“I have tipped the stewards, effendim—and your baggage is already in Custom House. Will you please follow me? . . .”
Dr. Petrie walked down the ladder wearing a white raincoat which he had acquired at the house of Mr. Yusaki, and a grey hat of a colour and style which he detested.
Apparently, Mr. Crossland travelled light. A small cabin-trunk and a suitcase lay upon the Customs bench. The cabin trunk he was requested to open. Ibrahim produced the necessary key, displaying wearing apparel, a toilet case, books and other odds and ends. The two pieces were passed. The porter hired by Ibrahim carried them out towards the dock gates.
“Be careful, please,” the Egyptian whispered.
Detective-inspector Gallaho and Sergeant Murphy were standing at the gate!
Nothing quite corresponding to this had ever occurred in Petrie’s adventurous life. He had joined the ranks of the law breakers!
He must play his part; so much was at stake. He must deceive his friends, those interested, as he was interested, in apprehending the Chinese physician. If his nerve, or the art of Mr. Yusaki should fail him now—all would be lost!
The critical gaze of Gallaho was fixed upon him for a moment, then immediately transferred to Ibrahim.
Petrie passed the detective, forcing himself not to look in his direction. A taxicab was waiting upon which the pieces of baggage were loaded, under the supervision of Ibrahim. Petrie observed with admiration that his own suitcase had already been placed inside.
He knew now where his course lay, and his amazement rose by leaps and bounds.
The presence of Gallaho at the dock gates was explained. The police were covering the Crossland flat. The man, when he had left that morning, had naturally been followed. He was regarded as a factor so important in the case that Gallaho had covered in person. Gallaho would be disappointed. The cunning of the group surrounding Dr. Fu Manchu exceeded anything in Petrie’s experience.
He glanced at the placid, elderly Egyptian seated beside him,and:
“How long have you belonged to the Si-Fan?” he asked, speaking in Arabic.
Ibrahim shrugged his shoulders.
“Sir,” he replied in the same language, “it is not possible for me to reply to your questions. Silence is my creed.”
“Very sound,” Petrie murmured, and gave it up.
His sentiments when he reached Westminster, and was greeted respectfully by the hall porter as Mr. Crossland, were of a kind inexpressible in any language known to man.
Then, as he stepped out of the elevator—Nayland Smith was standing on the landing!
Petrie suppressed an exclamation. One piercing stare of those blue-grey eyes had told him that he was recognized.
But Smith gave no sign, merely bowing and stepping aside as Ibrahim busied himself with the baggage.
Three mintues later, Dr. Petrie stood in the pseudo-Oriental atmosphere of the Crossland flat, and Ibrahim closed the door behind him.
“Please wait a moment.”
The Egyptian walked through the harem-like apartment which opened out of the lobby, and disappeared.
Petrie had time to wonder if the authoress of the celebrated novels of desert love also was a member of the Si-Fan, or if this must be counted a secret of her husband’s life which she had never shared. He wondered what part this man normally played in their activities, and doubted the nationality of Crossland.
Surely no man entitled to his name could link himself with a monstrous conspiracy to subject the Western races to domination by the East?
Above all, to what reward did Crossland look which should make good the loss of his place in the world of decent men?
“If you will please come this way, sir.”
Ibrahim, who had carried out the precious suitcase, now returned without it, and stood bowing before Petrie.
Petrie nodded and followed the Egyptian across that shaded room with its mushrabiyeh windows, and through a doorway beyond, which, in spite of the Oriental camouflage, he recognized to correspond with one in Nayland Smith’s apartment.
He found himself in a large bedroom.
The Eastern note persisted. The place, viewed from the doorway, resembled a stage-set designed by one of the more advanced Germans for a scene in Scheherazade. The bed stood upon a dias; its posts were intricately carved and inlaid, and a canopy of cloth of gold overhung its head. A low couch he saw, too, and a long, inlaid table of Damascus work. Upon this table chemical apparatus appeared, striking a strange note in that apartment. He noted that the contents of his suitcase had been added to the other materials upon the table.
And, in the bed, Dr. Fu Manchu lay. . . .
Petrie stared, and stared again, unable to accept the evidence of his own senses.
Less than two months had elapsed since he had seen the Chinese doctor. In those two months, Fu Manchu had aged incredibly.
He was shrunken; his strange, green eyes were buried in his skull; his long hands lying on the silk coverlet resembled the hands of a mummy. The outline of his teeth could be seen beneath drawn lips. To the keen scrutiny of the physician, the truth was apparent.
Dr. Fu Manchu was dying!
“ ‘0 mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?’“ came sibilantly through parched lips. “I observe, Dr. Petrie, that this beautiful passage from an otherwise dull play is present in your mind . . . You honour me.”
Petrie started, felt his fists clenching. The body of Fu Manchu was in dissolution, but that phenomenal brain had lost none of its power. The man still retained his uncanny capacity for reading one’s unspoken thoughts.
“I must harbour what little strength remains to me,” the painful whisper continued. “For your daughter’s health of mind and body, you need have no fear. I was compelled, since there is still work for me if I can do it, to impose a command upon her. It nearly exhausted my powers, which are dwindling minute by minute.”
The whispering voice ceased.
Petrie watched that strange face, but no words came to him. In it he had seen, as others had seen, a likeness to the Pharaoh, Seti I—but the Pharaoh as one imagined him in his prime. Now, the resemblance to the mummy which lies in Cairo was uncanny.
Ideas which his scientific mind rejected as superstitious, danced mentally before him. . . .
What was the real age of this man?
“I have removed the command which I imposed upon her,” the whistling voice continued, “because I have accepted your word, as you have always accepted mine. Your daughter, Dr. Petrie, is restored to you as you would wish her to be. I shall never again intrude upon her life in any way.”
“Thank you!” said Petrie—and wondered why he spoke so emotionally.
He was thanking this cold-blooded, murderous criminal for promising to refrain from one of his many crimes! Perhaps the secret of his sentiment lay in the fact hat he knew the criminal to be one whose word was inviolable.
“I have taken these steps——” Fu Manchu’s voice sank lower—”because with all your great skill, which I respect, your assistance may have come too late.”
He paused again. Petrie watched him fascinatedly.
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith has succeeded for the . . . first time in his life in sequestering me from most of those resources upon which normally ... I can draw. ... In these circumstances I was compelled to forego one ... of the periodical treatments upon which my continued . . . vitality depends. ... I was then cut off from the material. My present condition is outside my experience ... I cannot say if restoration ... is possible. . . .”
Complete resignation sounded in the weak voice.
“In the absence of Dr. Yamamata . . . who usually acts for me, but who unfortunately at present is in China . . . there is no other physician known to me who could possibly . . . assist—in any way. I shall be obliged, Dr. Petrie, if you will give the whole of your attention to ... the written formula which lies . . . upon the table. Any error would be fatal. . . . Only one portion of the essential oil remains in the phial contained in the steel casket. ...”