“Sir Denis and I know this man,” the latter went on; “we know what he can do—what he has done. You would be entitled officially to take the steps you have mentioned, Inspector;
I can only ask you not to take them; to treat what I have told you as a confidence.”
“As you say, sir.”
“I am ordered to assemble certain drugs; some of them difficult to obtain, but none, I believe, unobtainable. The final ingredient, the indispensable ingredient, is a certain essential oil unknown anywhere in the world except in the laboratory of Dr. Fu Manchu. A small quantity of this still remains in existence.”
“Where?” jerked Nayland Smith.
Dr. Petrie did not reply for a few seconds. He bowed his head, resting it in a raised hand; then:
“At a spot which I have given my word not to name.” He replied. “I am to go there, and get it. And when I have collected the other items of the prescription, and certain chemical apparatus described to me. I am to join Dr. Fu Manchu.”
“Where are you to join him?” Inspector Gallaho asked, hoarsely.
“This I cannot tell you, Inspector. My daughter’s life is at stake.”
There was another silence, and then:
“He is, then, in extremis?” murmured Nayland Smith.
“He is dying,” Dr. Petrie replied. “If I can save him, he will restore Fleurette to me—on the word ofFu Manchu.”
Nayland Smith nodded.
“Which in all my knowledge of his execrable life, he has never broken.”
CHAPTER 58
JOHN KI
“Don’t wake her,” said Dr. Petrie.
He beckoned to the nurse to follow him. Outside in the sitting-room, where misty morning light was just beginning to assert itself, Nayland Smith in pyjamas and dressing-gown was pacing up and down smoking furiously. Petrie was fully dressed, and:
“Hello, Petrie!” said Smith. “You’ll crack up if you go on like this.”
“She is so beautiful,” said the nurse, a dour Scotch woman, but as capable as all London could supply. “She is sleeping like a child. It’s a strange case!”
“It is a very strange case.” Petrie assured her. “But you fully understand my instructions, nurse, and I know you will carry them out.”
“You may count upon that, Doctor.”
“Go back to your patient now, and report to Sir Denis, here, if there is any change when she awakens.”
“I understand, Doctor.”
Nurse Craig went out of the room, and Petrie turned to Nayland Smith. The latter paused in his restless promenade, puffing furiously on a cracked briar, and:
“This job is going to crock you, Petrie,” he declared. “Neither you nor I is getting younger; only Dr. Fu Manchu can defy the years. You look like hell, old man. You have been up all night, and now——”
“And now my job begins,” said Petrie quietly. “Oh, I know I am stretching myself to the limit, but the stakes are very high, Smith”
Nayland Smith gripped Petrie’s shoulder and then began walk up and down again.
Petrie dropped into an armchair, clutching his knees, and staring into the heart of the fire. Fey came in unobtrusively and made the fire up. It had been burning all night, and he, too, had not slept.
“Can I get you anything, sir?”
“Yes,” said Nayland Smith, “Dr. Petrie has to go out in an hour. Get bacon and eggs, Fey, and coffee.”
“Very good, sir.”
Fey went out.
“I haven’t slept,” rapped Nayland Smith; “couldn’t sleep, but at least I have relaxed physically. You,” he stared at Petrie, “haven’t even undressed.
“No——” Petrie smiled; “but as you may have observed, I have shaved.”
“A hit, Petrie. I haven’t. But I propose to do so immediately. Take my advice. Strip and have a bath before bacon and eggs. You’ll feel a new man.”
“I believe you are right, Smith.”
And when presently, the two, who many years before had set out to combat the menace represented by Dr. Fu Manchu, sat down to breakfast, except for asides to Fey who waited at table, they were strangely silent. But when Fey had withdrawn:
“I don’t doubt,” said Nayland Smith, “and you cannot doubt, that Fleurette would live in a borderland to the end of her days if the man who has set her there does not will it otherwise. We are compromising with a remorseless enemy, Petrie, but in this compromise I am wholly with you. Gallaho is out for the moment. He is the most fearless and the most conscientious officer I have met with in recent years. He will go far. It rests between us now, old man, and I suppose it means defeat.”
“I suppose it does,” said Petrie, dully.
“Naturally, you know where to assemble the drugs and paraphernalia demanded by Dr. Fu Manchu. You have passed your word about the place where the particular ingredient is to be found.”
He ceased speaking and glanced at the clock on the mantle-piece.
“I shall have to be going, Smith,” said Petrie, wearily. “It is utterly preposterous and utterly horrible. But——”
He stood up.
Nayland Smith grasped his hand.
“It’s just Fate,” he said. “Dr. Fu Manchu seems to be our fate, Petrie.”
“You don’t blame me for consenting?” “Petrie, you had no choice.”
* * *
Dr. Petrie discharged his taxicab at a spot in Vauxhaull Bridge Road where he had been told by Dr. Fu Manchu to discharge it. Carrying the suitcase with which he had set out from Nayland Smith’s flat, and which now contained drugs and apparatus which must have surprised any physician who examined them, and which indeed surprised Dr. Petrie, he walked along that dingy thoroughfare until he came to a certain house.
It was a grey and a gloomy house, its door approached by three dirty steps.
Battersea was coming to life.
Battersea is one of London’s oddest suburbs—a suburb which produced John Burns, a big man frustrated;
Communist to-day, if votes count for anything, encircled in red on the Crimes’ Map; yet housing thousands of honest citizens, staunch men and true. A queer district—and just such a district as might harbour an agent of Dr. Fu Manchu.
Laden tramcars went rocking by, bound cityward. There were many pedestrians. Battersea was alert, alive—it was a nest of workers.
But of all this Dr. Petrie was only vaguely conscious: his interest lay far from Battersea.
He went up the three steps and rang the bell.
In response to his ringing, the door, presently, was opened by a very old Chinaman.
Petrie stared at an intricate map of wrinkles which decorated that ape-like face. Memory bridged the years; he knew that this was John Ki, once keeper of the notorious “Joy Shop” in the older Chinatown, and now known as Sam Pak.
A sort of false gaiety claimed him. He had gone over to the enemy, become one with them, and accordingly:
“Good morning, John,” he said; “a long time since I saw you.”
“Velly much long time before.”
The toothless mouth opened in a grin, and old Sam Pak ceremoniously stood aside, bowing his visitor in.
Petrie found himself in a frowsy, evil-smelling passage, the floor covered with worn and cracked linoleum; hideous paper peeling from the walls. There was a room immediately on the left, the door of which was open. He entered, heard the front door close, and the old Chinaman came in behind him.
This was a room which had apparently remained untouched, undecorated and undusted since the days of Queen Victoria. Upon a round mahogany table were wax flowers under a glass case; indescribably filthy horsehair chairs;
a carpet through which the floor appeared from point to point;
a large print on one wall representing King Edward VII as Prince of Wales, and a brass gas chandelier hanging from the centre of a ceiling of the colour of Thames mud.