The Island of Fu-Manchu Page 7

  But I stood there, stricken motionless, gripped by anguish such as I had never known. My very faith in a just God was shaken by this revelation, by recognition of the fact that a fiend could use this perfect casket of a human soul as a laboratory experiment, reduce a beautiful woman, meant for love and happiness, to the level of a beast of burden—and escape the wrath of Heaven. I wondered if any lover since the world began had suffered such a moment.

  Yet, Fu-Manchu was mortal. There must be a way.

  “I shall let you go, my dearest. But don’t accept the idea that it is for good. What has been done by one man can be undone by another.” I continued to speak quietly, and as I would have spoken to a frightened child. “Tell me first, why you came here?”

  “For Jacob Bohm’s notes that he was making to give to the police,” she answered simply. “I have burned everything. Look—you can see the ashes on the fire.”

  As she spoke, I understood why the fire had burned up so brightly. A glance was sufficient to convince me that not a fragment could be recovered.

  “And when you leave here, where are you going?”

  “It is impossible for me to tell you that. But there are servants of the Si-Fan watching this house.” (I thought of the yellow faced man whom we had nearly run down.) “Even if you were cruel enough to try, you could not get me away. I think”—she hesitated, glanced swiftly up—“that tonight or in the early morning we leave for America.”

  “America!”

  “Yes.” She slipped free—for I had kept my arm about her shoulders. “I just could not bear to… say good-bye. Please, look away for only a moment—if you really care for my happiness: I beg of you!”

  There was abandonment, despair, in her pleading voice. No man could have refused; and after all I was not a police officer. I looked long and hungrily into those eyes which tonight were like twin amethysts, and walked across to the fire.

  “I will try, I will try to see you again—to speak to you.”

  Only the faintest sound, a light tread on the stair, told me that Ardatha was gone…

  CHAPTER TEN

  BARTON’S SECRET

  “I don’t blame you, Kerrigan,” said Nayland Smith; “in fact I cannot see what else you could have done.”

  “Damn it, nor can I!” growled Barton.

  We were back in my flat, after a night of frustration for which, in part, I held myself responsible. Barton had admitted us. He had returned an hour earlier, having borrowed my key. The police had forced a way into the old warehouse; they were still searching it when I rejoined the party. The room, the very bench on which Dr. Oster’s corpse had lain, fragments of twine, they had found, but nothing else. The River was being dragged for the body.

  That laboratory which smelt like the Morgue was below water level: it had been flooded. Only by means of elaborate pumping operations could we hope to learn what evidence still remained there of the nature of the Doctor’s mysterious, and merciless, experiments.

  “Infernally narrow escape for both of us, Kerrigan,” said Sir Lionel; and crossing to the buffet he replenished his glass. “Good shot, that of yours.” He squirted soda water from a syphon. “I owe my life to you: you owe yours to Ardatha. Gad! there’s a girl! But what an impossible situation!”

  Smith stood up, and passing, grasped my shoulder.

  “Even worse situations have been dealt with,” he said. “I am wondering, Kerrigan, if you have recognised the clue to Ardatha’s loss of memory?”

  As he began to pace to and fro across my dining-room:

  “I think so!” I replied. “That yellow devil decided to reclaim her, and it was he who destroyed her memory!”

  “Exactly—as he has done before, with others. I said to you some time ago, ‘Fu-Manchu once had a daughter—’”

  “Smith!” I interrupted excitedly, “it was not until I saw Ardatha in Pelling Street that the meaning of those words came to me. If he did not hesitate in the case of his own flesh and blood to efface all memories of identity, why should he hesitate in the case of Ardatha?”

  “He didn’t! Ardatha remembers only that she is called Ardatha. Fu-Manchu’s daughter, whom once I knew by her childish name of Fah-lo-Suee, became Koreâni. You can bear me out, Kerrigan: you have met her.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Ardathas and Koreânis are rare. Fu-Manchu has always employed beauty as one of his most potent weapons. His own daughter he regarded merely as a useful instrument when he saw that she was beautiful. He found Ardatha difficult to replace; therefore, he recalled her. Oh! she had no choice. But she has the proud spirit of her race—and so he bound her to him by this damnable living death from which there is no escape!”

