The Island of Fu-Manchu (34 page)

* * *

William Patrick Maynard was authorized by Sax Rohmer’s Literary Estate to continue the Fu-Manchu series beginning in 2009 for Black Coat Press. The titles are available online at
http://blackcoatpress.com/

E
choing dully between sordid houses of a narrow waterfront street, it reached my ears unmistakably again—the sound of heavy, stumbling footsteps.

“Still behind us!” I commented, glancing at my companion.

He nodded, but made no reply.

Lured, I suppose, by that sad siren who calls men in afteryears back to the battlefields where they have suffered, I was revisiting London’s Chinatown—a district of unpleasant memories.

“It’s been cleaned up now and made suitable for char-à-banc parties, Greville,” my friend had said. “They run bus tours now on the New York plan, and send shivers up the tourists’ spines with tales of opium and white slavery.”

We were bound for a house of entertainment which formed a rallying point for these tours. It was still called the Blue Lamp, its former title; but whereas the old Blue Lamp had been headquarters of one of the tongs, and meeting place of a dangerous Asiatic group, the modern establishment was a show place, pure and simple.

We turned right, away from the river, and then left into a narrow alleyway. A dim blue lantern beckoned. And as we entered the passage, clearly, behind us, I heard again that
tap
—
tap
—
tap
of dragging footsteps, and then, directly:

“Hi, mate!” came a hoarse voice.

My friend and I stopped, together, and turned. A rough-looking seafarer who walked with a slight limp, which accounted for the dragging sound of his steps, stood before us.

“Well!” my friend rapped sharply. “What is it?”

“Excuse me. Captain,” said the fellow in a bleary voice. “You’re commander of the Rajput, ain’t yer?”

“No, I’m not! What d’you want?”

* * *

The man stared vacantly for a moment; then he directed a drunken, but suddenly calculating, look upon me.

“Well, if you ain’t orf of the Rajput, I don’t know who you are. But I reckon one of yer might like to buy this ‘ere.”

Whereupon he pulled from a pocket of his dilapidated coat a large dagger having a curiously curved blade, the hilt encrusted with what may have been precious stones.

My friend weighed the weapon in his palm, glancing at it reflectively.

“Let’s move along to the lamp, and have a closer inspection.”

“No need for that, gov’nor,” the vender broke in thickly. “It’s a bloody bargain at five quid—an’ five quid’s what I’m askin’.”

“Very likely,” my companion returned dryly, and stepped under the blue lamp. Following a short examination:

“You’re quite right, my man,” he said; “it would be a bargain at a fiver. Have you any money on you, Greville?”

“Certainly,” I answered, surprised, “two pounds or so.”

“Then give our friend ten shillings—that should buy him as much more beer as he can hold; and,” turning to the seaman, “take care of this thing,” handing back the knife, “and come to see me in the morning. Where did you get it, by the way?”

“Ho!” said the man. “I see! You think I pinched it? Well, you’re right—I did! I’m a fireman, see, gov’nor, on the Starry North. Orf of Suez one o’ the crew—a bloody Chink—tries to knife me with this bloody thing—but I laid ‘im out—see?—an’ pinched it. That’s where I got it. Comin’ ashore tonight, I ‘as me pocket picked! An’ if ever I see that bloody Chink—”

“Here you are,” said I, interrupting his rambling narrative and thrusting a ten-shilling note into his hand.

“If you will call at New Scotland Yard in the morning,” added my friend distinctly, “and ask for me—”

“Scotland Yard!” cried the other hoarsely. “Gor’ blimey! Not bloody likely! Thanks for the ten bob, mate, but I steers clear o’ the cops!”

As he turned away:

“Do you think the thing’s genuine?” I asked. “Are the jewels real?”

“Undoubtedly, Greville!—the blade is very good Damascus. Apart from which, there are anything up to a hundred pounds’ worth of gems in the hilt. A Turkish yataghan; and except in the Seraglio Palace at Stamboul, I have never seen one like it.”

“Then why did you let it slip?”

He turned in the very act of pushing open a door which gave access to the Blue Lamp. I detected his smile in the dim light.

“Because it’s contrary to my private principles to deal in stolen property,” he replied; “and officially I’m off duty!”

