The Bride of Fu-Manchu (29 page)

When presently he replaced the receiver and sprang to his feet, the effect upon M. Chamrousse was notable.

“Sir Denis Nayland Smith,” he said, “I congratulate you—but you fully realize that in this matter I was indeed helpless!”

Sir Denis shook his hand.

“Please say no more! Of course I understand. But if you would accept my advice, it would be this: proceed personally to Ste Claire, and when you have realized the difficulties of the situation there, you will be in a position to deal with it.”

Some more conversation there was, the gist of which I have forgotten, and then we were out in the car again and speeding along those tortuous roads headed for Monaco.

“Much time has been wasted,” rapped Nayland Smith; “only luck can help us now. Failing a message from some ship which has sighted the yacht
Lola
, it’s impossible to lay a course. Probably the
Lola
has a turn of speed which will tax the warship in any event. But lacking knowledge of her position, we can’t even start.”

“I don’t doubt she will have been sighted. There’s a lot of shipping in those waters.”

“Yes, but the bulk of it is small craft, and many of them carry no radio. However, we are doing all that lies in our power to do.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

F
rom the bridge of the destroyer I looked over a blue and sail-less sea. The speed of the little warship was exhilarating, and I could see from the attitude of her commander beside me that this break in peacetime routine was welcome rather than irksome.

I glanced towards the port wing of the bridge where Nayland Smith was staring ahead through raised glasses.

Somewhere astern of where I stood, somewhere in the slender hull, full out and quivering on this unexpected mission, I knew there were police officers armed with a warrant issued by the Boulevard du Palais for the arrest of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

And as the wine of the morning began to stir my blood, hope awakened. The history of Fleurette lay open before me like a book. And all that had seemed incomprehensible in her character and her behaviour, lover-like, now I translated and understood. She had been cultivated as those plants in the forcing houses had been cultivated.

The imprint of Dr. Fu-Manchu was upon her.

Yet through it all the real Fleurette had survived, defying the alchemy of the super-scientist: she was still Petrie’s daughter, beautiful, lovable, and mine, if I could find her.

I set doubt aside. Definitely, we should overtake the South American yacht. News had come from a cruising liner ten minutes before we had reached Monaco Harbour: the
Lola,
laid on a southerly course, was less than twenty miles ahead.

But, since the
Lola
also must have picked up the message, we realized that the course of the motor yacht would in all probability have been changed. Nevertheless, ultimate escape was next to impossible.

Yet again, that damnable thought intruded: the
Lola
might prove to be a will o’ the wisp; Fu-Manchu, Fleurette, and Petrie not on board!

It appeared to me that the only thing supporting Nayland Smith’s theory and his amazing reaction to it was the fact that the
Lola
had not answered those messages sent out by the French authority.

At which moment, Sir Denis dropped the glasses into their case and turned.

“Nothing!” he said grimly.

“It is true,” the commander replied; “but they have a good start.”

A man ran up to the bridge with a radio message. The commander scanned it.

“They are clever,” he reported. “But all the same they have been sighted again! They are still on their original course.”

“Who sends the report?” asked Nayland Smith.

“An American freighter.”

“The Air Arm is strangely silent.”

“We must be patient. Only two planes have been despatched; they are looking also for a submarine—and there are many miles of sea to search.”

He took up the glasses. Nayland Smith, hands thrust in his pockets, stared straight ahead.

The destroyer leaped and quivered under the lash of her merciless engines, a living, feverish thing. And this reflection crossed my mind: that the Chinese doctor, wherever he might be at that moment, was indeed a superman; for he is no ordinary criminal against whom warships are sent out...

Another message was brought to the bridge; this one from a flying officer. The
Lola
was laid to, less than five miles off and nearly dead on our course!

“What does this mean?” rapped Nayland Smith. “I don’t like it a bit.”

I was staring ahead, straining my eyes to pierce the distance... And now, a speck on the skyline, I saw an airplane flying towards me.

“Coming back to pilot us,” said the commander; “they know the game is up!”

A further message arrived. The
Lola
was putting a launch off at the time that the airman had headed back to find us. No submarine had been sighted.

“By heavens!” cried Nayland Smith, “I was right. His underwater craft
is
waiting for him in the event of just such an emergency as this! Instruct the plane to hurry back!”

The order was despatched.

I saw the pilot bank, go about, and set off again on a course slightly westward of our own.

The commander spoke a few more orders rapidly, and we crept into line behind the swiftly disappearing airman. We must have been making thirty-five knots or more, for it was only a matter of minutes before I saw the yacht—dead ahead.

“The launch is putting back!” said Nayland Smith. “Look!”

