The Mask of Fu-Manchu (8 page)

“All right, dear!” I shouted.

Turning, I ran along the room and out into the corridor. I heard Barton’s great voice growling impatiently in the lobby below. But before I could reach him he had raced out into the street. Ali, rifle in hand, followed him, and I brought up the rear.

Far above, Rima leaned from an open window, and:

“For God’s sake, be careful!” she cried. “I can see something moving along the roof of the mosque!”

“Don’t worry!” I called reassuringly. “We’re all armed.”

I was bending over a figure lying in the dust, a figure at which Sir Lionel was already staring down with an indescribable expression. It was that, as I saw now quite clearly, of a small but powerfully built Negro.

He presented an unpleasant spectacle by reason of the fact that he had evidently dashed his skull against the wall of the mosque at the end of that incredible flight from side to side of the street. He wore, as I had thought, nothing but a dark loincloth.

Thrust into this, where it was visible as he lay huddled up and half upon his face, was a dull metal object which gleamed in the light of our torches. For, although moonlight illuminated the minaret and upper part of the mosque, the street itself was a black gully. Stooping, I examined this object more closely.

It was a metal spray, such as dentists use. Its purpose I had already seen demonstrated; then:

“Look at his hands!” the chief said huskily. “What is he holding?”

At first I found it difficult to reply; then I realised that the Negro was clutching two large iron hooks to which had been attached a seemingly endless thread of what looked like catgut, no thicker than the D string of a violin. The truth was still far from my mind; when:

“A West African,” Sir Lionel continued—“probably from the Slave Coast. What in hell’s name brought such a bird to Persia?”

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “he was sold. Slavery is still practised in these parts.”

Further speculation on the point was ended by a sudden loud cry from the minaret.

“Stand by, there!”

Sir Lionel, Ali Mahmoud, and I raised our heads. A tall figure draped in a black native robe stood on the gallery. Upright, now, moonlight silvering his hair, I knew him. It was Nayland Smith!

“Ali Mahmoud!” he shouted, “round to the side door of the mosque and shoot anything you see moving. Barton! Stand by the main door, where you can cover three windows. Let nothing come out. Quick, Greville! You know the way into the minaret. Up to me!”

A
n open stone stairway built around the interior wall, afforded a means of reaching the platform of the minaret from that point of entrance to which Nayland Smith had directed me. There was an inner gallery high above my head, to which formerly the mueddin had gained access from a chamber of the mosque.

My footsteps as I clambered upward, breathing hard, echoed around the shell of that ancient tower in a weird, uncanny tattoo. It may seem to have been a bad time for thought, but my brain was racing faster than my feet could carry me.

Some dawning perception of the means by which poor Van Berg had been assassinated was creeping into my mind. In some way the acrobatic murderer had
swung
into the room, probably from one of the windows of the mosque. The hooks which he still clasped in his hands had afforded him a grip, no doubt, and earlier had been hitched to the handles of the iron box which had been swung to its destination in the same way.

But remembering the slender line—resembling a violin string— which we had found attached to those hooks, I met with doubt again. The thing was plainly impossible.

I reached the opening into the gallery and paused for awhile. This gallery extended, right, into darkness which the ray of my torch failed to penetrate. Before me was a low, narrow door, giving access to a winding wooden stair which would lead me to the platform above.

The idea of that passage penetrating into the darkness of the haunted mosque was definitely unpleasant. And casting one final glance along it, I resumed my journey. I stumbled several times on those stairs, which were narrow and dilapidated, but presently found the disk of the moon blazing in my face and knew that I had reached the platform.

“Greville!” came in Nayland Smith’s inimitable snappy voice.

“Yes, Sir Denis.”

I came out and stood beside him. It was a dizzying prospect as one emerged from darkness. The narrow street upon which our house faced looked like a bottomless ravine. I could see right across the roof of the mosque on one hand, to where Ispahan, looking like a city of mushrooms from which tulip-like minarets shot up, slumbered under a velvet sky, and, left, to the silver river. Then, my attention was diverted.

A dark shape lay almost at my feet, half hidden in shadow. I drew back sharply, looking down; and:

“Damned unfortunate, Greville,” said Nayland Smith rapidly.

He was standing near the door out of which I had come, a tall, angular figure, flooded by moonlight on the right, but a mere silhouette on the left. He wore a loose black
gibbeh
which I thought I recognized as the property of Ali Mahmoud. The angularity of his features was accentuated, and the one eye which was visible shone like polished steel. He glanced down.

“I used an extemporised sandbag from behind,” he explained, “and I’m afraid I hit too hard. I’m not masquerading, Greville—” indicating his black robe. “I borrowed this to help me to hide in the shadows. Is the other Negro dead?”

“Yes, he dashed his brains out against the wall of the mosque.”

“Damnably unfortunate!” Nayland Smith jerked. “I have no personal regrets, but either would have been an invaluable witness. There was a third on the roof of the mosque. His job was to keep a lookout. I missed him twice, but hit him the third time. He managed to get away, nevertheless. But I’m hoping he can’t escape from the building.”

Dimly, from far below, rose a murmuring of approaching steps and voices. Nayland Smith’s shots had awakened the neighbourhood.

