Daughter of Fu-Manchu (20 page)

“I considered the window carefully. It was some two feet square, protected by rusty-looking iron bars, and from the nature of the light which it admitted, I determined that I was in a cellar and that the time was early morning. I determined, also, that the window was inaccessible. A careful examination of the door convinced me that I had no means of opening it. And since not a sound reached me, it was then I resigned myself to that most horrible of deaths—starvation and thirst… Thirst, with a moist jar of water standing on the ledge above me!

“From my condition I judged that only a few hours had elapsed, and I detected a sporting gesture on the part of Fah Lo Suee—a gamble characteristically Chinese. If anyone chanced to pass that way I might be rescued! All this was surmise, of course, but I decided to test it. My eyes were burning feverishly. My head throbbed madly. But otherwise I was vigorous enough. Loudly I cried for help in English and in Arabic. Then, I listened intently.

“There was no sound.

“A Buddhist-like resignation was threatening me more and more. But I was by no means disposed to abandon myself to it. To sit down was impossible, otherwise than on the floor—and I felt peculiarly limp. I leaned up against the door and weighed my chances.

“And it was at this moment that a good man announced his presence. Failing him, I shouldn’t be here tonight!

“I heard the howl of a dog!

“‘Said!’

“In that moment, Petrie,”—instinctively Nayland Smith turned to his old friend—“the face of the world changed for me! The mood of resignation passed. Standing immediately under the window, I howled a reply.

“The signal was repeated. I answered it. And two minutes later I heard Said’s voice above.

“Details are unnecessary, now. He had to go back to the car for gear and a rope. Scrambling down the shallow well with which the window communicated, he succeeded in wrenching the bars loose.

“And so I climbed out, to find myself on the fringe of the palm grove. I can’t blame you, Weymouth, for failing to discover this far-flung chamber of the Sheikh’s house. Undoubtedly it had been designed for a dungeon. I can only suppose the iron-barred door communicated with a tunnel leading to the cellars.

“My mind was made up. Beneath my monkish cowl I was an Arab, and an Arab I would remain! I was heartsick about you, Greville, but knew that I could do nothing—yet. Stamboul was my objective. The reason you failed to find the car in the gully was that I commandeered it for the overland journey to the railroad!

“I had realized the efficiency of the organization to which I was opposed. My funds were fortunately sufficient for my purpose, and I reached Stamboul a week after the raid on the house of the Sheikh Ismail. Officially, I was not present in Constantinople. But I acquainted myself with the latest news in the possession of Scotland Yard—through the medium of Kemal’s police. Acting upon this, I checked his journey in Paris. The rest you know.”

Nayland Smith ceased speaking, and:

“Something you do
not
know,” said Mrs. Petrie from her shadowy corner on the divan. “I have seen
him
—Fu-Manchu, in London, tonight!”

Nayland Smith turned to her.

“You were never at fault, Karamanèh,” he said. “Dr. Fu-Manchu occupied rooms next to those of Swâzi Pasha in Paris!”

A taxi hooted outside in Piccadilly…

CHAPTER TEN

“I
t all seems so peaceful,” said Rima, clinging very tightly to my arm; “yet somehow, Shan, I never feel safe here. Last night, as I told you, I thought I saw the Abbots Hold ghost from my window…”

“A natural thing to imagine, darling,” I replied reassuringly. “Every one of these old monastic houses has its phantom monk! But, even if authentic, no doubt he’d be a jovial fellow.”

As is the fashion of such autumn disturbances, a storm which had been threatening all the evening hovered to the west, blackly. Remote peals of thunder there had been during dinner, and two short but heavy showers. Now, although angry cloud banks were visible in the distance, immediately overhead the sky was cloudless.

We sauntered on through the kitchen garden. A constant whispering in the trees told of moisture dripping from leaf to leaf. But the air was sweet and the path already dry. Rima’s unrest was no matter for wonder, considering the experiences she had passed through. And when Sir Lionel had suggested our leaving London for the peace of his place in Norfolk, no one had welcomed the idea more heartily than I. In spite of intense activity on the part of Inspector Yale and his associates, all trace of Madame Ingomar—and of her yet more formidable father—had vanished.

But Nayland Smith considered that Sir Lionel, having served Fah Lo Suee’s purpose—might now be considered safe from molestation and we had settled down in Abbots Hold for a spell of rest.

“The queer thing is,” Rima went on, a deep earnest note coming into her voice, “that since Sir Denis joined us I have felt not more but
less
secure!”

“That’s very curious,” I murmured, “because I’ve had an extraordinary feeling of the sort, myself.”

“I suppose I’m very jumpy,” Rima confessed, “But did you notice that family of gypsies who’ve camped beyond the plantation?”

“Yes, dear. I passed them today. I saw a boy—rather a good-looking boy he seemed to be, but I was some distance off—and an awful old hag of a woman. Do they worry you?”

Rima laughed, unnaturally.

“Not really. I haven’t seen the boy. But the woman and man I met in the lane simply gave me the creeps—”

She broke off; then:

“Oh, Shan! What’s that!” she whispered.

A deep purring sound came to my ears—continuous and strange. For a moment I stood still, whilst Rima’s fingers clung close to mine. Then an explanation occurred to me.

Not noticing our direction, we had reached the corner of a sort of out-house connected by a covered passage with part of the servants’ quarters.

“You understand now, darling,” I said, and drew Rima forward to an iron-barred window.

