The Mask of Fu-Manchu (20 page)

We mounted to the ramp on the left side and climbed onward. Ages of silence mantled us, and, strangely, I felt no desire to give voice to the many queries which danced in my brain. An image led me on; I seemed to hear my voice speaking a name:

Rima!

I climbed more swiftly.

This might be a trap; but according to available evidence, no one had entered the Pyramid that night; but plainly I had heard the gong… and dervishes were gathering at Gizeh…

We reached the horizontal passage to the King’s Chamber; and instinctively both of us paused. I stared back down the slope as far as the light of my lamp would reach. Nothing moved.

“Will you be good enough to take over the duties of pack mule, Greville,” said Nayland Smith crisply.

He handed me the case. The entrance to the place yawned in front of us. Sir Denis took a repeater from his pocket, examined it briefly, and slipped it back. Then, shining a light into the low opening:

“Follow closely,” he directed.

For one instant he hesitated—any man living would have hesitated—then, ducking his head and throwing the light forward along the stone passage, he started forward. I followed; my disengaged hand gripped an automatic.

I saw the end of the passage as Nayland Smith reached it; I had a glimpse of the floor of that strange apartment which many thousands have visited but no man has ever properly comprehended; and then, following him in, I stood upright in turn. As I did so, I drew a sharp breath—indeed, only just succeeded in stifling a cry…

A bright light suddenly sprang up! So lighted, the place presented an unfamiliar aspect. No bats were visible. The chamber looked more lofty, but for that very reason more mysterious. The lamp which shed this brilliant illumination—a queer, globular lamp—was so powerful that I could not imagine from what source its energy was derived.

It stood upon a small table, set close beside the famous coffer; and behind it, so that the light of this lamp shone down fully upon him, a man—apparently the sole occupant of the King’s Chamber—was seated in a rush chair of a type common in Egypt. He wore a little black cap surmounted with a coral ball, and a plain yellow robe. His eyes were fixed steadily upon Sir Denis.

It was Dr. Fu-Manchu!

N
ayland Smith stood quite still, the ray of his torch shining down on the floor at his feet. Those incredible green eyes beyond the globular lamp watched him unblinkingly.

As I supposed at the time—although, of course, I was wrong—I had seen Dr. Fu-Manchu once only in my life. And as I saw him now, an astounding change presented itself. That wonderful face, on which there rested an immutable dignity, seemed to be the face of a younger man. And the power which radiated from the person or this formidable being was of a character which I could never hope to portray. He seemed to exude force. The nervous energy of Sir Denis was of a kind which could almost literally be felt, but that which emanated from Dr. Fu-Manchu vibrated with an intensity which was uncanny.

How long a time elapsed in the utter silence of that strange meeting place before a word was spoken, I cannot say, but the dragging seconds seemed interminable.

The atmosphere was hot—stiflingly hot. My head seemed to be swimming. I glanced swiftly at Nayland Smith. His teeth were clenched tightly, and I knew that his right hand, which he held in his pocket, rested upon a Colt repeater. I could not guess what or whom he had expected to meet, but every lineament of his stern face told me that he had never anticipated meeting the Chinese doctor.

It was the latter who broke that unendurable silence.

“We meet again. Sir Denis—a meeting which I observe you had not anticipated. Yet you might have done so.”

Fu-Manchu spoke coldly, unemotionally, and except for certain gutturals and at other times an odd sibilant, his English was perfect, deliberate to the point of the pedantic, but carrying no trace of accent. I remembered that, according to Petrie, the Chinese doctor spoke with facility in any of the civilised languages, as well as many savage tongues and dialects.

I had eagerly read all that my friend had written about him, during the years that he and Sir Denis had warred almost constantly with their great adversary, my reading embracing hundreds of Petrie’s notes which had never been published. Memories returned to me now, as I found myself face to face with this great but evil man. I wish I possessed the doctor’s facility of style. His pen, I think, could have done greater justice to a scene in attempting which I find my own more than halting.

“You saw me in Ispahan,” the calm voice continued. Its effect in that enclosed chamber was indescribable. “Prior to which, you had recognized my methods. You had tricked those acting for me, and I arrived too late to rectify their errors of judgment, for which, however, two paid with their lives.”

Nayland Smith continued to watch the speaker, but uttered never a word.

“Perhaps my personal appearance in that street on the night of my second attempt to secure the relics was an indiscretion. But I had lost faith in my agents. You foiled me, Sir Denis. You saw me; I did not see you. You seem to have overlooked the fact that I walked without the aid of a stick.”

Nayland Smith visibly stared—but did not speak.

“Sir Lionel Barton’s box-trick,” Fu-Manchu went on—his peculiar utterance of the chief’s name producing a horrifying effect upon my mind—“necessitated this hasty journey to Egypt, at great personal inconvenience. I arrived an hour after you. Therefore, Sir Denis, since you know with whom you are dealing, and since with my present inadequate resources I have none about me upon whose service I can rely, is there anything singular in my meeting you personally?”

“No.” Sir Denis spoke at last, never taking his gaze from that lined, yellow face. “It is characteristic of your gigantic impudence.”

No expression of any kind could be read upon Dr. Fu-Manchu’s face, except that his eyes, long, narrow, and of a brilliant green colour which I can only term unnatural, seemed momentarily to become slightly filmed.

