The Mask of Fu-Manchu (9 page)

“But Dr. Van Berg was stabbed, as I remember?” said the Persian official.

“Certainly!” Nayland Smith snapped. “He had a pair of Caspian kittens sleeping at the foot of his bed. The bed used to stand there, just where you are sitting. They awakened immediately and in turn awakened him. He must have realised what was afoot, and he sprang straight for the box. It was his first and only thought—for already he was under the influence of the drug. The Negro knifed him from behind.”

He pointed to a narrow-bladed knife which lay upon a small table.

“He came provided for a similar emergency tonight... That unhappy mystery, I think, is solved.”

“I cannot doubt it,” the Persian admitted. “But the strength of this material,” touching a piece of the slender yellow-gray line, “is amazing. What is it?”

“It’s silkworm gut,” Sir Lionel shouted. “I recognized it at once. It’s the strongest animal substance known. It’s strong enough to land a shark, if he’s played properly.”

“I don’t agree with you, Barton,” Nayland Smith said quietly. “It certainly
resembles
silkworm gut, but it is infinitely stronger.”

Before the chief could reply:

“A very singular business. Sir Lionel,” the suave official murmured. “But I am happy to leam that no Persian subject is concerned in this murderous affair.”

There was a pause, and then:

“A fourth man was concerned,” said Nayland Smith, speaking unusually slowly. “He, as well as the Negro whom I wounded, has managed to get away. Probably there are exits from the mosque with which I am unacquainted?”

“You suggest that the fourth man concerned was one of our subjects?”

“I suggest nothing. I merely state that there
was
a fourth man. He was concealed in a window of the mosque.”

“Probably another of these Negroes—who are of a type quite unfamiliar to me…”

“They are Ogboni!” shouted the chief. “They come from a district of the Slave Coast I know well! They’re members of a secret Voodoo society. You should read my book
The Sorcerers of Dahomey
. I spent a year in their territory. When I saw that bull roarer there—” he pointed to the frontal bone with the twine attached, which also lay upon the small table—“it gave me the clue. I knew that these West African negroes were Ogboni. They’re active as cats and every bit as murderous. But I agree with Smith, that they were working under somebody else’s direction.”

The Persian official, a dignified and handsome man of forty-odd, wearing well tailored European clothes, raised his heavy brows and smiled slightly.

“Are you suggesting. Sir Lionel,” he asked, “that the religious trouble, which I fear
you
have brought about, is at the bottom of this?”

“I am,” the chief replied, glaring at him truculently.

“It’s beyond doubt,” said Nayland Smith. “The aim of the whole conspiracy was to gain possession of the green box.”

The Persian continued to smile.

“And in this aim it would seem that the conspirators have been successful.”

“They certainly managed to smuggle the box out of the mosque,” Nayland Smith admitted grimly, “although one of the pair was wounded, as I know for a fact.”

Our visitor stood up.

“Some sort of rough justice has been done,” he said. “The actual assassin of your poor friend Dr. Van Berg has met his deserts, as has his most active accomplice. The green box, I believe, contained valuable records of your recent inquiries in Khorassan…”

His very intonation told me unmistakably that he believed nothing of the kind…

“I feel, Sir Lionel, that this may represent a serious loss to Oriental students—nor can I imagine of what use these—records can be to those who have resorted to such dreadful measures to secure them.”

The chief clapped his hands, and Ali Mahmoud came in. The Persian official stooped and kissed Rima’s fingers, shook hands with the rest of us, and went out. There was silence for a few moments, and then:

“You know, Barton,” said Nayland Smith, pacing up and down rapidly, “Ispahan, though quite civilised, is rather off the map; and frankly—local feeling is against you. I mean this Mokanna movement is going to play hell in Persia if it goes on. As you started it—you’re not popular.”

“Never have been,” growled the chief; “never expect to be.”

“Not the point,” rapped Smith. “There’s going to be worse to come—when they know.”