The little craft was just swinging around the stern of the yacht! And now we were so near that I could see the lines of the
Lola
, a beautiful white-and-silver ship, with a low, graceful hull and one squat, yellow funnel with a silver band.

“By heavens!” I shouted, “we’re in time!”

The naval air pilot was circling now above the yacht. That submarine was somewhere in the neighbourhood it seemed reasonable to suppose, unless it had been the purpose of the launch’s crew to head back for shore: a possibility. But no indication of an underwater craft disturbed the blue mirror of the Mediterranean.

The commander of the destroyer rang off his engines.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

W
e watched the launch return to the ladder of the yacht and saw her crew mount. The launch was already creeping up to her davits when the boat from the destroyer reached the ladder.

A lieutenant led with an armed party, Nayland Smith followed, then came the French police, and I brought up the rear.

A smart-looking officer—Portuguese, I thought—took the lieutenant’s salute as he stepped on deck. Never, I think, in the experiences which had come to me since I had found myself within the zone of the Chinese doctor, had I been conscious of quite that sense of pent-up, overpowering emotion which claimed me at this moment.

Fleurette! Petrie! Were they here?

The sea looked like a vast panel which some Titan craftsman had covered with blue enamel, and the French warship might have been a gaunt grey insect trapped inside the pigment.

“Sir Denis,” I said suddenly, in a low voice, “if the submarine is really in our neighbourhood—”

“I had thought of it,” he rapped. “It was impossible to identify the man in the stern of the launch. But unless it was Dr. Fu-Manchu, in which event he’s on board here, our safety is questionable!”

“Take us to the captain,” said the lieutenant sharply.

The yacht’s officer saluted and led the way.

Armed men were left on duty at the ladder-head and at the foot of the stair leading up to the bridge. The bridge proved to be deserted. Two men were posted there, and we followed on into the chart house.

This was small but perfectly equipped, and it had only one occupant: a tall man wearing an astrakhan cap and a fur-trimmed overcoat. His arms folded, he stood there facing us as we entered.

Emotion almost choked me; triumph, with which even yet a dreadful doubt mingled. Nayland Smith’s jaw squared as he stood beside me staring across the room.

No greetings were exchanged.

“Who commands this yacht?” the lieutenant demanded.

And in that cold guttural voice, so rarely touched by any trace of human feeling:

“I do,” Dr. Fu-Manchu replied.

“You failed to answer an official call sent out to all shipping in these waters.”

“I did.”

“You are accused of harbouring persons wanted by the police, and I have the authority to search this vessel.”

Dr. Fu-Manchu stood quite still; his immobility was mummy-like.

Nayland Smith stepped aside to make way for the senior police officer from Nice. As the man entered, Sir Denis merely pointed to that tall, dignified figure. The detective stepped forward.

“Is your name Dr. Fu-Manchu?”

“It is.”

“I hold a warrant for your arrest. You must consider yourself my prisoner.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

“C
ome in,” said a low voice.

Sir Denis stood stock still for one age-long moment, his hand resting on the door knob. Then he pulled open the white cabin door.

In a bed under an open porthole, Petrie lay! His eyes, darkly shadowed, were fixed upon us. But his expression as Nayland Smith sprang forward was one I shall never forget.

“Petrie! Petrie, old man!... Thank God for this!”

Sir Denis’s face I could not see—for he stood with his back to me, grasping Petrie’s upstretched hand. But I could see Petrie; and I knew that he was so overwhelmed by emotion as to be incapable of words. Sir Denis’s silence told the same story.

But when at last that long, silent hand-grasp was relaxed:

“Sterling!” said the invalid, smiling. “You have done more than merely to save my life. You have brought back a happiness I thought I had lost forever. Smith, old man”—he looked up at Sir Denis—“get a radio off to Kara in Cairo at the earliest possible moment! But break the news gently. She will be mad with joy!”

He looked at me again.

“I understand, Sterling, that what you have found you want to keep?”

At that Nayland Smith turned.

“I trust your financial resources are adequate to the task, Sterling?” he rapped, but with a smile on his tired face—and it was a smile of happiness.

“Does she know?” I asked, and my voice was far from steady. Petrie nodded.

“Go and find her,” he said. “She will be glad to see you.”

I went out, leaving those life-long friends together. I returned to the deck.

What must there not be that Petrie had to tell Sir Denis and he to tell Petrie? It was, I suppose, one of the most remarkable reunions in history. For Petrie had died and had been buried, and was restored again to life. And Sir Denis had crowned his remarkable career with the greatest accomplishment in criminal records—the arrest of Dr. Fu-Manchu...

The attitude of the members of the crew of the
Lola
strongly suggested that the vessel was used for none but legitimate purposes. One by one they were being submitted to a close interrogation by the French detective and his assistant in a forward cabin.