The Mask of Fu-Manchu (4 page)

I shifted uneasily in my chair. The startling apparition had vanished as suddenly as it had come. Above all things I wanted to avoid alarming Rima. Already I suspected sleepless nights; I realised that she could know no peace in the shadow of the Ghost Mosque with its unholy reputation.

The apparition did not reappear, however; and I turned, looking swiftly at Rima.

She was watching the chief. Clearly, she had seen nothing.

Walking up and down while speaking, in that manner of a caged bear, Sir Lionel had paused now and was staring at the ominous green box.

“Amir Khan did not lie,” he went on. “The tomb-mosque that contained the ashes of the prophet is a mere mound of dust today; what it concealed was never more than a legend. Its site, though, is strictly avoided—supposed to be haunted by
djinns
and known as the Place of the Great Magician. We camped there, and our excavations were carried out secretly. Few pass that desolate place on the edge of the desert. We found—what we had come to find.”

“Is that a fact?” said Stratton Jean in an odd voice.

Sir Lionel nodded, smiling grimly.

The prophet was dust,” he added; “but we found his gold mask, his New Creed engraved upon plates of gold, and his sword, a magnificent blade with a jewelled hilt. There were other fragments— but these were the most important.”

He paused and pointed to the green box.

“Those two Persian birds were mighty keen to know what was in this box. I told them it contained priceless records. They pretended to be satisfied, But they weren’t. It’s a heavy thing to travel—but strong as a safe.”

He began to pace up and down again.

“I left the Place of the Great Magician, taking the relics of El Mokanna away in that box! Van Berg and I had a conference before we left; Greville, here, was present. In spite of our precautions, there were rumours flying about, and it was becoming fairly clear that some sort of small but fanatical sect still existed who held the name of El Mokanna in reverence. The desertion of our Afghan guide, Amir Khan, was very significant—wasn’t it Greville?”

“It was,” I agreed.

At the chief’s words I lived again in memory, instantaneously, through those days and nights in that lonely camp, with Rima’s presence to add to my anxieties. I knew that we were hundreds of miles from any useful help, and I knew that in some mysterious way the influence of the Veiled Prophet lived, was active, although the Hidden One himself was dead; that if the truth should leak out, if it should become known that the sacred relics were in our possession, our lives would not be worth a grain of sand!

Almost, in those anxious days and nights, I had come to hate Van Berg, who was the instigator of the expedition, and to distrust Sir Lionel, whose zeal for knowledge had induced him to lead Rima into such peril. His scientific ardour brooked no obstacle. She was a brilliantly clever photographer, and there was a portfolio, now, on poor Van Berg’s table, which in the absence of the actual relics constituted a perfect record of our discoveries.

“I improvised a bomb,” Sir Lionel went on, “to which I attached a time fuse. We were headed south for Ispahan when all that remained of the tomb-mosque of El Mokanna went up in a cloud of dust.”

That wild light, which was more than half mischief, leapt into his eyes as he spoke.

“Although I had covered my tracks, there were consequences which I hadn’t counted on. Most of the work had been done at night, but it appears that travellers from a distance had seen our lights. The legendary site of the place was more widely known than we had realised. And when, some time after our departure, which took place after dusk, there was a great explosion and a bright glare in the sky, the result was something totally unforeseen…”

“If I may interrupt you, Sir Lionel,” said Captain Woodville quietly, “from this point I can carry on the story. An outcry— ‘Mokanna has arisen’—swept through Afghanistan. That was the spot at which I came into the matter. You had been even more successful than you seem to appreciate. None of the tribesmen who, as you suspect, and rightly, still hold the Mokanna tradition had any idea that you or any human influence had been concerned with the eruption which reduced a lonely ruined shrine to a dusty hollow. A certain fanatical imam took upon himself the duties of a sort of Eastern Peter the Hermit.”

The speaker paused, taking a cigarette from his case and tapping it thoughtfully upon his thumb nail. I glanced swiftly over my shoulder. But the cavernous window of the mosque showed as an unbroken patch of shadow...

“He declared that the Masked Prophet had been reborn and that with the Sword of God he would carry the New Creed throughout the East, sweeping the Infidel before him. That movement is gathering strength. Sir Lionel, and I need not tell you what such a movement means to the Indian government, and what it may come to mean for Arabia, Palestine, and possibly Egypt, unless it can be checked.”

There came a moment of silence, broken only by the striking of a match and the heavy footsteps of the chief as he restlessly paced up and down—up and down. At last:

“Such a movement would call for a strong leader,” said Rima.

Captain Woodville extinguished the match and turned to her gravely.

“We have reason to fear, Miss Barton,” he replied, “that such a leader has been found. I suspect also, Sir Lionel—” glancing at the chief—“that he wants what you have found and will stick at nothing to get it…”

“S
omeone to see you, Greville Effendim.”

I raised my eyes from the notes which I had been studying but did not look around. Through the open window in front of the table at which I had been working I could see on the opposite side of the narrow street the sun-bathed wall of that deserted mosque of unpleasant history.

A window almost on a level with that through which I was looking was heavily outlined on one side and at the top by dense shadows. Only that morning I had explored the mosque—penetrating to the gallery behind that window. What I had hoped to find I really don’t know. Actually, I had found nothing.

“Show him in, Ali Mahmoud.”