A silence followed which I can remember more vividly than many conversations. Rima squeezed my arm and looked up at me in a troubled way. Sir Denis was not a man to panic. But he had made it perfectly clear that he took a grave view of the situation.

Sir Lionel had fenced with the local authorities throughout, knowing that they could have no official information regarding the relics—since, outside our own party (and now Captain Woodville and Stratton Jean), nobody but Amir Khan knew we had found them.

At the cost of one life in our camp and two in their own the enemy had secured the green box... but the green box was empty! I knew now why the chief had been so conscience-stricken by the death of Van Berg; I knew that the relics had never been where we all supposed them to be from the time that we came to Ispahan.

Van Berg had died defending an empty box...

Sir Lionel began to laugh in his boisterous fashion.

“We’ve scored over them. Smith!” he shouted, and shook his clenched fist. They had Van Berg—but we got a pair of the swine tonight! Topping it all—they’ve drawn a blank!”

His laughter ceased, and that wonderful, lined old face settled down again into the truculent mask which was the front Sir Lionel Barton showed to the world.

“It’s a poor triumph,” he added, “to pay for the loss of Van Berg.”

Nayland Smith ceased his promenade at the window and stood with his back to all of us, staring out.

“I don’t know where you’ve hidden the relics, Barton,” he said slowly, “but I may have to ask you to tell me. One thing I do know. This part of the East is no longer healthy for any of us. The second attempt has failed—but the third…”

“What are you suggesting?” Sir Lionel growled; “that I give ’em up? Suppose it came to that. Who am I dealing with?”

Nayland Smith did not turn. But:

“I believe I can tell you,” he answered quietly.

“Then tell me! Don’t throw out hints. Speak up, man!”

At that, Nayland Smith turned and stared at the speaker, remaining silent for some moments. At last:

“I flew here in a two-seater from Basra,” he replied. “There was no other aircraft available in the neighbourhood. I have already made arrangements, however. Imperial Airways have lent us a taxi. You must realise. Barton, the position is serious.”

Something in his manner temporarily silenced the chief; until:

“I do realise it,” he admitted grudgingly. “Some organiser has got hold of this wave of fanaticism which my blowing up of El Mokanna’s tomb started, and he realises—I suppose that’s what you’re driving at?—that production of the actual relics would clinch the matter. Am I right?”

“You are!” said Nayland Smith. “And I must ask you to consider one or two facts. The drug which was used in the case of Van Berg, and again last night, is, I admit, unfamiliar. But the method of employment is not. You see what I mean?”

Rima’s grip on my arm tightened; and:

“Shan,” she said, looking up at me, “it was what happened two years ago in England!”

The chief’s face was a study. Under tufted eyebrows he was positively glaring at Nayland Smith. The latter continued:

“Rima begins to realise what I mean. The device for passing from house to house without employing the usual method of descending to the street is also familiar to me. It was
experience
, and nothing else, that enabled me to deal with the affair of last night.”

He paused, and I found my mind working feverishly. Then, bringing that odd conversation to a dramatic head, came a husky query from Sir Lionel.

“Good God! Smith!” he said. “He can’t be behind this?”

The emphasis on “he” resolved my final doubt.

“You’re not suggesting, Sir Denis,” I asked, “that we are up against
Dr. Fu-Manchu?”

Rima clutched me now convulsively. Once only had she met the stupendous genius, Dr. Fu-Manchu, but the memory of that one interview would remain with her to the end of her days, as it would remain with me.

“If I had had any doubts, Barton,” said Nayland Smith, “your identification of the murderer and his accomplice would have settled them. They belong, you tell me, to a secret society on the Slave Coast.”

He paused, staring hard at Sir Lionel.

“I believe that there is no secret society of this character, however small or remote, which is not affiliated to the organisation known as the Si-Fan. That natives of the Pacific Islands are indirectly controlled by this group, I know for a fact; why not Negroes of West Africa? Consider the matter from another angle. What are natives of the Slave Coast doing in Persia? Who has brought them here?