Bright moonlight made the interior visible; and coiled on the floor, his wicked little head raised to watch us, lay a graceful catlike creature whose black-spotted coat of gold gleamed through the dusk.

It was Sir Lionel’s Indian cheetah—although fairly tame, at times a dangerous pet. Practical zoology had always been one of the chief’s hobbies.

“Oh, thank heaven!” Rima exclaimed, looking down into the beautiful savage eyes which were raised to hers—“I might have guessed! But I never heard him purring before.”

“He is evidently in a good humor,” I said, as the great cat, with what I suppose was a friendly snarl, stood up with slow, feline grace, yawned, snarled again, and seemed to collapse wearily on the floor. The idea flashed through my mind that it was not a bad imitation of a drunken man!

This idea was even better than I realized at the time.

We walked on, round the west wing of the rambling old building, and finally entered the library by way of the French windows. Sir Lionel had certainly changed the atmosphere of this room. The spacious apartment with its oak-paneled walls and the great ceiling beams displayed the influence of the Orientalist in the form of numberless Eastern relics and curiosities, which seemed strangely out of place. Memories of the cloister clung more tenaciously here— the old refectory—than to any other room in Abbots Hold.

A magnificent Chinese lacquer cabinet, fully six feet high, which stood like a grotesque sentry box just below the newel post of the staircase struck perhaps the most blatant discord of all.

The library was empty, but I could hear the chiefs loud voice in the study upstairs, and I knew that Nayland Smith was there with him. Petrie and his wife had been expected to dinner, but they had telephoned from Norwich to notify us that they would be detained overnight, owing to engine trouble.

Mrs. Oram, Sir Lionel’s white-haired old housekeeper, presently came in; and leaving her chatting with Rima, I went up the open oak staircase and joined the chief in his study.

“Hullo, old scout!” he greeted me as I entered. “If you’re going to work with
me
in future, you’ll either have to chuck Rima or marry her!”

He was standing on the hearth rug, dominating that small room which was so laden with relics of his extensive and unusual travels that it resembled the shop of a very untidy antique dealer.

Nayland Smith, seated on a corner of the littered writing table, was tugging at the lobe of his left ear and staring critically at the big brown-skinned man with his untidy, gray-white hair and keen blue eyes who was England’s most intrepid explored and foremost Orientalist. It was a toss-up which of these two contained the more volcanic energy.

“Smith’s worried,” Sir Lionel went on in his loud, rapid manner. “He thinks our Chinese friends are up to their monkey tricks again and he doesn’t like Petrie’s delay.”

“I don’t,” snapped Nayland Smith. “It may be an accident. But, coming tonight, I wonder—”

“Why
tonight?”
I asked.

Nayland Smith stared at me intently; then:

“Because tonight I caught a glimpse of the Abbots Hold ghost.”

“Rot!” shouted Sir Lionel.

“The monk?” I asked excitedly.

Nayland Smith shook his head.

“No! Didn’t look like a monk to me,” he said.

“And I don’t believe in ghosts!” he added.

When I rejoined Rima, her restless mood had grown more marked.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Shan,” she said. “Dear old Mrs. Oram has gone to bed; and although I could hear your voices in the study I felt quite ridiculously nervous. I’m terribly disappointed about the Petries.”

During their short acquaintance Rima and Mrs. Petrie had established one of those rare feminine friendships which a man can welcome. In Mrs. Petrie’s complex character there was a marked streak of Oriental mysticism—although from her appearance I should never have suspected Eastern blood; and Rima had that Celtic leaning towards a fairyland beyond the common ken which was part and parcel of her birthright.

“So am I, darling,” I said. “But they’ll be here in the morning. Have you been imagining things again?” I glanced at the French windows. “Peters has locked up, I see. So you can’t have been nervous about gypsies!”

It was strange that Rima, who had shared our queer life out in the Valley of the Kings, should be so timorous in a Norfolk country house; should fear wandering gypsies who had never feared Bedouins!

“No.” She looked at me in her serious way, apparently reading my thoughts. “I’m
not
afraid of gypsies—really. I have spent too many nights out there in the wâdi in Egypt to be afraid of anything like that. It is a sort of silly,
unreal
fear, Shan! Will you please do something?”

“Anything! What?”

Rima pointed to the Chinese cabinet at the foot of the stairs.

“Please open it!”

I crossed to the ornate piece of furniture and flung its gold-lined doors open. The cabinet was empty—as I had expected.

Rima thanked me with a smile, and:

“I’ve been fighting a horrible temptation to do just that,” she confessed, “for a long time! Thank you, Shan dear. Don’t think I’m mad but, truly,”—she held out the book she had had on her knees— “for ever so long past I have been sitting here reading and rereading this one line—and glancing sideways at the cabinet. You seemed to wake me out of a trance!”

I took the book—a modern novel—and glanced at the line upon which Rima’s finger rested. It was:

“I am near you…”

“Could anything be more absurd?” she asked, pathetically. “What’s wrong with me?”

I could find no answer, then—except a lover’s answer. But I was to learn later.

When at last we said goodnight, I noticed as Rima stood up that she had a scent spray on the cushions beside her, and laughingly:

“What’s the idea?” I asked.

She considered my question in an oddly serious way. In fact, her mood was distrait in an unusual degree; but finally:

“I had almost forgotten,” she replied, with a faraway look; “but I remember, now, that there was a fusty smell, like decaying leaves. I thought a whiff of eau-de-Cologne would freshen the air.”