The Mask of Fu-Manchu Page 5

  For the keen weapon which had pierced through Van Berg’s back and reached his heart, I substituted a dreadful kind of beak—the beak of a thing not of this world; a flying horror, such as the Arab romancers have conjured up—a ghoulish creature haunting the ancient cemetery just beyond the city walls...

  It was the cry of this creature, I told myself, that moaning, wailing cry, which had given rise to the legend of the Ghost Mosque, which had led to this little street becoming deserted, and had made the house in which we lived uninhabitable for so many years.

  At which point in my grisly reflections a sound caused me to draw a sharp breath. I crouched, listening intently.

  Footsteps!

  Someone was walking along the street below. The regular, measured steps paused at a point which I estimated to be somewhere just in front of the door of the house. I anticipated a challenge from Ali Mahmoud, but recalled that Sir Denis’s instructions on this point had been implicit.

  There was no challenge. The footsteps sounded again, echoing hollowly now, so that I knew the walker to be passing that out-jutting wall of the mosque and approaching the dark, tunnel-like archway and the three steps leading to the narrow lane which skirted the base of the minaret.

  I heard him mount the three steps; then again he paused…

  What would I not have given for a glimpse of him! A passer-by was a phenomenon in that street at night. I dared not move, however. The footsteps continued—and presently died away altogether.

  Silence descended again upon this uncanny quarter.

  How long elapsed I had no means of judging; probably only a few minutes. But I had begun to induce a sort of hypnosis by my concentrated staring at the slit between the shutters, when—from high up and a long way off, I heard the sound...

  It brought my mind back in a flash to those horrible imaginings which had absorbed me at the moment that footsteps had broken the stillness. It was coming!… The flying death!

  A sort of horrible expectancy claimed me, as, pistol in hand, I watched the opening between the shutters.

  Silence fell again. I could detect no sound either within the house or outside.

  Whereupon it happened—the thing I had been waiting for; a thing seemingly beyond human explanation.

  There came a faint pattering sound on the narrow ledge outside and below the shutters. A dull impact and a faint creaking of woodwork told of a weight imposed upon the projecting window. Something began to move upward—a dim shadow behind the slats—upward and inward—towards the opening...

  The tension of watching and waiting grew almost too keen to tolerate. But my orders were definite, and wait I must.

  Beyond that faint straining of woodwork, no sound whatever was occasioned by the intruder. No sign came from below to indicate that Ali Mahmoud had seen anything of this apparition, which indeed, since it had apparently flown through the air, was not remarkable.

  Then—the shutters began very silently to open...

  CHAPTER TEN

  I SEE THE SLAYER

  The shutter opened so silently and so slowly that only by the closest watching could I detect the movement. There was absolutely no creaking.

  A window of the Ghost Mosque on the opposite side of the street, looking like a black smudge on a dirty yellow canvas, came just in line with the edge of the left-hand shutter. And only by the ever increasing gap of yellow between the woodwork and the smudge of shadow, could I tell what was happening.

  The effect was slowly to add to the light in the room. So accustomed had I become to the dimness that I felt myself shrinking back farther into my hiding place; although in actual fact the access of light was less, I suppose, than would have been gained by the introduction of a solitary candle.

  My ghoulish imaginings came to a head.

  Some vampire creature from the ancient cemetery was about to spring in. More than once since the relics of El Mokanna had come into our possession I had laughed at Rima’s superstitious terrors, but at this moment I admit frankly that I shared them.

  Ispahan lay around me, silent as a city of the past. I might have been alone in Persia. And always the fear was with me that Nayland Smith, for all his peculiar genius, had misjudged the circumstances which had led to the death of Van Berg; that I was about to be subjected to a test greater perhaps than my spiritual strength could cope with.

  What I should have done at this moment had I been a free agent, I cannot even guess. But I doubt it I could have remained there silent and watching.

  Fortunately, I was under orders. I meant to carry those orders out to the letter. But in honesty I must record that during the interminable moments which elapsed from the time that some incredible creature had alighted outside the window, to the moment that the shutters became fully opened, I doubted the wisdom of Nayland Smith...

  A vague mass rose inch by inch over the window ledge; grew higher—denser, as it seemed to me; and, with a wriggling movement indescribably horrible, reached the top of that low cupboard which extended below the window—and crouched or lay there.

  I had formed absolutely no conception of outline. The entrance of the nocturnal creature had been effected in such a manner that definition was impossible. This was the point, I think, at which my courage almost touched vanishing point.

  What was the thing on top of the cupboard? Something which could fly—something which had no determinate shape…

  I knew that the visitor was inspecting the room keenly. To me, as I have said, it seemed to have become brightly illuminated. Colt in hand, I shrank farther and farther away from the narrow opening through which I was peering, until my back was flat against the wall.

  That vague outline which disturbed the square of the open window disappeared. A very soft thud which must have been inaudible to ears less keenly attuned than mine told me that the visitant, almost certainly the slayer of Van Berg, had dropped onto the floor and was now in the room with me!

  I peered into the darkness left of the big, littered table. Something was approaching the bed… going, I thought, on all fours.

  Definitely, the approaching was oblique—that is, not in my direction. I was conscious of a shock of relief. I had not been seen.

  Something glittered dully in the reflected light, and I heard a faint swishing sound, almost the first, expecting the thud, which had betrayed the presence of this nocturnal assassin.

  At first it puzzled me, and then, suddenly, to my mind an explanation sprang.

  The creature was spraying the bed...

  Ideas quickly associated themselves; for at this same moment there was swept to my nostrils an almost overpowering perfume of mimosa—the same that had haunted poor Van Berg’s room.

