The Drums of Fu-Manchu (2 page)

“Yes.”

“I thought so. Don’t turn the light up.”

“I can’t; the fuse is blown.”

“Good. I gather that I interrupted you, but I had an excellent reason. Come on.”

As we hurried up the semi-dark staircase, I found my brain in some confusion. And when we entered my flat:

“Leave your dining room in darkness,” snapped Nayland Smith. “I want to look out of the window.”

Breathless, between astonishment and the race up the stairs, I stood behind him as he stared out of the dining-room window. Two men were loitering near the front door—and glancing up toward my lighted study.

“Only just in time!” said Nayland Smith. “I tricked them—but you see how wonderfully they are informed. Evidently they know every possible spot in which I might take cover. Unpleasantly near thing, Kerrigan.”

In the lighted study I gazed at my visitor. Hat removed, Nayland Smith revealed a head of virile curling hair, more grey than black. Stripping off his Burberry, he faced me. His clean-cut features, burned by a recent visit to the tropics, looked almost haggardly thin, but the fire in his eyes, the tense nervous vitality of the man must have struck a spark of animosity or of friendship in any but a soul dead.

He stared at me analytically.

“You look well, Kerrigan. You have passed twenty-seven, but you are lean as a hare, clean-cut and obviously fit as a flea. The last
time I saw you was in Addis-Ababa. You were sending articles to the
Orbit
and I was sending reports to the Foreign Office. Well, what is it now?”

He stared down at the littered writing desk. I moved towards the dining room.

“Drinks? Good!” he snapped. “But you must find them in the dark.”

“I understand.”

When presently I returned with a decanter and syphon:

“Look here,” I said, “I was never happier to see a man in my life. But bring me up to date: what’s the meaning of all this?”

Nayland Smith dropped a page which he had been reading and began reflectively to stuff coarse-cut mixture into his briar.

“You are writing a book about Abyssinia, I see.”

“Yes.”

“You are not on the staff of the
Orbit
, are you?”

“No. I am in the fortunate position of picking and choosing my jobs. I did the series on Abyssinia for them because I know that part of Africa pretty well. Now, I am doing a book on present conditions.”

As I poured out drinks:

“Excuse me,” said Nayland Smith, “I just want to make sure.”

He walked into the darkened dining room, carefully closing the door behind him. When he returned:

“May I use your phone?”

“Certainly.”

I handed him a drink of which he took a sip, then, raising the telephone receiver, he dialled a number rapidly, and:

“Yes!” His speech was curiously staccato. “Put me through to Chief Inspector Wessex’ office. Sir Denis Nayland Smith speaking. Hurry!”

There was an interval. I watched my visitor fascinatedly. In my
considerable experience of men, I had never known one who lived at such high pressure.

“Is that Inspector Wessex?… Good. I have a job for you, Inspector. Instruct Paddington Police Station to send a party in a fast car. They will find two men—dark-skinned foreigners—hanging about near the corner of Porchester Terrace. They are to arrest them—never mind the charge—and lock them up. I will deal with them later. Can I leave this to you?”

Presumably the invisible chief inspector agreed to take charge of the matter, for Nayland Smith hung up the receiver.

“I have brought you your biggest story, Kerrigan. I know you can afford to await my word before publishing. I may add”—tapping the loose manuscript on the desk—“that you have missed the real truth about Abyssinia, but I can rectify that.” He began in his restless way to pace up and down the carpet. “Without mentioning any names, a prominent cabinet minister resigned quite recently. Do you recall it?”

“Certainly.”

“He was a wise man. Do you know why he retired?”

“There are several versions of the story.”

“He has a fine brain—and he retired because he recognised that there was in the world one
first-class
brain. He retired to review his ideas on the immediate destiny of civilisation.”

“What do you mean?”

“The thing most desired, Kerrigan, by all women, by all sensible men, in this life, is
peace. Wars
are made by few but fought by many. The greatest intellect in the world today has decided that there must be
peace
! It has become my business to try to save the lives of certain prominent persons who are blind enough to believe that they can make war. I was en route for Sir Malcolm Locke’s house, which is not
five minutes’ drive away, when I realised that a small Daimler was following me. I remembered, fortunately, that your flat was here, and trusted to luck that you would be at home. I worked an old trick. Fey, my man, slowed up around a corner just before the following car had turned it. I stepped out and cut through a mews. Fey drove on. But my two followers evidently detected the trick. I saw them coming back just before you opened the door! They know I am in one of two buildings. What I don’t want them to know is where I am going. Hello—!”

The sound of a speeding automobile suddenly braked came up from Bayswater Road.

“Into the dining room!”

I dashed in behind Nayland Smith. We stared down. A police car stood outside. There were few pedestrians and there was comparatively little traffic. It was the lull before eleven o’clock, the lull which precedes the storm of returning theatre and picture goers. A queer scene was being enacted on the pavement almost directly below my windows.

Two men (except that they were dark fellows I could discern no more from my viewpoint) were struggling and protesting volubly amid a group of uniformed constables. Beyond, on the park side, I saw now a small car standing—it looked like a Daimler. A constable on patrol joined the party, and the police driver pointed in the direction of the Daimler. The expostulating prisoners were hustled in, the police car was driven off and the constable in the determined but leisurely way of his kind paced stolidly across the road.

“All clear!” said Nayland Smith. “Come along! I want you with me!”