“They are instruments, Barton, in the hands of a master schemer. For what object they were originally imported, we shall probably never know, but their usefulness in the present case has been proved. There can be no association between this West African society and the survivors of the followers of El Mokanna. These Negroes are in the train of some directing personality.”

It was morning, and the East is early afoot. From a neighbouring market street came sounds of movement and discords human and animal. Suddenly Sir Denis spoke again.

“If any doubt had remained in my mind. Barton, it would have been removed last night. You may recall that just before the first signal came, someone passed slowly along the street below?”

“Yes! I heard him—but I couldn’t see him.”

“I heard him, too!” I cried…

“I both heard him and
saw
him,” Nayland Smith continued— “from my post on the minaret. Action was impossible—unfortunately—in the circumstances. But the man who walked along the street last night just before the second attempt on the green box… was Dr. Fu-Manchu!”

W
eary though I was of all the East, nevertheless, Cairo represented civilisation. I think I have never felt a greater wave of satisfaction than at the moment when, completing the third and longest stage of our flight from Ispahan, we climbed down upon the sands of Egypt.

Dr. Petrie was there to meet us; and the greeting between himself and Sir Denis, while it had all the restraint which characterises our peculiar race, was nevertheless so intimate and affectionate that I turned away and helped Rima down the ladder.

When the chief, last to alight, joined his old friend, I felt that Rima and I had no further part in the affair.

It should have been a happy reunion, but a cloud lay over it—a cloud which I, personally, was helpless to dispel.

Dr. Petrie, no whit changed since last I had seen him, broke away from Sir Denis and the chief and hugged Rima and myself in both arms. The best of men are not wholly unselfish; and part of Petrie’s present happiness was explainable by something which I had overheard as he had grasped Nayland Smith’s hand:

“Thank God, old man! Kara is home in England…”

Mrs. Petrie, the most beautiful woman I have ever met (Rima is not jealous of my opinion), was staying with Petrie’s people in Surrey, where the doctor shortly anticipated joining her.

I was sincerely glad. For the gaunt shadow of Fu-Manchu again had crept over us, and the lovely wife whom Petrie had snatched from that evil genius was in safe keeping beyond the reach of the menace which stretched over us even here.

Nevertheless, this was a momentary hiatus, if no more than momentary. Rima extended her arms, raised her adorable little head, and breathed in the desert air as one inhaling a heavenly perfume.

“Shan,” she said, “I don’t feel a bit safe, yet. But at least we are in Egypt,
our
Egypt!”

Those words “our Egypt” quickened my pulse. It was in Egypt that I had met her, and in Egypt that I had learned to love her. But above and beyond even this they held a deeper significance. There is something about Egypt which seems to enter the blood of some of us, and to make that old, secret land a sort of super-motherland. I lack the power properly to express what I mean, but over and over again I have found this odd sort of cycle operating—suggesting some mystic affinity with the “gift of the Nile,” which, once recognized, can never be shaken off.

“Our Egypt!” Yes, I appreciated what she meant…

Dr. Petrie had his car waiting, and presently we set out for Cairo. Our pilot, Humphreys, had official routine duties to perform, but arrangements were made for his joining us later.

The chief, with Nayland Smith and Rima, packed themselves in behind, and I sat beside Dr. Petrie in front. Having cleared the outskirts of Heliopolis and got out onto the road to Cairo:

“This last job of yours, Greville,” said Petrie, “in Khorassan, has had its echoes even here.”

“Good heavens! You don’t tell me!”

“I assure you it is so. I hadn’t the faintest idea, until Smith’s first message reached me, that this extraordinary outburst of fanaticism which is stirring up the Moslem population (and has its particular centre at El Azhar) had anything to do with old Barton. Now I know.”