  He was pacing the carpet at an ever-increasing speed, his pipe bubbling furiously; and something which emanated from that vital personality gave me new courage. I was not alone in my fight to save Ardatha from the devil doctor.

  “Smith,” said Sir Lionel, leaning back against the buffet—for even his tough constitution had suffered in the night’s work and he was comparatively subdued—”this infernal thing means that if I saw Fu-Manchu before me, now, I couldn’t shoot him!”

  “It does,” Smith replied. “He was prepared to hold Kerrigan as a hostage. He overlooked the fact that whilst Kerrigan lived, Ardatha served the same purpose.”

  Barton plunged his hands in his trouser pockets and became lost in reflection. His deep-set blue eyes danced queerly.

  “We both know the Chinese,” he murmured. ‘‘I don’t think I should give up hope, Kerrigan. There may be a way.”

  “I’m sure there is—there must be!” I broke in. “Dr. Fu-Manchu is subject, after all, to human laws. He is supernormal, but not immortal. We all have our weaknesses. Mine, perhaps, is my love for Ardatha. He must have his. Smith, we must find Koreâni!”

  “I found her two months ago.”

  “What!”

  “She was then in Cuba. Where she is now I cannot say. But if you suppose that Fu-Manchu would turn a hair’s breadth from his path to save his daughter, you are backing the wrong horse. Assuming that we could capture her, well—as an exchange for Ardatha (freed from the living death; for I have known others who have suffered it but who live today) she would be a worthless hostage. He would sacrifice Koreâni without a moment’s hesitation!”

  I was silent.

  “Buck up, Kerrigan,” said Sir Lionel. “I said there might be a way, and I stick to it.”

  Smith stared at him curiously, and then:

  “As for you,” he remarked, “as usual you are an infernal nuisance.”

  “Don’t mention it!”

  “I must. Your inquiries in Haiti last year, followed by your studies in Norfolk and, finally, your conversations with the War Office, attracted the attention of Dr. Fu-Manchu.”

  “Very likely.”

  “It was these conversations, reported to me whilst I was in the West Indies, that brought me back, post haste—”

  “Fu-Manchu got here first,” Barton interrupted. “There were two attempts to burgle my house. Queer-looking people were watching Abbots Hold. Finally, I received a notice signed ‘President of the Seven’, informing me that I had twenty-four hours in which to hand over certain documents.”

  “You have this notice?” Smith asked eagerly.

  “I had: it was in the stolen bag.”

  Smith snapped his fingers irritably.

  “And when you received it what did you do?”

  “Bolted. I was followed all the way to London. That was why I phoned Kerrigan and came here. I didn’t want to be alone.”

  “You were right,” said Smith. “But you came to your senses too late. I am prepared to hear that the fact of Fu-Manchu’s interest in your affairs did not dawn upon you until you got this notice?”

  “Suspected it before that. These reports from the Caribbean suggested that something very queer was afoot there. It occurred to me that bigger things than a mere treasure hunt were involved, so I offered my
services to the War Office—”

  “And behaved so badly that you were practically thrown out! Let me explain what happened. Your earlier correspondence with the War Office, although obscure, was considered to be of sufficient importance to be transmitted in code to me. I was then in Kingston, Jamaica. I dashed home. I went first to Norfolk, learned you had left for London, and followed. That was yesterday morning. I was dashing about Town trying to pick you up. I practically followed you into the War Office, and what you had said there convinced me that at all costs I must find you.”

  “The War Office can go to the devil,” growled Barton, refilling his glass.

  “I say,” Smith went on patiently, “that I tried to tail you in London. I still have facilities, you know!” He smiled suddenly. “I gathered that you had gone to the British Museum—”

  “Yes—I had.”

  “I failed to find you there.”

  “Didn’t look in the right room.”

  “Possibly not. But I looked into one room which offered certain information.” He paused to relight his pipe. “You have been working for years hunting down the few clues which remain to the hiding-place of the vast treasure accumulated by Christophe of Haiti. You know your business. Barton; you haven’t your equal in Europe or America when it comes to archaeological research.”

  “Thank you,” growled Barton. “You may join the War Office and also go to the devil, with my compliments.”

  Through chinks in the blinds early spears of dawn were piercing, cold and grey in contrast with the lamplight.