* * *

The Blue Lamp was not inspiring. It was comparatively empty when we entered. A group of Chinamen played fan-tan at a table in a little recess, but I gathered that these were supers employed by the management to lend local color. There were one or two nondescripts of doubtful nationality; and a half-caste girl with no particular claims to beauty acted as waitress.

“No sign of the proprietor, the famous Jo Chang,” said my companion as we sat down and ordered drinks. “But Mrs. Chang is the star feature. She, also, seems to be absent, however.”

“She acts as hostess, I suppose?”

“Yes. In a full-blown way, she’s a pretty woman. Welsh, I think, from Cardiff, but she affects semi-oriental costumes, being a dark type, and makes a pronounced hit with the char-à-banc parties…”

We lighted our pipes and lingered on, chatting about what had been, until, glancing at my wrist watch:

“We seem to have drawn a blank?” I suggested.

“Yes,” my friend agreed, “but you should really have a glimpse of Madame who, in her way, is unique.”

“In that case, we shall have to order another drink.”

At which moment a stocky, middle-aged Cantonese, with a face wooden as that of a carven joss, appeared mysteriously behind the short counter.

“Hullo!” said my friend—”there’s Jo Chang.”

I snapped my fingers to attract the attention of the Eurasian girl. Coincident with my doing so, a door to the left of the narrow counter opened, and a woman came in. Jo Chang noted my signal, glanced at the woman, and pointed in the direction of our table.

“Mrs. Chang!” my friend whispered. “Take a good look at her.”

I did as he directed, noticing as she approached up her peculiar gait, suggestively oriental, although, despite the fact that she was a brunette, there was palpably no Eastern blood there. She wore a close-fitting black silk frock, rather short, and red, high-heeled shoes. Her legs were bare. Her figure had once been beautiful and now, although somewhat heavy, she remained graceful. She had fine dark eyes, but her complexion, as I noted when she drew near, was coarse. She was smoking a cigarette, which she extinguished in a cheap ash tray on the table.

“What do you boys want?” she asked.

I gave the order and the woman turned away to execute it. I glanced at my companion, and found him staring intently towards the other end of the café.

Looking in the same direction, I noticed a man standing in an open door-way. For a moment I raked in the lumber-room of memory—and then identified him. He was Detective-Inspector Yale, whom I had met in London two years before, and he was returning my friend’s stare with a queer mixture of embarrassment and amazement.

A rapid signal was exchanged and the Scotland Yard man immediately came forward, threading his way among the tables.

“I didn’t know if I ought to recognize you or not, sir!” he declared to my companion.

“Officially—not,” was the reply. “But, unofficially, join us! You remember Mr. Greville?”

The inspector seized my hand in a mighty grip.

“Remember him, Sir Denis!” he said, drawing up a chair. “I’m not likely to forget him! When I saw you here together, I could hardly trust my eyes.”

* * *

It was certainly a curious situation which, had the advertised pretensions of the place been supported by fact, must have been an awkward one for the proprietor. For my friend and guide was no less an official than Sir Denis Nayland Smith, assistant commissioner of police!

“Odd you should be here. Inspector,” Smith said. “Is it the Wapping job?”

“No. Murder!”

“What!”

“Peter Anderman, the Eurasian solicitor. Maybe you haven’t heard of him, sir. But he’s been found murdered in his house.”

“When was he murdered?”

“Sometime tonight. I left there only ten minutes ago.” He glanced at Nayland Smith. “I thought the man I’m after might be in one of the local pubs!” he explained. “I looked in at two, and then I looked in here.”

“But you haven’t found him?”

“No. But I think it’s only a question of time. Would you care to hear the facts, sir?”

“Certainly,” Nayland Smith replied.

The inspector, resting his elbows upon the table, was about to begin when Mrs. Chang approached us with a tray upon which our drinks were set. Her expression was hard; her thoughts, I determined, were remote from the Blue Lamp, from the duties which mechanically she was performing.

She held a freshly lighted cigarette between her full lips which, in contrast to the pallor of her skin, resembled a red scar. Yale glanced at her for a moment as she set the drinks upon the table, but declined my suggestion that he should have one himself; and when the woman had retired:

“It’s this way, gentlemen,” he went on: “Peter Anderman was a half-caste lawyer with a big practice in these parts. His house is a sort of survival. It’s Georgian, I’m told, and even boasts a bit of a garden at the back. I’d never been in before tonight. But I found quite a museum of queer things, which I might have expected, as I knew that Anderman was a collector.”

