Daughter of Fu-Manchu (5 page)

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” I replied. “She wasn’t staying at the Winter Palace.”

“You mean neither of you know. Does Miss Barton know?”

“I have never asked her.”

“When was she last here?”

“On Monday,” Forester answered promptly—“the day the chief switched the quarters around and put up barricades.”

“But did Sir Lionel never speak of her?” asked Dr. Petrie.

“No,” I said. “He was a man who gave few confidences, as you are aware.”

“Was there any suggestion of intimacy between them?” Weymouth was the speaker. “Did Sir Lionel show any jealousy, for instance?”

“Not that I ever noticed,” Forester replied. “He treated her as he treated everybody—with good-humoured tolerance! After all, the chief must have said good-bye to sixty, Weymouth!”

“Stranger things have happened,” Petrie commented dryly. “I think, Weymouth, our next step is to establish the identity of this Madame Ingomar. Do you agree with me?”

“I do,” said Weymouth, “absolutely”—and his expression had grown very grim.

He stared from me to Forester, and:

“You’re both getting annoyed,” he said. ‘I can see it. You know that the doctor here and I have a theory which we haven’t shared with you. Very well, you shall know the facts. Ask Rima Barton to join us, and arm Ali Mahmoud. Tell him to mount guard and shoot anything he sees moving!”

“What on earth does this mean?” Forester demanded.

“It means,” said Petrie, “that we are dealing with agents of Dr. Fu-Manchu…”

Dr. Fu-Manchu! When that story was told, the story which Weymouth unfolded in the hut in the wâdi, whilst I can’t answer for Forester, personally I was amazed beyond belief.

Rima’s sweet face, where she sat half in shadow, was a fascinating study. She had ridden up from Kûrna with Ali Mahmoud. In the tent, when I had found her in my arms, she had worn riding kit; but now she had changed into a simple frock and had even made some attempt to straighten the tangle of her windblown hair. The night ride had whipped a wild colour into her tanned cheeks; her grave Irish eyes seemed even brighter than usual as she listened spellbound.

Some of the things Weymouth spoke of aroused echoes in my memory. I had been too young at the time to associate these events one with another. But I remembered having heard of them. I was considering the advantages of a legal calling when the war disturbed my promising career. The doings of this great and evil man, some of whose history I learned that morning, had reached me merely as rumours in the midst of altogether more personal business.

But now I grasped the fact that if these two clever and experienced men were correct in their theories, a veritable plague was about to be loosed upon the world.

Dr. Fu-Manchu!

“Sir Lionel and I,” said Dr. Petrie, “and Nayland Smith were last of those on the side of the angels to see him alive. It’s possible he survived, but I am not prepared to believe it. What I am prepared to believe is that
someone else
may be carrying on his work. What was a Dacoit—probably a Burman—a professional robber and murderer, doing in the courtyard of my house in Cairo last night? We know now, Greville, he was following
you.
But the cry points to an accomplice. He was not alone! The old net, Weymouth”—he turned to the latter— “closing round us again! Then—this camp is watched.”

“I have said it before,” Weymouth declared, “but I’ll say it again; if only Nayland Smith could join us!”

“You refer of course, to Sir Denis Nayland Smith,” said Forester, “one of the assistant commissioners at Scotland Yard? I know people who know him. Used to be a police official in Burma?”

“He did,” Petrie replied. “He also saved the British Empire, by the way. But if we have many unknown enemies, we have at least one unknown friend.”

“Who is that?” I asked.

“The well-informed stranger,” Petrie replied, “who wired me in Cairo—and who wired Weymouth. Whoever he may be, he takes no chances. Dr. Fu-Manchu was master of a method for inducing
artificial catalepsy.
It was one of the most dangerous weapons in his armory. I alone, as I believe, possess a drop of the antidote. The man who sent that telegram knew this!”

“So much for unknown friends,” said Weymouth. “As to unknown enemies, either you have a Dacoit amongst your workmen or there was a stranger in camp last night.”

