The Mask of Fu-Manchu (11 page)

“What a swindle, Shan!” she said, pouting in a childish fashion I loved. “I’m simply dying for a dance. And I haven’t even the ghost of a frock with me.”

We were indeed out of place in that well dressed gathering, in our tired-looking travelling kit. For practically the whole of our worldly possessions had been left behind with the heavy gear in charge of Ali Mahmoud.

After several months more or less in the wilderness, all these excited voices and the throb and drone of jazz music provided an overdose of modern civilisation.

“I feel like Robinson Crusoe,” Rima declared, “on his first day home. Do you feel like Man Friday?”

“Not a bit!”

“I’m glad, because you look more like a Red Indian.”

Exposure to sun and wind, as a matter of fact, had beyond doubt reduced my complexion to the tinge of a very new brick, and I was wearing an old tweed suit which for shabbiness could only be compared with that of gray flannel worn by Sir Denis.

Nevertheless, I thought, as I looked at Rima, from her trim glossy head to the tips of her small gray shoes, that she was the daintiest figure I had seen that night.

“As we’re totally unfit for the ballroom,” I said, “do you think we might venture in the garden?”

We walked through the lounge with its little Oriental alcoves and out into the garden. It was a perfect night, but unusually hot for the season. Humphreys, our pilot, joined us there, and:

“You know, Greville,” he said grinning, “I don’t know what you’ve been up to in Khorassan, or wherever it is. But somebody in those parts is kicking up no end of a shindy.”

He glanced at me shrewdly. Of the real facts he could know nothing—unless the chief had been characteristically indiscreet. But I realised that he must suspect our flight from Persia to have had some relation to the disturbances in that country.

“I should say you bolted just in time,” he went on. “They claim a sort of new Mahdi up there. When I got to Cairo this evening I found the news everywhere. Honestly, it’s all over the town, particularly the native town. There’s a most curious feeling abroad, and in some way they have got the story of this Veiled bloke mixed up with the peculiar weather. I mean, it’s turned phenomenally hot. There’s evidently a storm brewing.”

“Which they put down to the influence of El Mokanna?”

“Oh, what nonsense!” Rima laughed.

But Humphreys nodded grimly, and:

“Exactly,” he returned. “I’m told that a religious revival is overdue among the Moslems, and this business may fill the bill. You ought to know as well as I do, Greville, that superstition is never very far below the surface in even the most cultured Oriental. And these waves of fanaticism are really incalculable. It’s a kind of mass hypnotism, and we know the creative power of thought.”

I stared at the speaker with a new curiosity. He was revealing a side of his nature which I had not supposed to exist. Rima, too, had grown thoughtful.

“Someone would have to lead this movement,” she suggested. “How could there be followers of a Veiled Prophet if there were no Veiled Prophet?”

“I’m told that up at El Azhar,” Humphreys replied seriously, “they are proclaiming that there is a Veiled Prophet—or, rather, a Masked Prophet. He’s supposed to be moving down through Persia.”

“But it’s simply preposterous!” Rima declared.

“It’s likely to be infernally dangerous,” he returned dryly. “However,” brightening up, “I notice you’re devoid of evening kit, Miss Barton, same as Greville. But as I’m attired with proper respectability, I know of no reason why we shouldn’t dance out here. The band’s just starting again.”

Rima consented with a complete return of gaiety. And as her petite figure moved off beside that of the burly airman, I lighted a cigarette and looked around me. I was glad she had found a partner to distract her thoughts from the depression which lay upon all of us. And, anyway, I’m not much of a dancing man myself at the best of times.

Up under the leaves of the tall palms little coloured electric lamps were set, resembling fiery fruit. Japanese lanterns formed lighted festoons from trunk to trunk. In the moonlight, the water of the central fountain looked like an endless cascade of diamonds. The sky above was blue-black, and the stars larger and brighter than I remembered ever to have seen them.

Crunching of numberless feet I heard on the sanded paths; a constant murmur of voices; peals of laughter rising sometimes above it all—and now the music of a military band.

There were few fancy costumes, and those chiefly of the stock order. But there was a profusion of confetti—which seems to be regarded as indispensable on such occasions, but which I personally look upon as a definite irritant. To shed little disks of coloured paper from one’s clothing, cigarette case, and tobacco pouch wherever one goes for a week after visiting a fete of this kind is a test of good-humour which the Southern races possibly survive better than I do.

I strolled round towards the left of the garden—that part farthest from the band and the dancers—intending to slip into the hotel for a drink before rejoining Rima and Humphreys.

Two or three confetti fiends had pot shots at me, but I did not find their attentions stimulating. In fact, I may as well confess that this more or less artificial gaiety, far from assisting me to banish those evil thoughts which claimed my mind, seemed to focus them more sharply.

Sir Denis and the chief, when I had left them, were still pacing up and down in the latter’s room, arguing hotly; and poor Dr. Petrie was trying to keep the peace. That Sir Lionel had smuggled the Mokanna relics out of Persian territory he did not deny, nor was this by any means the first time he had indulged in similar acts of piracy. Nayland Smith was for lodging them in the vault of the Museum: Sir Lionel declined to allow them out of his possession.

He had a queer look in his deep-set eyes which I knew betokened mischief. Sir Denis knew too, and the knowledge taxed him almost to the limit of endurance, that the chief was keeping something back.

A sudden barrage of confetti made me change my mind about going in. Try how I would, I could not force myself into gala humour, and I walked all around the border of the garden, along a path which seemed to be deserted and only imperfectly lighted.

