Petrie set down his suitcase very carefully on the floor, and turned to Sam Pak.
“What now, John?”
“Waitee, please; go be long yet.”
The aged creature went out; and Petrie, staring through indescribably dirty lace curtains upon the prospect outside, saw a Morris car pull up.
It was driven by a man who wore a tweed cap, pulled well down over his eyes, but who almost certainly was an Asiatic . ..
Old Sam Pak, better known to Dr. Petrie as John Ki, returned.
He was carrying a small steel casket. He handled it as though it had been a piece of fragile Ming porcelain, and with one skinny hand indicated the suitcase.
Petrie nodded, and unfastened the case.
A quantity of cotton waste was produced by Sam Pak from somewhere, and wrapped around the steel receptacle; this was then deposited in the case, and the case was closed.
“Key?”
The aged Chinaman extended upon one skinny finger a curiously shaped key attached to a ring.
“Keep—velly particular.”
“I understand.”
Dr. Petrie took it, placed it in his note-case and returned the note-case to his pocket.
Sam Pak signalled from the window and the driver of the Morris came up the steps.
He carried the suitcase out to the car.
“Very careful, my man!” called Petrie, urgently; and realized that, for the first time in his life, he was interested in the survival of Dr. Fu Manchu.
He was indifferent to his destination. He lay back in the car and dully watched a panorama of sordid streets.
CHAPTER
59
LIMEHOUSE
That strange journey terminated at a small house in Felling Street, Limehouse.
The driver of the Morris, who might have been Chinese, but who more probably was a half-caste, jumped down and banged on an iron knocker which took the place of a bell.
The door was opened almost immediately, but Petrie was unable to see by whom.
His driver’s behaviour during this long and dismal journey had been eccentric. Drizzling rain had taken the place of fog, and the crowded City streets under these conditions would have reduced a Sam Weller to despair. Many byways had been explored for no apparent reason. The driver constantly pulled up, and waited, and watched.
Dr. Petrie understood these manoeuvres.
The man suspected pursuit, and was anxious to throw his pursuers off the track.
Now he signalled to Dr. Petrie to come in. Petrie climbed out of the car and walked into the open door-way.
“The bag?” he said.
“Leave now,” the driver replied; “get presently.”
“Those are my orders, Dr. Petrie,” came in a cultured voice.
And Petrie found that a Japanese gentleman who wore spectacles was smiling at him out of the shadows of the little passage-way.
“If those are your orders, good enough.”
The driver went out; the door was closed. And Petrie followed the Japanese to a back room, the appointments of which aroused him from the lethargy into which he was falling.
This might have been a private room in an up-to-date hairdresser’s establishment, or it might have been an actor’s dressing-room. All the impedimenta of make-up was represented and there was a big winged mirror set right of the window. The prospect was that of a wall beyond which appeared a number of chimneys.
“My name is Ecko Yusaki,” said the man who wore the spectacles, “ and it is a great privilege to meet you, Dr. Petrie. Will you please sit in the armchair, facing the light.
Petrie sat in the armchair.
“Your interests are not the same as my own,” the smooth voice continued, and Mr. Yusaki busied himself with mysterious preparations; “but they are, I imagine, as keen. I am one of the most ancient brotherhood in the world, Dr. Petrie—the Si-Fan.” (He made a curious gesture with which Petrie was unpleasantly familiar) “and at last my turn has come to be useful. I am——” he turned displaying a row of large, gleaming teeth—”a specialist in make-up, but recently returned from Hollywood.”
“I see,” said Petrie. “Regard me as entirely in your hands.”
Thereupon, courteously, and with a deft assurance which spoke of the enthusiast, Mr. Yusaki set to work.
Petrie submitted, closing his eyes and thinking of Fleurette, of his wife, of Nayland Smith, of Sterling, of all those caught in the mesh of the dreadful Chinese Doctor.
At last, Mr. Yusaki seemed to be satisfied, and:
“Please glance at this photograph, Dr. Petrie,” he said . . . “No! one moment!” he snatched the photograph away . . . “Through these!”
He adjusted tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles over Petrie’s ears.
Petrie stared at a photograph nearly life size which the Japanese was holding before him. It was that of a man apparently grey-haired, who wore a moustache and a short pointed beard, and who also wore spectacles; a sad looking man nearer sixty than fifty, but well preserved for his years.
“You see?”
“Yes. Who is it?”
“Please look now in the mirror.”
Petrie turned to the big mirror.
“Good God!” he exclaimed. “Good God!”
He saw the original of the photograph—yet the face at which he looked was his own!
Speech failed him for a moment, and then:
“Who am I?” he asked, in a dull voice.
“You are a member of the Si-Fan——” Again the respectful gesture resembling the Roman Catholic Sign of the Cross— “who to-day is making a great sacrifice for the Cause. My part is done, Dr. Petrie—except for a small change of dress; and the car is waiting. . . .”
CHAPTER
60
DR. PETRIE’S PATIENT
When the Queenstown Bay came to her berth, Dr. Petrie was one of the first visitors aboard.
Shortly after he reached the deck, endeavouring to recall his instructions, an elderly Egyptian, wearing European dress, approached him. The usual scurry characterized the docking of the liner; stewards and porters were rushing about with baggage; visitors were looking for those they had come to meet; cargo was being swung out from the holds; and drizzling rain desended dismally upon the scene.
“Dr. Petrie!”
The man spoke urgently, close to Petrie’s ear.
“Yes.”
“My name is Ibrahim. Please—your dock check.”
Petrie handed the slip to the Egyptian.
“Please wait here. I shall come back.”
He moved along the deck, and presently disappeared amongst a group of passengers crowding towards the gangway.
Petrie felt that he was in a dream. Yet he forced himself to play his part in this grotesque pantomime, the very purpose of which he could not comprehend: the sanity of his daughter was at stake.
Ibrahim rejoined him. He handed him a passport.
“Please see that it is in order,” he said. “You have to pass the Customs.”
Petrie, inured to shock, opened the little book; saw a smaller version of the photograph which Mr. Yusaki had shown him, gummed upon the front page; and learned that he was a Mr. Jacob Edward Crossland, aged fifty-five, of no occupation, and residing at 14, Westminster Mansions!
The extent and the powers of the organization called the Si-Fan were so amazing that he had never succeeded in getting used to them. No society, with the possible exception of the Jesuits, ever had wielded such influence nor had its roots so deeply set in unsuspected quarters.
He could only assume that Mr. Crossland, husband of the well-known woman novelist, was one of these strange brethren: assume, too, that Mr. Crossland would slip ashore as a visitor.
And—what?
Disappear from his place in society? Yusaki had said he was making a great sacrifice for the Cause. It was all very wonderful and very terrifying.