“You’ve found a clue!” Rima cried.

“I have, Miss Barton. There’s only one fact of which I have to make sure. If I am wrong in that, maybe all my theory falls down.”

“What’s the fact?” Forester asked, with an eagerness which told how deeply he was impressed.

“It’s this,” said Weymouth. He fixed a penetrating gaze upon me. “Was Sir Lionel completely undressed when you found him?”

“No,” I replied promptly. “It was arranged that we all turned out at four to work on the job.”

“Then he was fully dressed?”

“Not fully.”

“Did he carry the key of this hut?”

“He carried all the keys on a chain.”

“Was this chain on him when you found him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you detach it?”

“No. We laid him here as we found him.”

“Partially dressed?”

“Yes.”

Weymouth slowly crossed to the mummy case at one end of the hut. The lid was detached and leaned against the wall beside the case.

“Both you, Greville,” he went on, turning, “and Forester were present when Sir Lionel’s body was brought in here?”

“Ali and I carried him,” Forester returned shortly. “Greville supervised.”

“Did Ali leave when
you
left?”

“He did.”

“Good,” Weymouth went on quietly. “But I am prepared to swear that not one of you looked into the recess behind this sarcophagus lid.”

I stared blankly at Forester. He shook his head.

“We never even thought of it,” he confessed.

“Naturally enough,” said Weymouth. “Look what I found there.”

A lamp stood on the long table; and now, taking a piece of paper from his pocket, and opening the paper under the lamp, the superintendent exposed a reddish, fibrous mass. Rima sprang forward and with Forester and myself bent eagerly over it. Petrie watched.

“It looks to me like a wad of tobacco, said Forester, “chewed by someone whose gums were bleeding!”

Petrie bent between us and placed a lens upon the table.

“I have examined it,” he said. “Give me your opinion, Mr. Forester. As a physician you may recognize it.”

Forester looked, and we all watched him in silence. I remember that I heard Ali Mahmoud coughing out in the wâdi and realized that he was keeping as close to human companionship that night as his sentry duties permitted.

Shrugging, Forester passed the glass to me. I peered in turn, but almost immediately laid the glass down.

Petrie looked at Forester; but:

“Out of my depth!” the latter declared. “It’s vegetable; but if it’s something tropical I plead ignorance.”

“It
is
something tropical,” said Petrie. “It’s
betel nut
.”

Weymouth intruded quietly, and:

“Someone who chewed betel nut,” he explained, “was hiding behind that sarcophagus lid when you brought Sir Lionel’s body into this hut. Now, I’m prepared to hear that before that the door was unlocked?”

“You’re right,” I admitted; “it was. We locked it after his body had been placed here.”

“As I thought.”

Weymouth paused; then:

“Someone who chewed betel nut,” he went on, “must have been listening outside Sir Lionel’s tent when you decided to move his body to this hut. He anticipated you, concealed himself, and, at some suitable time later, with the key which Sir Lionel carried on his chain, he unlocked the door and removed the body!”

“I entirely agree,” said Forester, staring very hard. “And I compliment you heartily. But—betel nut?”

“Perfectly simple,” Petrie replied. “Many Dacoits chew betel nut.”

At which moment, unexpectedly:

“Perhaps,” came Rima’s quiet voice, “I can show
you
the man!”

“What!” I exclaimed.

“I think I may have his photograph… and the photograph of
someone else!”

CHAPTER THREE

I
might have thought, during that strange conference in the hut, that life had nothing more unexpected to offer me. Little I knew what Fate held in store. This was only the beginning. Dawn was close upon us. Yet before the sun came blushing over the Nile Valley I was destined to face stranger experiences.

I went with Rima from the hut to the tent. All our old sense of security was gone. No one knew what to expect now that the shadow of Fu-Manchu had fallen upon us.

