"I don't blame you!" rapped Nayland Smith. "Suppose we say,
then, a thousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of
Fu-Manchu, the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit
by your information or not?"
Abel Slattin shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to
the armchair which he had just quitted. He reseated himself,
placing his hat and cane upon my writing-table.
"A little agreement in black and white?" he suggested
smoothly.
Smith raised himself up out of the white cane chair, and,
bending forward over a corner of the table, scribbled busily upon a
sheet of notepaper with my fountain-pen.
The while he did so, I covertly studied our visitor. He lay back
in the armchair, his heavy eyelids lowered deceptively. He was a
thought overdressed—a big man, dark-haired and well groomed, who
toyed with a monocle most unsuitable to his type. During the
preceding conversation, I had been vaguely surprised to note Mr.
Abel Slattin's marked American accent.
Sometimes, when Slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon
the third finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. There
was a sort of bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable
even in his hands but proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy
face and especially under the eyes. I diagnosed a laboring valve
somewhere in the heart system.
Nayland Smith's pen scratched on. My glance strayed from our
Semitic caller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me.
It was of most unusual workmanship, apparently Indian, being made
of some kind of dark brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked
resemblance to a snake's skin; and the top of the cane was carved
in conformity, to represent the head of what I took to be a
puff-adder, fragments of stone, or beads, being inserted to
represent the eyes, and the whole thing being finished with an
artistic realism almost startling.
When Smith had tossed the written page to Slattin, and he,
having read it with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it
neatly and placed it in his pocket, I said:
"You have a curio here?"
Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction
which, by his manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the
cane in his hand.
"It comes from Australia, Doctor," he replied; "it's aboriginal
work, and was given to me by a client. You thought it was Indian?
Everybody does. It's my mascot."
"Really?"
"It is indeed. Its former owner ascribed magical powers to it!
In fact, I believe he thought that it was one of those staffs
mentioned in biblical history—"
"Aaron's rod?" suggested Smith, glancing at the cane.
"Something of the sort," said Slattin, standing up and again
preparing to depart.
"You will 'phone us, then?" asked my friend.
"You will hear from me to-morrow," was the reply.
Smith returned to the cane armchair, and Slattin, bowing to both
of us, made his way to the door as I rang for the girl to show him
out.
"Considering the importance of his proposal," I began, as the
door closed, "you hardly received our visitor with cordiality."
"I hate to have any relations with him," answered my friend;
"but we must not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing
with Dr. Fu-Manchu. Slattin has a rotten reputation—even for a
private inquiry agent. He is little better than a blackmailer—"
"How do you know?"
"Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday
and looked up the man's record."
"Whatever for?"
"I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the
case. Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication
with the Chinese group; I am only wondering—"
"You don't mean—"
"Yes—I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop
even to that."
No doubt, Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese
commissioner was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the
mighty Chinaman who represented things unutterable, whose
potentialities for evil were boundless as his genius, who
personified a secret danger, the extent and nature of which none of
us truly understood. And, learning of these things, with unerring
Semitic instinct he had sought an opening in this glittering
Rialto. But there were two bidders!
"You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of
Fu-Manchu?" I asked, aghast.
"Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve
that master as readily as any other. His record is about as black
as it well could be. Slattin is of course an assumed name; he was
known as Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police,
and he was kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavory
Chinatown case."
"Chinatown!"
"Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget
that he is undeniably a clever scoundrel."
"Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?"
"Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait until tomorrow."
"What!"
"I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin,
to-night."
"At his office?"
"No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his
object is to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his
favorable progress to his employer to-night!"
"Then we should have followed him!"
Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old
shooting-jacket.
"He has been followed, Petrie," he replied, with one of his rare
smiles. "Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all
night!"
This was entirely characteristic of my friend's farseeing
methods.
"By the way," I said, "you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon
be convalescent. Where, in heaven's name, can he—"
"Don't be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie," interrupted Smith.
"His life is no longer in danger."
I stared, stupidly.
"No longer in danger!"
"He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese,
upon Chinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope,
having a typewritten address and bearing a London postmark."
"Well?"