I pushed the notes aside and turned, as footsteps on the landing outside told me that my visitor had arrived.

Then I sprang swiftly to my feet…

Something I had vaguely prayed for, something I had not dared to expect, had actually happened! A tall, lean man, with clean-shaven face so sunbaked as to resemble that of an Arab, stood in the doorway.

“Sir Denis! Sir Denis!” I cried. This is almost
too
wonderful!”

It was Sir Denis Nayland Smith, Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, one of my chief’s oldest friends, and the one man in the world whom I would have chosen to be with us now. But the mystery of his appearance had knocked me sideways; and, as he grasped my hand, that lean, tired face relaxed in the boyish smile that I knew and loved; and:

“A surprise?” he snapped in his queer, staccato fashion. “It was a surprise to me too, Greville. If anybody had offered me a hundred to one, three days ago, that I should be in Ispahan now, I should have taken him.”

“But…” I looked him up and down.

He wore a leather overcoat over a very dilapidated flannel suit, and, since he was hatless, I saw that his crisp, wavy hair, more heavily silvered in the interval since our last meeting, was disordered.

“But where does Scotland Yard come in?”

“It doesn’t come in at all,” he returned. “I resigned from Scotland Yard six months ago, Greville. I have been on a sort of secret mission to southern India. I came back via Basra intending to return overland and by air. There is no time to waste, you understand. But at Basra I had news.”

“News of what?” I asked, my brain in somewhat of a whirl.

“News that changed my plans,” he returned gravely, and his piercing glance fixed me for a moment. “Excuse me if I seem eccentric, but would you mind stepping around the table, Greville, and looking out of the window. I should be glad to know if there is anyone in the street.”

Too surprised to reply, I did as he asked. The narrow street was empty as far as I could see it to the left. To the right, where it lay in deep shadow and climbed upward under the lee of the deserted mosque, I could not be so sure that someone, or something, a vague figure, was not lurking. However, after watching for some moments, I determined that the figure existed only in my imagination.

“Nobody,” I reported.

“Ah! I hope you’re right—but I doubt it.”

Nayland Smith had shed his leather coat and was engaged in loading one of those large, cracked briars that I had known so well, with the peculiar cross-cut mixture which he favoured, and which he kept in a pouch at least as dilapidated as his pipe.

The room, which we used as an office, was in better order than during poor Van Berg’s time. The bed in which our late colleague had slept had been removed, and I had reduced the place to something like order.

I went to a side table, pouring out a drink. Nayland Smith’s eyes were more than normally bright, and his features, I thought, looked almost haggard. He had dropped into an armchair. He took the glass which I handed to him, but set it down in the arm rest, its contents untasted; and:

“Greville,” he said, “the hand of destiny may clearly be seen in all this. Where is Barton?”

“I expected him back by now,” I replied. “Rima is with him. Do you know what’s happened, Sir Denis? Is that why you’re here?”

“I know that Dr. Van Berg has been murdered,” he returned grimly. “But that isn’t why I’m here.”

He lighted his pipe absent-mindedly, three matches being used before he was satisfied; then:

“I am here,” he went on, “because there is a dangerous movement on the Afghan border and creeping south day by day. Definite orders reached me at Basra. That’s why I’m here, Greville. Heaven knows we had enough trouble before, but now that the tribes are rising in response to a mad rumour that El Mokanna, the Masked Prophet, has come out of his tomb to lead them, I don’t know where my duty lies.”

He had picked up his glass, but he set it down again and fixed me with a steady glance of his steel-gray eyes.

“I suspect that it lies
here!”
he snapped. “Some madness of Barton’s is at the bottom of this superstitious rumour, which by now has swept all over the East—Near and Far.”

I sustained that stare with great difficulty, and presently:

“You are right, Sir Denis,” I admitted. “The truth of the matter I don’t know, and I don’t think the chief knows it—but I have every reason to believe that poor Van Berg met his death at the hands of some fanatic inspired by this rumour. He died in this room. And the manner of his death remains a mystery to this present hour.”

“Barton is mad,” said Nayland Smith definitely. “His investigations have caused nearly as much trouble as the zeal of the most earnest missionaries.”

He stood up and began to pace the long, narrow room in his restless fashion. In this trick, which betrayed the intense pent-up vitality of the man, he reminded me of the chief. Together, the pair of them emitted almost visible sparks of force.

“Be as brief as you can,” he directed. “The clue to the trouble lies here—obscured by now, probably. I have Captain Woodville’s report—but it omits almost every essential point. Give me your own story of the death of Van Berg.” He stared at me intently. “The peace of the world, Greville, may rest upon your accuracy.”

“P
oor Van Berg,” I explained, “slept in this room, which throughout the time that we have been in Ispahan we have used as an office. All the records are kept here, and up to the time of the tragedy the most valuable record of all: a strong iron box, which the chief almost invariably carried with him, and in which it was his custom to deposit valuable finds.”

“At the time of Van Berg’s death,” Nayland Smith said sharply, “what did this box contain?”

“It contained,” I replied, “to the best of my knowledge, fifteen plates of thin gold, upon which were engraved the articles of the New Creed; the ‘Sword of God,’ a very beautiful piece; and a grotesque golden mask—all that remained of El Mokanna, the prophet of Khorassan.”