“But, Sir Malcolm Locke? In what way can he be?”

“He’s the cousin of the home secretary. As a matter of fact, he’s abroad. It isn’t Locke I want to see, but a guest who is staying at his
house. I must get to him, Kerrigan, without a moment’s delay!”

“A guest?”

“Say, rather, someone who is hiding there.”

“Hiding?”

“I can’t mention his name—yet. But he returned secretly from Africa. He is the driving power behind one of Europe’s dictators. By consent of the British Foreign Office, he came, also secretly, to London. Can you imagine why?”

“No.”

“To see
me
!”

F
ey, that expressionless, leather-faced valet-chauffeur of Nayland Smith’s, was standing at the door beside the Rolls, rug over arm, as though nothing unusual had occurred; and as we proceeded towards Sir Malcolm’s house, Smith, smoking furiously, fell into a silence which I did not care to interrupt.

I count myself psychic, for this is a Celtic heritage, yet on this short journey nothing told me that, although as correspondent for the
Orbit
I had had a not uneventful life, I was about to become mixed up in a drama the outcome of which meant nothing less than the destruction of what we are pleased to call Civilisation. And in averting Armageddon, by the oddest paradox I was to find myself opposed to the one man who, alone, could save Europe from destruction.

Sir Malcolm Locke’s house presented an unexpectedly festive appearance as we approached. Nearly every window in the large building was illuminated; a number of cars were drawn up and a considerable group of people had congregated outside the front door.

“Hello!” muttered Nayland Smith. He knocked out his pipe in the
ash tray and dropped the briar into a pocket of his Burberry. “This is very odd.”

Before Fey had pulled in Smith was out and dashing up the steps. I followed and reached him just as the door was opened by a butler. The man’s face wore a horrified expression: a constable was hurrying up behind us.

“Sir Malcolm is not at home, sir.”

“I am not here to see Sir Malcolm, but his guest. My name is Nayland Smith. My business is official.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the butler, with a swift change, of manner. “I didn’t recognise you.”

The door opened straight into a lofty hallway, from the further end of which a crescent staircase led to upper floors. As the butler closed the door I immediately became conscious of a curiously vibrant atmosphere. I had experienced it before, in places taken by assault or bombed. It is caused, I think, by the vibrations of frightened minds. Several servants were peering down from a dark landing above but the hallway itself was brightly lighted. At this moment, a door on the right opened and a clean-shaven, heavily built man with jet-black, close-cropped hair came out. He glanced in our direction.

“Good evening, Inspector,” said Nayland Smith. “What’s this? What are
you
doing here?”

“Thank God you’ve arrived, sir!” The inspector stopped dead in his stride. “I was beginning to fear something was wrong.”

“This is Mr Bart Kerrigan—Chief Inspector Leighton of the Special Branch.”

Nayland Smith’s loud, rather harsh tones evidently having penetrated to the room beyond, again the door opened, and I saw with astonishment Sir James Clare, the home secretary, come out.

“Here at last, Smith,” was his greeting. “I heard your voice.” Sir James spoke in a clear but nearly toneless manner which betrayed his legal training. “I don’t know your friend”—staring at me through the thick pebbles of his spectacles. “This unhappy business, of course, is tremendously confidential.”

Nayland Smith made a rapid introduction.

“Mr Kerrigan is acting for no newspaper or agency. You may take his discretion for granted. You say this unhappy business, Sir James? May I ask—”

Sir James Clare raised his hand to check the speaker. He turned to Inspector Leighton.

“See if there is any news about the telephone call, Inspector,” he directed, and as the inspector hurried away: “Suppose, gentlemen, you come in here for a moment.”

We followed him back into the apartment from which he had come. It was a large library, a lofty room, every available foot of the wall occupied by bookcases. Beside a mahogany table upon which, also, were many books and a number of documents, he sat down in an armchair, indicating that we should sit in two others. Smith was far too restless for inaction, but grunting irritably he threw himself down into one of the padded chairs.

“Chief Inspector Leighton of the Special Branch,” said Sir James, “is naturally acquainted with the identity of Sir Malcolm’s guest. But no one else in the house has been informed, with the exception of Mr Bascombe, Sir Malcolm’s private secretary. In the circumstances I think perhaps we had better talk in here. Am I to take it that you are unaware of what occurred tonight?”

“On your instructions,” said Smith, speaking with a sort of smothered irritability, “I flew from Berlin this evening. I was on my way here, and I can only suppose that the purpose of my return was
known. A deliberate attempt was made tonight to wreck my car as I crossed Bond Street, by the driver of a lorry. Only Fey’s skill and the fact that at so late an hour there were no pedestrians averted disaster. He drove right on to the pavement and along it for some little distance.”

“Did you apprehend the driver of this lorry?”

“I did not stop to do so, although I recognised the fact that it was a planned attack. Then, when we reached Marble Arch, I realised that two men were following in a Daimler. I managed to throw them off the track, with Mr Kerrigan’s assistance—and here I am. What has happened?”

“General Quinto is dead!”

T
his news, coupled with the identity of the hidden guest, shocked me inexpressibly. General Quinto! Chief of Staff to Signor Monaghani; one of the most formidable figures in political Europe! The man who would command Monaghani’s forces in the event of war; the first soldier in his country, almost certain successor to the dictator! But if I was shocked, the effect upon Nayland Smith was electrical.