“Sorry to have troubled you.”
They returned to the lobby: Gallaho had actually gone out into the corridor, when:
“This is a very fine piece, Ibrahim,” said Sir Denis.
He stood before an Egyptian sarcophagus half hidden in a recess.
“So I am told, effendim.”
“Has Mrs. Crossland had it long?”
“No, effendim.” At last, the Egyptian’s deadly calm was disturbed. “It was bought by Mr. Crossland in Egypt recently. It was delivered less than a week ago.”
“Beautiful example of late eighteenth,” murmured Nayland Smith. “Shipped through to London, I suppose?”
“Yes, effendim.”
They were bowed out by the Egyptian. The door was closed.
“Call to the Yard the moment we reach my flat!” snapped Nayland Smith. “Have this entire block covered.”
“Very good, sir. I was thinking the same thing.”
“We weren’t wrong—but our hands are tied.”
“My idea exactly, sir.”
Fey opened the door in response to their ring.
“How is Miss Petrie?” Nayland Smith challenged.
“The doctor is with her, sir.”
They went in and Gallaho took up the telephone. Sir Denis walked on into the sitting-room, pacing the carpet restlessly.
Gallaho’s gruff voice could be heard as he spoke to someone at Scotland Yard. Presently, Dr. Petrie came in. He shook his head.
“No change, Smith,” he reported. “She declines to leave her room. She is packing, methodically, but refuses all assistance. The idea has been implanted upon her mind that a call to leave here is coming shortly. God help us if we can’t find the man who imposed that thing upon her!”
“What would it mean?” snapped Smith.
“It would mean, I fear, that she would remain in this condition to the end of her life.”
“The poisonous swine! He is very powerful!”
“He has the greatest brain in the world to-day, Smith.”
Gallaho completed his directions at the telephone and came into the room. All idea of dinner had been brushed from their minds. There was a moment of awkward silence. Sounds of faint movement reached them: Fleurette was still engaged in her packing.
Then, the telephone bell rang.
There was something in this call coming at that moment which seemed to possess a special significance. All three waited. All three listened to Fey’s voice, out in the lobby.
And presently, Fey came in.
He had quite recovered his normal self. There was nothing in his appearance or in his behaviour to suggest that he had passed through an amazing ordeal. He bowed slightly to Dr. Petrie.
“Someone wishes to speak to you, sir.”
“What name?”
“Dr. Fu Manchu was the name, sir.”
CHAPTER
57
A CALL FOR PETRIE
As petrie crossed the lobby, Nayland Smith turned to Gallaho.
“Do you realize, Inspector,” he said, “that the greatest menace to the peace of the world who has come on earth since the days ofAttila the Hun, is at the other end of that line?”
“I am beginning to realize that what you say about this man is true, sir.” Gallaho replied. “But I think we can trace him by this call.”
“Wait and see.”
He kept glancing towards the door which communicated with Fleurette’s room. There was silence there. He wondered what she was doing. In this, perhaps, the incomprehensible plan of Dr. Fu Manchu reached its culmination. Nayland Smith walked to the lobby door and listened to Petrie’s words.
These did not help him much, consisting principally of “yes” and “no”. At last, Petrie replaced the receiver, stood up, and faced Smith.
His features were very drawn. Smith recognized how the last year had aged him.
“What am I to do?” he said, speaking almost in a whisper. “What am I to do?”
“Come in here,” said Sir Denis quickly. “Gallaho wants to use the line.”
Gallaho sprang to the telephone as Dr. Petrie and Nayland Smith walked into the sitting-room. They faced one another, and:
“What are his terms?” said Smith.
Petrie nodded.
“I knew you would understand.”
He dropped into an armchair and stared straight before him into the embers of the open fire.
“He wants something,” Nayland Smith went on evenly, “and he demands acceptance of his terms, or——” he pointed in the direction of the door beyond which Fleurette’s room lay. . . .
Petrie nodded again.
“What am I to do? What am I do to?”
“Give me the facts. Perhaps I can help you.”
“It was Dr. Fu Manchu at the end of the line,” said Petrie, in a monotonous voice. “Any doubts I may have had, disappeared the moment I heard that peculiar intonation. He apologized for troubling me; his courtesy never fails except in moments of madness——”
“I agree,” murmured Nayland Smith.
“He admitted, Smith, that you had made things pretty warm for him, assisted by the English and French police. Access to agents of the Si-Fan in England was denied to him—his financial resources were cut off. Of this he spoke frankly”
“Finally, he reached the point at which he had been aiming. He regretted that it had been necessary to make a clandestine call at this apartment; but Fleurette, the woman he had chosen for his bride” (Petrie spoke in almost a monotone) “had been torn from him. Matters of even greater urgency demanded ...”
He paused, staring into the heart of the fire.
“Demanded what?’ Nayland Smith asked, quietly.
He was listening—but no sound came from the room occupied by Fleurette.
“He has an exaggerated idea of my powers as a physician. He is a man of great age—God knows what age; and it appears that he is cut off from a supply of the strange elixir by means of which, alone, he remains alive. His offer is this:
I am to bring him certain ingredients which he has named, and assist him in preparing the elixir, which apparently he is unable to prepare alone; or——”
“I fully appreciate the alternative,” snapped Nayland Smith. “But one thing I don’t quite understand. I am wondering if something else underlies it, why his need of your services?”
Perrie smiled unmirthfully.
“It appears that he is in a situation—he frankly admits that he is hunted—where the attendance of any physician attached to his group would be impossible. Also, it appears, the pharmaceutical details require adroit manipulation.”
“What does he want you to do?”
Gallaho came in from the lobby.
“That was a Westminster call, sir,” he reported. “The caller was in this area. I expect further details later.”
“Excellent,” murmured Nayland Smith. “Listen to this, Gallaho. Go ahead, Petrie.”
“He assured me,” Dr. Petrie went on, “and neither you nor I, Smith——” he looked at Sir Denis appealingly—”has ever doubted his word, that Fleurette would remain mentally his slave in the state in which she is, now, unless he chose to restore her to normal life.”
“If he said so,” said Nayland Smith solemnly, “I don’t doubt it.”
“Your job is to go, sir,” said Gallaho, with a faint show of excitement. “I’ll have you covered, and we’ll get this yellow devil!”
“Thank you, Inspector.” Dr. Petrie smiled wearily.
“Where Dr. Fu Manchu is concerned, things are not quite so simple as that. You see, my daughter’s sanity is at stake.”
“You mean that no one but this Fu Manchu can put her right?”
“That’s what I mean, Inspector.”
Chief detective-inspector Gallaho picked up his hat, looked at it, and threw it down again. He began to chew invisible gum, glancing from Sir Denis to Dr. Petrie.