"As nearly as I can render the message in English, it reads:
'Although, because you are a brave man, you would not betray your
correspondent in China, he has been discovered. He was a mandarin,
and as I cannot write the name of a traitor, I may not name him. He
was executed four days ago. I salute you and pray for your speedy
recovery. Fu-Manchu.'"
"Fu-Manchu! But it is almost certainly a trap."
"On the contrary, Petrie—Fu-Manchu would not have written in
Chinese unless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, I received
a cable this morning reporting that the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat was
assassinated in his own garden, in Nan-Yang, one day last
week."
Together we marched down the slope of the quiet, suburban
avenue; to take pause before a small, detached house displaying the
hatchet boards of the Estate Agent. Here we found unkempt laurel
bushes and acacias run riot, from which arboreal tangle protruded
the notice—"To be Let or Sold."
Smith, with an alert glance to right and left, pushed open the
wooden gate and drew me in upon the gravel path. Darkness mantled
all; for the nearest street lamp was fully twenty yards beyond.
From the miniature jungle bordering the path, a soft whistle
sounded.
"Is that Carter?" called Smith, sharply.
A shadowy figure uprose, and vaguely I made it out for that of a
man in the unobtrusive blue serge which is the undress uniform of
the Force.
"Well?" rapped my companion.
"Mr. Slattin returned ten minutes ago, sir," reported the
constable. "He came in a cab which he dismissed—"
"He has not left again?"
"A few minutes after his return," the man continued, "another
cab came up, and a lady alighted."
"A lady!"
"The same, sir, that has called upon him before."
"Smith!" I whispered, plucking at his arm—"is it—"
He half turned, nodding his head; and my heart began to throb
foolishly. For now the manner of Slattin's campaign suddenly was
revealed to me. In our operations against the Chinese murder-group
two years before, we had had an ally in the enemy's camp—Karamaneh
the beautiful slave, whose presence in those happenings of the past
had colored the sometimes sordid drama with the opulence of old
Arabia; who had seemed a fitting figure for the romances of Bagdad
during the Caliphate—Karamaneh, whom I had thought sincere, whose
inscrutable Eastern soul I had presumed, fatuously, to have laid
bare and analyzed.
Now, once again she was plying her old trade of go-between;
professing to reveal the secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu, and all the
time—I could not doubt it—inveigling men into the net of this awful
fisher.
Yesterday, I had been her dupe; yesterday, I had rejoiced in my
captivity. To-day, I was not the favored one; to-day I had not been
selected recipient of her confidences—confidences sweet, seductive,
deadly: but Abel Slattin, a plausible rogue, who, in justice,
should be immured in Sing Sing, was chosen out, was enslaved by
those lovely mysterious eyes, was taking to his soul the lies which
fell from those perfect lips, triumphant in a conquest that must
end in his undoing; deeming, poor fool, that for love of him this
pearl of the Orient was about to betray her master, to resign
herself a prize to the victor!
Companioned by these bitter reflections, I had lost the
remainder of the conversation between Nayland Smith and the police
officer; now, casting off the succubus memory which threatened to
obsess me, I put forth a giant mental effort to purge my mind of
this uncleanness, and became again an active participant in the
campaign against the Master—the director of all things noxious.
Our plans being evidently complete, Smith seized my arm, and I
found myself again out upon the avenue. He led me across the road
and into the gate of a house almost opposite. From the fact that
two upper windows were illuminated, I adduced that the servants
were retiring; the other windows were in darkness, except for one
on the ground floor to the extreme left of the building, through
the lowered venetian blinds whereof streaks of light shone out.
"Slattin's study!" whispered Smith. "He does not anticipate
surveillance, and you will note that the window is wide open!"
With that my friend crossed the strip of lawn, and careless of
the fact that his silhouette must have been visible to any one
passing the gate, climbed carefully up the artificial rockery
intervening, and crouched upon the window-ledge peering into the
room.
A moment I hesitated, fearful that if I followed, I should
stumble or dislodge some of the larva blocks of which the rockery
was composed.
Then I heard that which summoned me to the attempt, whatever the
cost.
Through the open window came the sound of a musical voice—a
voice possessing a haunting accent, possessing a quality which
struck upon my heart and set it quivering as though it were a gong
hung in my bosom.
Karamaneh was speaking.