Practically everybody was on the other side, where the band was playing—either dancing or watching the dancing. The greater number of the guests were in the ballroom, however, preferring jazz and a polished floor to military brass and al fresco discomfort. I had lost my last cigarette under the confetti bombardment, and now, taking out my pipe, I stood still and began to fill it.

Dr. Fu-Manchu!

Nayland Smith believed that agents of Dr. Fu-Manchu had been responsible for the death of Van Berg and for the theft of the green box. This, I reflected, could mean only one thing.

Dr. Fu-Manchu was responsible for the wave of fanaticism sweeping throughout the East, for that singular rumour that a prophet was reborn, which, if Humphreys and Petrie were to be believed, El Azhar already proclaimed.

My pipe filled, I put my hand in my pocket in search of matches, when—a tall, slender figure crossed the path a few yards ahead of me.

My hand came out of my pocket, I took the unlighted pipe from between my teeth, and stared... stared!

The woman, who wore a green, sheath-like dress and gold shoes, had a delicate indolence of carriage, wholly Oriental. About one bare ivory arm, extending from just below the elbow to the wrist, she wore a massive jade bangle in six or seven loops. A golden girdle not unlike a sword belt was about her waist, and a tight green turban on her head.

Her appearance, then, was sufficiently remarkable. But that which crowned the queerness of this slender, graceful figure, was the fact that she wore a small half-mask; and this half-mask was apparently of gold!

That the costume was designed to represent El Mokanna there could be no doubt. This in itself was extraordinary, but might have been explained by that queer wave of native opinion which was being talked about everywhere. It was such an ill-considered jest as would commend itself to a crazy member of the younger set. But there was something else…

Either I had become the victim of an optical delusion, traceable to events of the past few days, or the woman in the gold mask was Fu-Manchu’s daughter!

N
ormally the air would have been growing chilly by now, but on the contrary a sort of oppressive heat seemed to be increasing. As the alluring figure crossed diagonally and disappeared into a side path, I glanced upward.

The change was startling.

Whereas but a few minutes before the stars had been notably bright, now not a star was visible. A dense black cloud hung overhead, and, as the band stopped, I noted a quality of stillness in the atmosphere such as often precedes a storm.

These things, however, I observed almost subconsciously. I was determined to overtake the wearer of the gold mask; I was determined to establish her identity. All those doubts and fears which I had with difficulty kept at bay seemed to swoop down upon me as if from the brooding sky.

An imperfect glimpse only I had had of long, tapering ivory fingers. But I believed there was only one woman in the world who possessed such hands—the woman known as Fah Lo Suee, the fascinating but witch-like daughter of the Chinese doctor.

Slipping my pipe back into my pocket, I stepped forward quickly, turning right, into a narrow path. Owing, I suppose, to the threatening skies, a general exodus from the garden had commenced, and since I was walking away from the hotel and not towards it, I met with no other guests.

I had hesitated only a few seconds before starting in pursuit. Nevertheless, there was no sign of my quarry. I pulled up, peering ahead. A sudden doubt crossed my mind.

Had Fah Lo Suee seen me? And did she hope to slip away unmasked? If so, she had made a false move.

For a glance had shown that, now, she could not possibly avoid me. She had turned left, from the narrow path, and was approaching the railings of the garden at a point where there was a gate.

I chanced to know that this gate was invariably locked…

She had nearly reached it when I began to walk forward again, slowly and confidently. Her movements convinced me even in the semi-darkness that my conjecture had been correct. This was Fu-Manchu’s daughter, beyond any shadow of doubt.

I was not twelve paces behind her when she came to the gate. She stooped, and, although I heard no sound—the gate swung open! I saw her for a moment, a tall, slim silhouette against lights from the other side of the street; then the gate clanged to behind her.

Without even glancing over her shoulder, although I knew she must have heard my approach, she turned left in the direction of Sharia Kamel, still at that leisurely, languid pace.

I ran to the gate—it was locked!

This discovery astounded me.

By what means obtained, I could not even guess, but clearly this strange woman possessed a key of the disused entrance. I contemplated scaling the railings, but realised the difficulty of the operation. There was only one thing for it.

I turned and ran back to the hotel, hoping I might meet no one to whom I should feel called upon to give an explanation of my eccentric conduct.

There came an ominous rumbling, and I saw with annoyance that crowds were pouring in at the entrance. However, I made a rush for it; earned some stinging comments on the part of guests into whom I bumped—dashed across the lobby and out onto the terrace.

A line of cars and taxicabs was drawn up outside. This I had time to note as I went flying down the steps. I turned sharply right. I was only just in time. A wonderfully slender ankle, an arched instep, and a high-heeled golden shoe provided the only clue.

The woman had just entered a car stationed, not outside the terrace of the hotel, but over by the arcade opposite. At the very moment that I heard the clang of its closing door, the car moved off, going in the direction of Esbekiyeh Gardens.

I ran to the end of the rank of waiting cabs and cars, and, grabbing an Egyptian driver who brought up the tail of the procession:

“Look!” I said rapidly in Arabic, and pulled him about, “where I am pointing!”

The hour being no later than ten o’clock, there was still a fair amount of traffic about. But I could see the car, a long, low two-seater, proceeding at no great speed, in the direction of the Continental.

“You see that yellow car? The one that has just reached the corner!”

The man stared as I pointed; and then:

“Yes, I see it.”

“Then follow it! Double fare if you keep it in sight!”

That settled the matter. He sprang to the wheel in a flash. And whilst I half knelt on the seat, looking back, he turned his cab with reckless disregard of oncoming traffic and started off at racing speed...

Other cars were in the way, now, but I could still discern that in which the woman had driven off. I saw it turn left. I bent forward, shouting to the driver.

“They have turned left—did you see?”