“Imagine a person tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan… long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green…”

Petrie’s description stuck in my memory; especially “tall, lean, and feline… eyes of the true cat-green…”

A lamp was lighted in Rima’s tent, and she hastily collected some of her photographic gear and rejoined me as Ali came up shouldering his rifle.

“Anything to report, Ali Mahmoud?”

“Nothing, Effendim.”

When we got back to the hut I could see how eagerly we were awaited. A delicious shyness which I loved—for few girls are shy— descended upon Rima when she realized how we were all awaiting what she had to say. She was so charmingly petite, so vividly alive, that the deep note which came into her voice in moments of earnestness had seemed, when I heard it first, alien to her real personality. Her steady gray eyes, though, belonged to the real Rima—the shy Rima.

“Please don’t expect too much of me,” she said, glancing round quickly. “But I think perhaps I may be able to help. I wasn’t really qualified for my job here, but… Uncle Lionel was awfully kind; and I wanted to come. Really all I’ve done is wild-life photography— before, I mean.”

She bent and opened a paper folder which she had put on the table; then:

“I used to lay traps,” she went on, “for all sorts of birds and animals.”

“What do you mean by ‘traps,’ Miss Barton?” Weymouth asked.

“Oh, perhaps you don’t know. Well, there’s a bait—and the bait is attached to the trigger of the camera.”

“Perfectly clear. You need not explain further.”

“For night things, it’s more complicated; because the act of taking the bait has to touch off a charge of flash powder as well as expose the film. It doesn’t work very often. But I had set a trap—with the camera most cunningly concealed—on the plateau just by the entrance to the old shaft.”

“Lafleur’s Shaft!” I exclaimed.

“Yes. There was a track there which I thought might mean jackal— and I have never got a close-up of a jackal. The night before I went to Luxor something fell into my trap! I was rather puzzled, because the bait didn’t seem to have been touched. It looked as though someone might have stumbled over it. But I never imagined that anyone would pass that way at night—or at any other time, really.”

She stopped, looking at Weymouth. Then:

“I took the film to Luxor,” she said. “But I didn’t develop it until today. When I saw what it was, I couldn’t believe my eyes! I have made a print of it. Look!”

Rima laid a photographic print on the table and we all bent over it.

“To have touched off the trigger and yet got in focus,” she said, “they must have been actually coming out of the shaft. I simply can’t imagine why they left the camera undisturbed. Unless they failed to find it or the flash scared them!”

I stared dazedly at the print.

It represented three faces—one indistinguishably foggy, in semiprofile. That nearest to the camera was quite unmistakable. It was a photograph of the cross-eyed man who had followed me to Cairo!

This was startling enough. But the second face—that of someone directly behind him—literally defeated me. It was the face of a woman—wearing a black native veil but held aside so that her clear-cut features were reproduced sharply…

Brilliant, indeterminably oblique eyes… a strictly chiselled nose, somewhat too large for classic beauty… full lips, slightly parted… a long oval contour…

“That’s a Dacoit!” came Petrie’s voice. “Miss Barton, this is amazing! See the mark on his forehead!”

“I have seen it,” Rima replied, “although I didn’t know what it meant.”

“But,” I interrupted excitedly, as:

“Greville,” Forester cried, “do you see!”

“I see very plainly,” said I. “Weymouth—the woman in this photograph is
Madame Ingomar!”

“What is Lafleur’s Shaft?” Weymouth asked. “And in what way is it connected with Lafleur’s Tomb?”

“It isn’t connected with it,” I replied. “Lafleur’s Tomb—also known as the Tomb of the Black Ape—was discovered, or rather suspected to exist, by the French Egyptologist Lafleur, about 1908. He accidentally unearthed a little votive chapel. All the fragments of offerings found were inscribed with the figure of what appeared to be a huge black ape—or perhaps an ape-man. There’s been a lot of speculation about it. Certain authorities, notably Maspero, held the theory that some queer pet of an unknown Pharaoh had been given a freak burial.