Upon hands and knees, heedless of damage to my garments, I
crawled up beside Smith. One of the laths was slightly displaced
and over this my friend was peering in. Crouching close beside him,
I peered in also.
I saw the study of a business man, with its files, neatly
arranged works of reference, roll-top desk, and Milner safe. Before
the desk, in a revolving chair, sat Slattin. He sat half turned
toward the window, leaning back and smiling; so that I could note
the gold crown which preserved the lower left molar. In an armchair
by the window, close, very close, and sitting with her back to me,
was Karamaneh!
She, who, in my dreams, I always saw, was ever seeing, in an
Eastern dress, with gold bands about her white ankles, with
jewel-laden fingers, with jewels in her hair, wore now a
fashionable costume and a hat that could only have been produced in
Paris. Karamaneh was the one Oriental woman I had ever known who
could wear European clothes; and as I watched that exquisite
profile, I thought that Delilah must have been just such another as
this, that, excepting the Empress Poppaea, history has record of no
woman, who, looking so innocent, was yet so utterly vile.
"Yes, my dear," Slattin was saying, and through his monocle
ogling his beautiful visitor, "I shall be ready for you to-morrow
night."
I felt Smith start at the words.
"There will be a sufficient number of men?"
Karamaneh put the question in a strangely listless way.
"My dear little girl," replied Slattin, rising and standing
looking down at her, with his gold tooth twinkling in the
lamplight, "there will be a whole division, if a whole division is
necessary."
He sought to take her white gloved hand, which rested upon the
chair arm; but she evaded the attempt with seeming artlessness, and
stood up. Slattin fixed his bold gaze upon her.
"So now, give me my orders," he said.
"I am not prepared to do so, yet," replied the girl, composedly;
"but now that I know you are ready, I can make my plans."
She glided past him to the door, avoiding his outstretched arm
with an artless art which made me writhe; for once I had been the
willing victim of all these wiles.
"But—" began Slattin.
"I will ring you up in less than half an hour," said Karamaneh
and without further ceremony, she opened the door.
I still had my eyes glued to the aperture in the blind, when
Smith began tugging at my arm.
"Down! you fool!" he hissed harshly—"if she sees us, all is
lost!"
Realizing this, and none too soon, I turned, and rather clumsily
followed my friend. I dislodged a piece of granite in my descent;
but, fortunately, Slattin had gone out into the hall and could not
well have heard it.
We were crouching around an angle of the house, when a flood of
light poured down the steps, and Karamaneh rapidly descended. I had
a glimpse of a dark-faced man who evidently had opened the door for
her, then all my thoughts were centered upon that graceful figure
receding from me in the direction of the avenue. She wore a loose
cloak, and I saw this fluttering for a moment against the white
gate posts; then she was gone.
Yet Smith did not move. Detaining me with his hand he crouched
there against a quick-set hedge; until, from a spot lower down the
hill, we heard the start of the cab which had been waiting. Twenty
seconds elapsed, and from some other distant spot a second cab
started.
"That's Weymouth!" snapped Smith. "With decent luck, we should
know Fu-Manchu's hiding-place before Slattin tells us!"
"But—"
"Oh! as it happens, he's apparently playing the game."—In the
half-light, Smith stared at me significantly—"Which makes it all
the more important," he concluded, "that we should not rely upon
his aid!"
Those grim words were prophetic.
My companion made no attempt to communicate with the detective
(or detectives) who shared our vigil; we took up a position close
under the lighted study window and waited—waited.
Once, a taxi-cab labored hideously up the steep gradient of the
avenue … It was gone. The lights at the upper windows above us
became extinguished. A policeman tramped past the gateway, casually
flashing his lamp in at the opening. One by one the illuminated
windows in other houses visible to us became dull; then lived again
as mirrors for the pallid moon. In the silence, words spoken within
the study were clearly audible; and we heard someone—presumably the
man who had opened the door—inquire if his services would be wanted
again that night.
Smith inclined his head and hung over me in a tense attitude, in
order to catch Slattin's reply.
"Yes, Burke," it came—"I want you to sit up until I return; I
shall be going out shortly."
Evidently the man withdrew at that; for a complete silence
followed which prevailed for fully half an hour. I sought
cautiously to move my cramped limbs, unlike Smith, who seeming to
have sinews of piano-wire, crouched beside me immovable,
untiringly. Then loud upon the stillness, broke the strident note
of the telephone bell.