“What of?” Nayland Smith jerked.

“Eastern curios and so forth. Well, an old man called Michael ran the place. Peter Anderman was a bachelor. Michael is some kind of a Levantine who’s been with Anderman for twenty years. I have Michael’s evidence; and I don’t think he knows any more about the matter.”

“What does he say?” jerked Nayland Smith, beginning to refill his pipe.

“He rang up Limehouse tonight while I was there. He’d seen a man going out of the gate a few minutes before, and I have this man’s description. Michael seems to have been used to people coming and going mysteriously, so this didn’t alarm him at the time.

“It appears he was reading in his own room, when he heard high words in the office below. He came and looked out of a window just in time to spot this man, who was cursing and swearing, go across the grass and out through the gate. Michael returned to his newspaper. At ten o’clock he went down to report that he was turning in and to take final orders. He banged on Anderman’s door but could get no reply. The door was locked. He slipped out, walked around the house and looked in through the French windows. A few minutes afterwards, I went and looked in, too…”

He paused, bending forward across the table. Mrs. Chang had seated herself at a piano and Matâri was about to dance…

“At which point, sir—” the Scotland Yard man laughed uneasily—“I began to find myself stuck—”

“What!” I interrupted. “But I thought you had a description of the wanted man, and had been looking for him in local pubs?”

“I had, Mr. Greville,” said the detective grimly. “Half a dozen K Division fellows are on the job as well. I mean to find that man. Because what I saw wants a lot of explaining.”

“How so?” Nayland Smith queried.

“Well, Peter Anderman was lying on the carpet, stabbed to the heart. And right beside him I found a jeweled dagger.”

“A jeweled dagger!” I echoed.

* * *

“Exactly, sir. A wicked-looking thing, with a wavy blade.”

“Good God!” Nayland Smith exclaimed. “You hear that, Greville?”

“I do!”

“Nothing could be clearer,” Smith continued. “Find the owner of the dagger—whom I rather fancy I know—”

“What’s that, sir! You
know
him?”

“I believe so. But, find this man, and your case is ended. Simple enough?”

“Not so simple at all!” Yale declared. “Because, here’s the puzzling thing… there’s no trace of blood on the blade!”

We arrived at the house ahead of the divisional surgeon, and saw, excepting the presence of a plain-clothes man posted in the room, exactly what Detective-Inspector Yale had seen.

The man on duty sprang forward at the sight of Nayland Smith.

“All right, Hill,” said the inspector. “Stand clear. We want a view of the room.”

Neither Nayland Smith nor I spoke, for we were both staring at something which lay upon the thick carpet, some ten or twelve feet from where we stood.

It was the figure of a man, a heavily built man, wearing a dark lounge suit, prone, his face twisted towards us; one clenched fist shot straightly out before him as though he had died in the act of striking a blow. His left arm was doubled gruesomely under his body, and the carpet, which was amber yellow, was dreadfully stained all about him. Fully six feet to the right of the stained patch a jeweled dagger gleamed in the purple light cast by one of the shaded lanterns hung from the ceiling, the stones in its hilt glittering evilly.

“Nothing has been moved,” said Yale in a low voice. “This is just as I found it. I picked up the dagger by the blade and laid it down again.” Nayland Smith glanced at me in the dim light.

“The Turkish yataghan,” he said, “beyond a doubt.”

* * *

When, following an informal dinner at his flat, he had agreed to act as my guide to Chinatown at my own request, I had counted on an unusual evening, for Sir Denis Nayland Smith was an unusual man. But I had never anticipated that I should see him at work in his own inimitable way—see him as I saw him now, clear-eyed, keen, alert—the man who twice had stood between civilization and destruction—chaos; employing his peculiar genius upon this local tragedy intensively as though vast interests had been at stake. He carried out a detailed examination, watched by the two subordinate officers as a great surgeon in the operating theater is watched by students. Once, looking up:

“You have emptied his pockets,” he said. “What did you find?”