one.”
“What about the Morris out of the yard in Limehouse?”
“I have a short report about that,” Gallaho growled, consulting his notes. “It’s the property of Sam Pak, as we surmised, and various birds belonging to his queer aviary seem to drive it from time to time. My own idea is that he uses it to send drunks home. But it’s for hire, and according to Murphy, who has been on the job down there, it was hired last night, or rather, early in the morning, by a lady who had dined on board a steamer lying in West India Dock.”
“You have the name of the steamer, no doubt?”
“Murphy got it.”
“Did any lady dine on board?”
“The ship mentioned in my notes, sir,” Gallaho replied ill-humouredly, “pulled out when the fog lifted. We have no means of confirming.”
“I see,” snapped Nayland Smith, his briar bubbling and crackling as he smoked furiously. “But the driver?”
“A man called Ah Chuk—he’s a licensed driver; he’s been checked up—who hangs about Sam Pak’s when he’s out of a job. His usual work is that of a stevedore.”
“Has anyone seen this man?”
“Yes—Murphy. He says, and Sam Pak confirms it, that he took the car down to the gates of West India Dock and picked up a lady who was in evening dress. He drove her to the Ambassadors’ Club——” Gallaho was reading from his notes—”dropped her there and returned to Limehouse.”
“Where is the car now?”
“Back in the yard.”
Nayland Smith walked up and down for some time, and then:
“A ridiculous, but a cunning story,” he remarked. “However, Ah Chuk will probably come into our net. Anything of interest in the reports of the men who trailed customers leaving Sam Pak’s?