I started, nervously, clutching at Smith's arm. It felt hard as
iron to my grip.
"Hullo!" I heard Slattin call—"who is speaking?… Yes, yes! This
is Mr. A. S… . I am to come at once?… I know where—yes I … you
will meet me there?… Good!—I shall be with you in half an hour… .
Good-by!"
Distinctly I heard the creak of the revolving office-chair as
Slattin rose; then Smith had me by the arm, and we were flying
swiftly away from the door to take up our former post around the
angle of the building. This gained:
"He's going to his death!" rapped Smith beside me; "but Carter
has a cab from the Yard waiting in the nearest rank. We shall
follow to see where he goes—for it is possible that Weymouth may
have been thrown off the scent; then, when we are sure of his
destination, we can take a hand in the game! We… "
The end of the sentence was lost to me—drowned in such a
frightful wave of sound as I despair to describe. It began with a
high, thin scream, which was choked off staccato fashion; upon it
followed a loud and dreadful cry uttered with all the strength of
Slattin's lungs—
"Oh, God!" he cried, and again—"Oh, God!"
This in turn merged into a sort of hysterical sobbing.
I was on my feet now, and automatically making for the door. I
had a vague impression of Nayland Smith's face beside me, the eyes
glassy with a fearful apprehension. Then the door was flung open,
and, in the bright light of the hall-way, I saw Slattin
standing—swaying and seemingly fighting with the empty air.
"What is it? For God's sake, what has happened!" reached my ears
dimly—and the man Burke showed behind his master. White-faced I saw
him to be; for now Smith and I were racing up the steps.
Ere we could reach him, Slattin, uttering another choking cry,
pitched forward and lay half across the threshold.
We burst into the hall, where Burke stood with both his hands
raised dazedly to his head. I could hear the sound of running feet
upon the gravel, and knew that Carter was coming to join us.
Burke, a heavy man with a lowering, bull-dog type of face,
collapsed onto his knees beside Slattin, and began softly to laugh
in little rising peals.
"Drop that!" snapped Smith, and grasping him by the shoulders,
he sent him spinning along the hallway, where he sank upon the
bottom step of the stairs, to sit with his outstretched fingers
extended before his face, and peering at us grotesquely through the
crevices.
There were rustlings and subdued cries from the upper part of
the house. Carter came in out of the darkness, carefully stepping
over the recumbent figure; and the three of us stood there in the
lighted hall looking down at Slattin.
"Help us to move him back," directed Smith, tensely; "far enough
to close the door."
Between us we accomplished this, and Carter fastened the door.
We were alone with the shadow of Fu-Manchu's vengeance; for as I
knelt beside the body on the floor, a look and a touch sufficed to
tell me that this was but clay from which the spirit had fled!
Smith met my glance as I raised my head, and his teeth came
together with a loud snap; the jaw muscles stood out prominently
beneath the dark skin; and his face was grimly set in that odd,
half-despairful expression which I knew so well but which boded so
ill for whomsoever occasioned it.
"Dead, Petrie!—already?"
"Lightning could have done the work no better. Can I turn him
over?"
Smith nodded.
Together we stooped and rolled the heavy body on its back. A
flood of whispers came sibilantly from the stairway. Smith spun
around rapidly, and glared upon the group of half-dressed
servants.
"Return to your rooms!" he rapped, imperiously; "let no one come
into the hall without my orders."
The masterful voice had its usual result; there was a hurried
retreat to the upper landing. Burke, shaking like a man with an
ague, sat on the lower step, pathetically drumming his palms upon
his uplifted knees.
"I warned him, I warned him!" he mumbled monotonously, "I warned
him, oh, I warned him!"
"Stand up!" shouted Smith—"stand up and come here!"
The man, with his frightened eyes turning to right and left, and
seeming to search for something in the shadows about him, advanced
obediently.
"Have you a flask?" demanded Smith of Carter.
The detective silently administered to Burke a stiff
restorative.
"Now," continued Smith, "you, Petrie, will want to examine him,
I suppose?" He pointed to the body. "And in the meantime I have
some questions to put to you, my man."