Motorcycle patrolmen, radio cars, shot into the dusk like earth-bound rockets. Phones buzzed. The private line to Washington stayed red hot for hours. And Nayland Smith, in the office of his old friend. Deputy Commissioner Burke, a heavy powerful man with black, tufted eyebrows and greying hair, smoked his foul pipe incessantly as if in competition with Burke's strong cigars.
Raymond Harkness inhaled cigarettes in swift succession, each neatly fitted into a tortoiseshell holder. He displayed no other signs of excitement.
"This card," said Nayland Smith, "which Harkness found wedged between the leather cover and the silver of poor Or-son's flask, is clearly intended to admit him to a meeting at the house of Kwang Tsee, wherever that may be, at two a.m. tomorrow morning, September 10th — that is, tonight. It has the Si-Fan crest at the top."
"Not a doubt of it," Burke growled in his deep bass. "He meant to pick up the stick and the flask just as soon as he thought it was safe. If I could have a hand in cleaning up this Fu Manchu gang before I retire next year, I'd go to growing watermelons with a light heart."
"The Fu Manchu gang," Smith rapped back, "is too big to be cleaned up overnight. But we have a chance to get some of the high executives and to break the Fort Knox scheme." He glanced at a clock over Burke's desk. "I'm waiting for news about the house of Kwang T'see!"
"So am I," Burke agreed, and was about to ring when a rap sounded on the door and Police Captain Rafferty came in.
He saluted Burke with the deference due to a dreaded but respected chief.
"I have a report on Kwang T'see, sir."
"Spill it."
"The only man of that name known in the Chinatown area is the proprietor of a store formerly owned by old Huan Tsung."
"That settles it!" said Nayland Smith drily. "Go ahead."
"Huan Tsung disappeared about a year ago. We wanted him, you may remember, but we could pin nothing on him. This man, Kwang T'see, bought the business. He's enlarged it. He owns a big warehouse in the next street, same block, stocked with antiques from the East. He lives somewhere on the premises. Nothing against him… "
When Rafferty was gone, with a number of instructions:
"I guess this Kwang T'see is a dummy. Smith," said Burke. "What's your idea?"
"The same as yours. A Chinatown base is characteristic of Dr Fu Manchu."
"You knew Huan Tsung fairly well, didn't you?"
Raymond Harkness smiled but said nothing.
"You exaggerate!" Nayland Smith assured him. "I never really knew him at all. He was once governor of a Chinese province. He is now Dr Fu Manchu's chief aide. He's a first-class soldier although of incalculable age. If Chiang Kai-shek had had him on his staff, the Communists would be nowhere in China today. I have had several skirmishes with General Huan Tsung Chao, to give him his full name, but never won one yet!"
"The whole thing drops dead," Burke declared, "if any news has leaked about the slaughter in Room 113."
"No leakage has occurred," came Harkness' gentle assurance. "No one saw the baskets taken out. The room remains sealed. I arranged for Mr Thurston to dine and spend the night with friends of mine in Bronxville, where there is gay company. He has driven there in one of our cars."
Nayland Smith's grim face relaxed in a smile. It was a smile which betrayed the schoolboy who had never grown up.
"Clean, smart, efficient work," he commented. "Satisfied, Burke?"
"I guess so. It's up to us, now. We know that Fu Manchu is playing for recognition. He figures that if performers with records like that old crosstalk act. Hitler and Mussolini, not to mention artists still with us, have been allowed a place in public life — why not Dr Fu Manchu?"
"And why not?" Nayland Smith challenged. "He has the brains of all of them rolled into one."
"Must have," Burke agreed. "You've been down to Fort Knox and you know that a consignment of gold in one of the vaults, still in the boxes it was shipped in, has been turned into something that looks like lead!"
"Quite so! In accordance with Fu Manchu's threat to Washington. Contents of the other twenty-seven vaults are still intact."
"But the Treasury's nearly crazy," Harkness said quietly. "Already, the loss is enormous. If the further threat of the Si-Fan to destroy the entire reserve is made good, the financial stability of the United States will lie in the hands of those people!"
"And we can't find out how it was done," Burke groaned. "It sounds like a miracle. Fu Manchu knows that such losses have to be officially denied. Otherwise we'd have a financial panic. He aims to blackmail Washington into recognising him."
"He wants to see the Si-Fan where the Nazis and the Fascists stood — where the Soviets stand today!"
"When this conference assembles," Burke pointed out, "even if we manage to grab the lot we shan't know what we want to know."
"There's another point." Harkness fitted a fresh cigarette into his holder. "News of it might speed up the action we want to stop. Our information clearly indicates that Fu Manchu won't be present, and we may have no evidence whatever against the others."
Nayland Smith began to walk about restlessly.
"The meeting must not be disturbed. It's the best chance we're ever likely to have of finding out what happened to that gold in Fort Knox, and of taking steps to see that it doesn't happen again."
"But /low?" Burke shouted.
"Surely it's obvious. They will all be masked. I regard it as highly unlikely — a hundred to one against — that Mrs van Roorden ever suspected Orson of being a Si-Fan deputy. What could be more simple… I'll take his place!"
Mrs van Roorden leaned over the balcony, watching two streams of light, one north bound, the other south, which represented Fifth Avenue, below. No individual light could be picked out; just two long, luminous ribbons broken only when 6, red traffic signal checked their flow.
She wore the green gown which she had worn at the purser's party on the Lauretania. This, for two reasons: the first, that she despised ideas of good and bad luck, the second, that It amused her to dress to the green mask she must wear at the Si-Fan conference.
The unaccountable disappearance of Sha Mu, her Burmese bodyguard, was disturbing and ominous.
But, whatever the explanation, she could do nothing at all about it — yet.
No amount of interrogation would extract anything from Sha Mu. What little he knew was negligible and he spoke no language other than the Shan dialect.
So that, whatever had happened, no clue could be picked up from it leading either to the time or to the place of the Si-Fan meeting. As to the man, Fordwich, there was no longer any room for doubt… He had been covering her since their first meeting in Java. He was a secret service agent, either of Great Britain or of the United States.
But, although she taxed her memory unmercifully she could recall not one slip she had made. All the same, it must have Occurred; for he had searched her room, and had taken nothing but the letter from her father which betrayed her identity.
Where was that letter now? Highly probable that every precinct in New York City had a description of the appearance of Dr Fu Manchu's daughter!
She smiled, turned, and went into the softly lighted room, redolent of old memories. Mat Cha, who had been seated, reading, stood up as the graceful figure appeared.
"Sit down, dear. There's no need for ceremony when we are alone.'* She addressed the girl in English, which she spoke without trace of accent.
"Thank you," Mai Cha said simply, and obeyed.
"I have had the same training as you," Mrs van Roorden sank onto a low settee. "The beautiful old courtesies. But we both live in a new world. Perhaps we shall never know that old world of ours again. You are to be my guide tonight?"