He was pacing up and down the room liked a caged tiger, smoking almost ceaselessly.
"Do you mean," Thurston asked, "that these people have agents in Egypt?"
"All over the worldl The Si-Fan has expanded enormously since I first came in touch with it. Orson seems to have posed as a Frenchman, which he could do very easily, as he had lived for many years in Paris. He was one of the deputies selected by the Si-Fan to attend a secret conference here in New York!"
"But how do you suppose he discovered the real identity of Mrs van Roorden?"
"I don't think he had discovered it, until the night he burgled her cabin. He makes it quite plain in these notes, and in his earlier despatch from Cairo (which I have seen), that no officer of the Si-Fan knows another by sight. But he knows all the lesser members under his immediate control. He was evidently sent from Egypt to Java. The Si-Fan has been very busy there, rubbing out some of the leading Communists!"
"What! The Si-Fan is anti-Communist?"
"Somewhat!" snapped Nayland Smith grimly. "Orson, I believe, met Mrs van Roorden in Java, and then, later, on the Lauretania. He doesn't state, here, what aroused his suspicion, but he does say that he was waiting for a chance to search her cabin." He pointed to the jade baton. "This is what he found."
Thurston picked up and stared again at the sheet of thin parchment which the baton had contained. It was half covered with heavy, square writing.
The message, in English, was in cramped script resembling old Black Letter. It authorised the bearer, referred to as "my daughter," to preside at the conference in the unavoidable absence of "the President."
"I don't understand," Thurston said, "how such a conference could take place, if it's true that no officer of this society knows another by sight."
Nayland Smith paused in his restless promenade, picked up the green mask and dropped it back in the bag.
"Clearly, they all wear these things — not to frighten one another, but simply to conceal their identity. It's not a new trick. It was used, in the form of hoods, by Inquisitors of the Holy Office in Spain and is still popular with the Ku Klux Klan."
Thurston was studying a sort of crest which served as letterhead:
"What does this thing mean?" he asked. Nayland Smith glanced aside and then continued his pacing. "I have come across it only once before. Out of context, it really means nothing. But it could be construed to mean 'The higher' or "The one above.' It is evidently the sign of the Si-Fan."
The message bore no name; only the imprint of a seal on green wax:
"And this seal?"
"Is the seal of Dr Fu Manchu… "
The door-bell buzzed.
"That will be Harkness."
Smith crossed the lobby and threw the door open. Raymond Harkness, of the FBI, came in, a slight man with gentle, hazel eyes and the manner of a family doctor.
"Have you made all arrangements?" Smith rapped.
"Yes." Harkness spoke softly. "Poor old Orson. Our star man, Sir Denis."
"He didn't sacrifice himself for nothing," said Nayland Smith grimly. "Thanks to him, we hold most of the threads in our hands. We owe this to Mr Thurston here. He became unavoidably mixed up in the thing."
Harkness turned his quiet regard on Thurston. "Take my advice," he said. "Step out of this affair just as soon as you can — and stay out. Also keep your mouth shut as tightly as if the air was poisoned."
Thurston was not one of those "great adventurers who put self last" referred to by Mrs van Roorden. He was a plain man of business. Fate had made him an unconscious messenger, had plunged him into deep, dark mysteries. He sighed, for sometimes he had longed for such adventure. But he decided that Raymond Harkness' advice was good…
Mrs van Roorden stepped out of the shower and critically considered her gleaming ivory body in a long pier glass. She could detect no sign of age's encroachments. Her cool flesh was firm; the contours remained perfect.
She wrapped herself in a woolly robe and returned to the bedroom.
A contrast to other rooms in the apartment, this was equipped in the Parisian manner; a fragrant nest for loveliness. She lingered over creams and perfumes in crystal bottles ranged on a cedarwood dressing-table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, took up a hand mirror, the back delicately enamelled on gold, and studied her profile.
She was satisfied; she was still beautiful.
But she was ill at ease.
The frock which she had decided to wear lay draped over a chair, with appropriate shoes and stockings beside it. Mat Cha was perfect in her attentions, as should be expected from the daughter of a Chinese aristocrat. But Mrs van Roorden had never met this youngest child of the aged but prolific Mandarin Huan Tsung before. She had been received as a princess, but all the members of the household were strangers.
If only Huan Tsung had been there! Old Huan Tsung who used to smuggle sweetmeats to her in baby days, who had given her that pet name of Fah Lo Suee, because, he said, she was like a budding lily blossom.
She stood up restlessly and went out into an adjoining room equipped in purely Chinese fashion. There were panels of ivory and jade, rare and beautiful rugs, rose porcelain. The furniture might have, and possibly had, come from an Emperor's palace. There was a faint perfume, blended of musk and sandalwood, and the lamps were hidden in frames of painted silk.
Mrs van Roorden crossed to windows screened by ebony fretwork, and opened a screen. A warm breeze met her as she stepped out on to the balcony and stood there looking down at Fifth Avenue far below and then across the Park to where tall buildings on Central Park West loomed up, monstrous, against the evening sky.
What, she asked herself for the hundredth time, had become of Sha Mu? Had he failed altogether — been arrested? She was not prepared to believe this. His stealthy cunning had never failed before. It was barely possible that he might still be waiting for an opportunity. Even the uncanny skill with which he could make himself almost invisible would not have enabled him to hide in the hotel so long without being challenged.
Who was the man who called himself Fordwich? Only by a fleeting glance in a mirror had Sha Mu been able to identify his attacker. And it had proved hopeless to attempt anything on the ship. Something was seriously wrong. But she dare not call the hotel.
Mrs van Roorden returned to the softly lighted room. A Chinese girl stood there. She wore native dress, and her eyes were modestly downcast. She had a shy grace of movement which remained one of a gazelle.
"My lady lacks something?"
Mrs van Roorden smiled.
"Nothing that you can find for me. Mat Cha! Tell me, dear, when did you see your father last?"
"It was nearly a year ago."
"And where is he now?"
Mat Cha shook her glossy head.
"I cannot say. I never know."
"But this apartment is always kept open?"
"Always, my lady. He might return at any time."
"How I wish he would return tonight," Mrs van Roorden murmured; and then: "May I ask you something, Mai Cha?"
"Anything you wish."
"Has Sir Denis Nayland Smith ever been here?"
The dark eyes were raised to her in mild astonishment.
"But no. Of course not. He is my father's enemy. He has never known that we live here. The apartment was bought by someone else — on my father's behalf."
"But you know Nayland Smith?"
"I have seen him, my lady. But not for many, many months."
Mrs van Roorden moved towards the bedroom.
"Don't bother about me, Mai Cha," she smiled. "I shall not be going out for a long time yet… "
Centre Street that night resembled a wasp's nest.
An inoffensive businessman, purely because of deep interest in the fascinating Mrs van Roorden, which had impelled him to force his acquaintance upon Mr Fordwich, had become an instrument of justice. Unwittingly he had carried on the work of a star secret agent.