  It was some unfamiliar but tremendously potent anaesthetic.

  In the instant that realisation came to me, I knew also that the horrible visitor was not a supernatural creature but human. True, his agility was far above the ordinary, and his powers of silent movement were uncanny.

  He was evidently armed with some kind of spray; and during the time that its curiously soothing sound continued, I found, so oddly does the mind react to indefinable fear, that my thoughts had wandered. I was thinking about an account I had once read of a mysterious creature known as Spring-heeled Jack, who terrorised outlying parts of London many years ago.

  For the fact remained that this man, now endeavouring to reduce the occupant of the bed to unconsciousness, could apparently spring to high windows, quite beyond the reach of any human jumper, and indeed, beyond the reach of any member of the animal kingdom!

  The swishing sound ceased. Absolute silence followed...

  Peer intensely as I would, I could detect no trace of another presence in the room. But I knew exactly what was happening. The unimaginable man who had come through the window was crouching somewhere and listening. Probably he was counting, silently, knowing how many seconds must elapse before the unknown drug which smelled like mimosa could reduce the sleeper to unconsciousness—or, perhaps, bring
about death...

  Distant though I was from the bed, that sickly sweet odour was making me dizzy.

  Fully a minute elapsed. No sound could I hear; nor could I detect a movement. But during that age-long minute I observed a vague white patch in the darkness, and presently I identified it. It was made by the initials painted on the green iron box.

  And as I watched, this white patch became obscured.

  A sound disturbed that all-but-insufferable silence—a sound of heavy breathing. Then, silhouetted against the window… I saw the intruder.

  I saw a small, lithe body, muscular arms uplifted, the green box born upon the right shoulder.

  My hand trembled upon the trigger, but Nayland Smith’s instructions had been definite. The man bore the box to the end of the room. Here, shadow from the cupboard swallowed him up. Preceded by very little noise the square outline of the box now appeared upon the top of the cupboard.

  He had raised it above his head and placed it there, by which circumstances, since he appeared to be a small man, I was able to judge of his extraordinary strength.

  My heart was beating very fast and I realised that I was holding my breath. I inhaled deeply, watching, now, the square of the opened window. A silhouetted arm appeared above the box, then a shoulder, and finally the whole of a lean body.

  The midnight visitor was a Negro, or a member of some very dark race, wearing only a black loincloth: his features I could not see.

  His movements interested me intensely. Stooping, he bent over the box. Certain metallic sounds told me that the iron handles at either end were being moved.

  Then, as I watched... the box disappeared!

  The black man alone, a crouching silhouette, remained outlined in the open window. The box had gone; incredible fact—but the box had gone! Silently, save for a distant thud that heavy iron chest had been “vanished” from the room as a conjurer vanishes a coin!

  An interval followed, my reactions during which I cannot hope to describe, until presently I saw that the crouching figure was performing a sort of hauling movement. This movement ceased.

  He stood suddenly upright... and disappeared.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE MAN ON THE MINARET

  That vague supernatural dread which latterly I had shaken off swept back again like a cloud, touching me coldly. The window space was perfectly blank, now. The iron box had gone; the black man had gone. This miracle had been achieved with scarcely any sound!

  The legend of Spring-heeled Jack crossed my mind again. Then I was up. My period of enforced inactivity was ended.

  I pressed the button of my torch and, springing out from behind the big trunk, directed a ray along the narrow room. The air was still heavy with a vague sickly perfume of mimosa; but I gave no glance at the pillow which had been sprayed with this strange anaesthetic. The bed had been carefully prepared by Nayland Smith to produce the appearance of a sleeper.

  “An old dodge of mine, Greville,” he had said, “which will certainly fail if the enemy suspects that I am here.”

  Either the enemy did not suspect, or, like the ancient confidence trick, it was a device which age did not wither nor custom stale...

  As though it had been a prearranged cue, that flash of light in the empty room heralded a sound—the sound... an indescribable humming which rose and rose, developed into a sort of wail, then died away like muted roaring…

  I must explain at this point that from the moment of the figure’s disappearance from the window to that when, switching on the light, I ran forward, only a very few seconds had elapsed.

  Leaping upon the low cupboard, and staring down into the street, I witnessed a singular spectacle.

  That extraordinary sound, the origin of which had defied all speculation, was still audible, and since it seemed to come from somewhere high above my head, my first instinct was to look up.

  I did not do so, however.

  At the moment that I sprang into the open window, my glance was instantly drawn downward. I saw a figure—that of the black creature who had just quitted the room—apparently suspended in space, midway across the street!

  His arms raised above his head, he was soaring upward towards a window of the Ghost Mosque!

  “Good God!” I said aloud—“it isn’t human…”

  There came a wild scream. The flying figure faltered—the upraised arms dropped—and he was dashed with a dull thud against the wall of the mosque, some eight feet below the window. From there he fell sheerly to the street below. A second, sickening, thud reached my ears...

  The crack of a pistol, a sharp spurt of flame from the gallery of the minaret far above my head, drew my glance upward now. I saw a black-robed black-faced figure there, bathed in brilliant moonlight, bending over the rail and firing down upon the roof of the mosque below!

  Once he fired, and moved further around the gallery. A second time. And then, as he disappeared from view, I heard the sound of a third shot…

  Pandemonium awakened in the house about me. Ali Mahmoud was unfastening the heavy bolt which closed the front door. Rima’s voice came from the landing above.

  “Shan! Shan! Are you all right?”

  “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!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IN THE GHOST MOSQUE

  An 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 f
ormerly 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.