“Damn it!” he rapped. “If a crowd gathers, it may ruin everything.”

He stooped and removed a loop of that strange tenuous line from a projection of the ornamental stonework decorating the railing of the balcony.

“Look!” he said, and held it up in the moonlight. “It doesn’t seem strong enough to support a kitten. Yet the black murderer and the iron box were swung from window to window upon a carefully judged length of it.” He thrust the line into his pocket. “I came prepared for wire,” he added grimly, and exhibited an implement which I recognized as part of Sir Lionel’s kit: a steel wire cutter.

“For heaven’s sake, what is it?” I asked.

Even now, I found difficulty in believing that a line no stouter than sewing thread could carry a man’s weight.

“I haven’t the slightest idea, Greville. But it’s tremendously tough. It took a mighty grip to cut through it. Suspended from this balcony, you see, its length carefully estimated, it enabled one of these acrobatic devils to swing from a window of the mosque right onto a corresponding window of the house opposite. It also enabled him to swing the iron box across. But there’s work for us!”

He pushed me before him in his impetuous fashion; and:

“There was a
fourth
in the game, Greville,” he added… “perhaps a fifth. He, or they, were stationed behind the window of the mosque. The controlling influence—the man we’re looking for—was there!”

I started down at the wooden stair, Nayland Smith following hard behind me; until:

“One moment!” he called.

I paused and turned, directing the ray of my torch upward. He was fumbling in a sort of little cupboard at the head of the steps, and from it he presently extracted his shoes, and proceeded to put them on, talking rapidly the while.

“It was touch and go when that black devil came up, Greville. I also was black from head to feet; black robe, black socks, and a black head cover, made roughly from a piece of this old
gibbeh
, with holes cut for eyes and mouth! He didn’t see me, and he couldn’t hear me. I dodged him all round the gallery like a boy dodging around the trunk of a tree! When he made fast the line, on the end of which I could see two large iron hooks, and lowered it, I recognized the method.”

He had both his shoes on now and was busily engaged in lacing them.

“It confirmed my worst suspicions—but this can be discussed later. Having lowered it to its approved length, he swung it like a pendulum; and presently it was caught and held by someone hidden behind a window of the mosque. You will find, I think, that there is a still lighter line attached to the hooks. This enabled the Negro, having swung across from the mosque to the house, to haul the pendulum back until the box was safely disposed of. It was as he swung across in turn, that I got busy with the wire cutter.”

He came clattering down, and:

“Left!” he said urgently—“into the mosque.”

I found myself proceeding along that narrow, mysterious passage.

“Light out!”

As I switched the torch off, he opened a door. I was looking along a flat roof, silvered by moonlight—the roof of the mosque.

“I hit him just before he reached this door. There’s a bare chance he may have left a clue.”

“A clue to what?”

A considerable group of people had collected in the street, far below, including, I thought, Armenians from across the river, as many excited voices told me. But I was intent upon the strange business in hand; and:

“The sound!”
said Nayland Smith; “that damnable, howling sound which was their signal.”

No torch was necessary now. The roof was whitely illuminated by the moon. And, stooping swiftly:

“My one bit of luck tonight,” he exclaimed. “Look!”

Triumphantly, for I could see his eyes gleaming, he held up an object which at first I was unable to identify, I suppose because it was something utterly unexpected. But presently recognition came. It was a bone... a human frontal bone!

“I’m afraid,” I said stupidly, “that I don’t understand.”

“A
bull-roarer!”
cried Nayland Smith. “Barton can probably throw light upon its particular history.”

He laughed. A length of stout twine was attached to the bone, and twisting this about his fingers he swung the thing rapidly round and round at ever increasing speed.

The result was uncanny.

I heard again that awesome whining which had heralded the death of Van Berg, which I had thought to be the note of some supernatural nocturnal creature. It rose to a wail—to a sort of muted roar—and died away as the swing diminished…

“One of the most ancient signaling devices in the world, Greville— probably prehistoric in origin. Listen!”

I heard running footsteps, many running footsteps, in the street below—all receding into the distance...

Sir Denis laughed again, shortly.

“Our bull-roarer has successfully dispersed the curious natives!” he said.

D
awn was very near when that odd party assembled in the room which we used as an office, the room in which Van Berg had died. Nayland Smith presided, looking haggardly tired after his exertions of the night. He paced up and down continuously. The chief stood near the door, shifting from foot to foot in his equally restless fashion. Rima sat in the one comfortable chair and I upon the arm of it.

A Persian police officer who spoke perfect English completed the party.

“Dr. Van Berg, as you know,” said Sir Denis, “died in this room. I have tried to explain how the murderer gained access. The room being higher than Sir Lionel’s, the line used was shorter, but the method was the same. I found fingerprints and footmarks on the roof of the mosque and also on the ledge below these shutters. A man stabbed as Van Berg was stabbed bleeds from the mouth; therefore I found no bloodstains. The Negro was swung across, not from the window, but from the roof of the mosque. He employed the same device, having quietly entered, of spraying the head of the sleeper with some drug which so far we haven’t been able to identify. It smells like mimosa. Fortunately, a portion remains in the spray upon the dead African, and analysis may enlighten us.”