“Unless, of course,” said Gallaho ironically, “you consider, Inspector Forester, that this properly belongs to your province.”
CHAPTER 47
THE WATERSPOUT
Sterling groped his way through darkness in the direction of the foot of the stairs. The roar of falling water was deafening. At one point he was drenched in spray, and hesitated. A small ray shone through the gloom, higherto unbroken except for stabs of yellowish light through chinks in the furnace door. He turned sharply, aware from the pain in his chest that he was fit for little more.
The light came nearer and a grip fastened upon his arm. Close to his ear:
“Around this way—we can’t reach the steps direct.”
The voice was Nayland Smith’s.
A pocket-torch had been amongst the latter’s equipment, and now it was invaluable. Using it sparingly, Nayland Smith indicated the edge of a great column of water which was pouring down into the pit, so that anywhere within ten feet of it one was drenched in the spray of its fall. A rushing stream was pouring down the tunnel, the entrance to which they were now passing.
Even as Sterling, horrified as he had never been in his life, stared along that whispering gallery, a distant lantern went out, swept away by the torrent.
Then they turned left; and, stumbling onwards, presently Sterling saw the foot of the wooden steps. But Dr. Fu Manchu was not there.
His lips close to Sterling’s ear:
“It’s only a matter of minutes,” shouted Nayland Smith, “before the water reaches that ghastly furnace. Then ... we’re done!”
Spray drenched them—a sort of mist was rising. The booming of the water was awful. Sterling had been along those rock galleries cut beneath Niagara Falls: he was reminded of them now. This was a rivulet compared with the mighty Horseshoe Fall; but, descending from so great a height and crashing upon concrete so near to where they stood, the effect was at least as dreadful.
Into the inadequate light, penetrating spray and mist, of Nayland Smith’s pocket torch there stumbled a strange figure—a drenched, half-drowned figure moving his arms blindly as he groped forward.
It was Murphy!
Suddenly, he saw the light, and sweeping his wet hair back from his forehead, he showed for a moment a white bloodstained face in the ray of the torch.
From that white mask his eyes glared out almost madly.
Nayland Smith turned the light upon his own face, then stepping forward, grasped Murphy’s arm.
Far above, a dim light shone through the mist and spray. It revealed that horror-inspiring shaft with its rusty girders, and the skeleton staircase clinging to its walls: this, eerily, vaguely, as a dream within a dream. But it revealed something else:
That ever-increasing cataract descending from some unseen place, sprouted forth remorselessly from one of the upper platforms!
No human being could pass that point. . . .
Nayland Smith staring upward flashed the feeble light of his torch in a rather vain hope that it would be seen by those at the top of the shaft; for that at long last a raiding party had penetrated, he was convinced.
The light above became obscured in ever increasing mist; it disappeared altogether.
Much of that stair which zigzagged from side to side had remained mantled in impenetrable shadow during the few seconds that light had shone through at the head of the pit. If Fu Manchu and those of his servants who remained alive were on the stairs they were invisible.
To one memory Nayland Smith clung tenaciously.
Dr. Fu Manchu at the moment that his killings had been interrupted, had descended three steps and extinguished the lamps. Somewhere, hereabouts, there was a switch.
Suddenly, he came upon it, and reversed it.
There was no result.
The explosion had disconnected the current.
He glanced back ere beginning to climb. Water was creeping up to the first step. Spray and mist obstructed this view of the furnace. He wondered if the Burmese horror, to whom human life meant no more than wood to a circular saw, had triumphed over injury, or if he was doomed to be swallowed in that unnatural tide.
Smith started up the stairs.
He was planning for the imminent catastrophe, nor thinking any further ahead than the moment when the rising water should reach the furnace. He had placed the direction of the fall, and knew that except at one point where the waterspout came perilously near to the stairs, these were navigable to within one stage of the top.
Beyond that point, progress was impossible—and the volume of water was increasing minute by minute.
His feet were wet when he began to mount. The tunnel must be full, now, right to the dead end. It was only a question of time for this forgotten shaft to be filled to its brim.
Sterling was breathing heavily and Sergeant Murphy was giving him some assistance, when Nayland Smith caught up with them on the stairs.
He shouted in Sterling’s ear:
“Did that yellow swine crock you?”
Sterling grasped his arm and gripped it strongly, pressing his lips to the speaker’s ear.
“It’s only my wind,” he explained; “otherwise O.K.”
Smith who had momentarily snapped his torch on, snapped it off again, nursing the precious light. Fighting against the brain-damning clamour of falling water, he tried to estimate their chances.
He guessed that now the tunnel would be full. The flood would rise in the shaft at least a foot a minute. Failing inspiration on the part of the police, ultimate escape was problematical.
But he was thinking at the moment of that white hot furnace when steam was generated. That one point on the stairs almost touched by the waterspout was the only possible shelter. That an explosion there in the depths might wreck the entire shaft, was a possibility which one could not calculate.
Up they went, and up, until the spray cut off by an iron girder lashed them stingingly. Nayland Smith pressed the switch of his torch.
Sterling had sunk down upon the step—Murphy was supporting him. Smith bent to Murphy’s ear. “Stay where you are!” he shouted He groped his way upward.
CHAPTER 48
GALLAHO BRINGS UP THE REAR
“Is it fast?” shouted Gallaho.
“It’s fast,” Merton shouted back, “but you’re not going down there!”
Gallaho bent to Merton’s ear.
“Mind your own bloody business, my lad,” he roared. “If ever I want your advice I shall ask for it.”
Chief detective-inspector Gallaho climbed over the hand rail and began to descend the rope ladder, his bowler hat firmly screwed on to his bullet skull. Immediately, he was drenched to the skin.
Steam was rising from the shaft. The touch of the water was icy, numbing. But he knew that unless the ladder was too short he could reach a point of the staircase just below that ever-increasing cataract, and follow it down. He was a man with a clear-cut idea of what duty demanded.
The ladder proved to be of ample length. Gallaho gained the wooden steps, flashed his powerful torch, and saw that he stood near the waterfall thundering down into those unimaginable depths.
A faint light flickered far below.
Gallaho, his torch in his left hand, held well clear of his body, directed its ray towards that spot of light visible through the mist.
At first, what he saw was no more than a moving shadow, then it became concrete; and in the light, haggard, staggering, he saw Sir Denis Nayland Smith!
Gallaho ran down the intervening steps, and as the light showed more and more clearly the lean angular features, the detective saw the ghost of a smile break through their hag-gar dness.
An unfamiliar wave of emotion claimed him. He threw his arm around Sir Denis’s shoulder, and, shouting:
“Thank God I’ve found you, sir!” he said.