“You have played the only card which we couldn’t defeat,” Sir Denis went on; “and here—” he pointed to the case which I had set upon the floor—“is your price. But, before we proceed further…”

I knew what he was about to say, and I said it for him, shouted it, angrily:

“Where is Rima?”

For one instant the long green eyes flickered in my direction. I felt the force of that enormous intellect, and:

“She is here,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu softly. “I said she would be here.”

The last words were spoken as if nothing could be more conclusive. I was on the point of challenging them, but, somehow, there was that in their utterance which seemed unchallengeable. The crowning mystery of the thing presented itself nakedly before me.

How had Fu-Manchu gained access to this place, the entrance to which had been watched from sunset? How had Rima been smuggled in?

“Your motives,” said Nayland Smith, speaking in the manner of one who holds himself tightly on the curb, “are not clear to me. This movement among certain Moslem sects—which, I take it, you hope to direct—must break down when the facts are published.”

“To which facts do you more particularly refer?” the Chinese doctor inquired sibilantly.

“The fact that an extemporised bomb was exploded in the tomb of El Mokanna by Sir Lionel Barton, and that the light seen in the sky on that occasion was caused in this manner; the fact that the relics were brought by him to Egypt and returned to the conspirators under coercion. What becomes of the myth of a prophet reborn when this plain statement is made public?”

“It will not affect the situation in any way; it will be looked upon as ingenious propaganda of a kind often employed in the past. And since neither Sir Lionel Barton nor anyone else will be in a position to
prove
that the relics were ever in his possession, it will not be accepted.”

“And your own association with the movement?”

“Is welcome, since the ideals of the Si-Fan are in harmony with the aims of those Moslem sects you have mentioned, Sir Denis. Subterfuge between us is useless. This time I fight in the open. One thing, and one thing only, can defeat the New Mokanna… his failure to produce those evidences of his mission which, I presume, you bring to me tonight…”

His strength and the cool vigour of his utterance had now, as I could see, arrested Sir Denis’s attention as they had arrested mine; and:

“I congratulate you,” he said dryly. “Your constitution would seem to be unimpaired by your great responsibilities.”

Dr. Fu-Manchu slightly inclined his head.

“I am, I thank you, restored again to normal health. And I note with satisfaction that you, also, are your old vigorous self. You have drawn a cordon of Egyptian police around me—as you are entitled to do under the terms of our covenant. You hope to trap me, and have acted as I, in your place, should have acted. But I know that for ten minutes after our interview is concluded I am safe from molestation. I am not blind to the conditions. My safety lies in my knowledge that you will strictly adhere to them.”

He clapped his hands sharply.

What I expected to happen, I don’t know. But Nayland Smith and I both glanced instinctively back to the low opening. What actually happened transcended anything I could have imagined.

A low shuddering cry brought me swiftly about again.

“Shan!”

Rima, deathly pale in the strange light of that globular lamp, was standing upright behind the granite coffer!

My heart leapt, and then seemed to stop, as she fixed her wide-open eyes upon me appealingly. And Sir Denis, that man of steel nerve, exhibited such amazement as I had never known him to show in all the years of our friendship.

“Rima!” he cried. “Good God! Have you been lying there, hiding?”

“Yes!” she turned to him. I saw that her hands were clenched. “I promised.” She glanced down at the motionless, high-shouldered figure seated before her. “It was
my
part of the bargain.”

Describing a wide circle around the sinister Chinaman, she ran to me, and I had her in my arms. I could feel her heart beating wildly. I held her close, stroking her hair: she was overwrought, on the verge of collapse. She was whispering rapidly—incoherently—other fears for my safety, other happiness to be with me again, when those low even tones came:

“I have performed what I promised. Sir Denis. It is now your turn…”

M
y last recollection as I stopped and went out must always remain vivid in my mind.

Those golden records of the Masked Prophet, one of the unique finds in the history of archaeology, lay glittering upon the narrow table under the light of that strange globular lamp. Dr. Fu-Manchu, his long pointed chin resting upon his crossed hands, his elbows upon the table, watched us unfalteringly.

One grave anxiety was set at rest. In reply to a pointed question of Nayland Smith’s, he had assured us that Rima had not been subjected to “damnable drugs or Lama tricks” (Sir Denis’s own words). And, fearing and loathing Dr. Fu-Manchu as I did, yet, incredible though it may seem, I never thought of doubting his word. A hundred and one questions I was dying to ask Rima, but first and foremost I wanted to find the sky above my head again.

The Great Corridor was empty from end to end. And, I leading and Nayland Smith bringing up the rear, we stumbled down to the point where it communicates with the narrower passage. Here I turned, and looked back as far as the light of my lamp could reach.

Nothing was visible. I could only think that Dr. Fu-Manchu remained alone in the King’s Chamber...

I glanced at Rima. She was clenching her teeth bravely, and even summoned up a pallid smile. But I could see that she was close to the edge of her resources.

“Hurry!” snapped Nayland Smith. “Remember—ten minutes!”

But even when, passing the lowest point, we began to mount towards open air, somehow, I could not credit the idea that Dr. Fu-Manchu had carried out this business unaided. I paused again.