  “Your compliments might prove to be an admirable introduction. But to continue. You, ahead of them all, even ahead of the Si-Fan and Dr. Fu-Manchu, got on to the track of the family to whom these clues belong. You traced them by generations. And you ultimately obtained, from the last bearer of the name, certain objects known as ‘The Stewart Luck’; amongst them, Christophe’s chart showing where the bullion lies. I do not inquire how you managed this.”

  “It isn’t necessary,” Barton blazed. “I have my own methods. Buried history must be torn remorselessly from its hiding-place and set in the light of day. Once I have established facts, I allow nothing to stand in my way.”

  “You are not enlightening me,” said Smith drily. “My experiences with you in Khorassan, in Egypt, and elsewhere had already convinced me of this. Your latest discovery from the Portuguese of da Cunha (you see I did not entirely waste my time in the British Museum) added enormously to your knowledge—”

  Sir Lionel appeared to be about to burst into speech. But he restrained himself; he seemed to be bewildered. Smith paused, pulled out a note-case and from it extracted a piece of paper. Switching on the green-shaded lamp on the desk, he read aloud:

  “Da Cunha says that there is ‘a great and lofty cave in which a fleet might lie hid, save that the way in from the sea, although both deep and wide and high, is below the tide, so that none but a mighty swimmer could compass the passage’… He adds that the one and only entrance from the land has been blocked, but he goes on, ‘Failing possession of Christophe’s chart no man can hope to reach the treasure’.”

  Sir Lionel Barton was standing quite still, staring at Smith as one amazed.

  “That quotation from a rare Portuguese MS. in the Manuscript Room,” said Smith, placing the fragment in his case, the case in his pocket, and turning to look at Barton, “you copied. The curator told me that you had borrowed the MS. Since the collection is closed to the public at present you abused your privileges, and were vandal enough to make some pencil marks on the parchment. I said, you will remember, that I was unable to find you there. I did not say that I failed to find your tracks.” Barton did not speak, nor did I, and:

  “It was knowing what you had discovered,” Smith continued, “Which spurred my wild dash to find you. The bother in the Caribbean is explained. There is a plot to bottle up the American Navy. Fu-Manchu has played a big card.”

  “You are sure it is Fu-Manchu?”

  “Yes, Barton. He has a secret base in or near Haiti, and he has a new kind of submarine. No one but you—until tonight—knew of this other entrance to the cave. It is shown in that chart which was stolen from you by agents of Fu-Manchu.”

  “Suppose it is!” cried Barton; “what I should like you to tell me, if you can, is how, if Fu-Manchu is using this place as a base, he gets in and out. You don’t suppose he swims? Granting that small submarines can pass through under water, small submarines can’t carry all the gear needed for a young dockyard!”

  “That point is one to which I have given some attention,” said Smith. “It suggests that ‘the one and only entrance from the land’ referred to by da Cunha is not the entrance shown in the chart—”

  “You mean there are two?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Then why should these Si-Fan devils go to such lengths to get hold of my chart?”

  “Surely that is obvious. They feared an attack from this unknown point. They knew that the Intelligence services of two countries were making intensive inquiries; for whilst that ‘great and lofty cave’ remains undiscovered it is a menace to us and to the Unites States.”

  “It’s to the United States,” said Barton, “that I am offering my services. My own country, as usual, has turned me down.”

  “Nevertheless,” rapped Smith, “it is to your own country that you are offering your services. Listen. You retired from the Army with the rank of Major, I believe. Very well, you’re Lieutenant-Colonel.”

  “What!” shouted Barton.

  “I’ve bought you from the War Office. You’re mine, body and soul. You’re Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Lionel Barton, and you lead the expedition because I shall be in comparatively unfamiliar territory. But remember, you act under my orders.”

  “I prefer to act independently.”

  “You’ve been gazetted Lieutenant-Colonel and you’re under the orders of the War Office. There’s a Clipper leaves for the United States on Monday from Lisbon. I have peculiar powers. Be good enough to regard me as your commanding officer. Here are your papers.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE HOSTAGE

  I drew the blinds and stared down at Bayswater Road, dismal in the light of a wet, grey dawn. Sleep was out of the question. Two men stood talking over by the Park gate—the gate at which Ardatha had reappeared in my life. Although I heard no one enter the room behind me, a hand was placed on my shoulder. I started, turned, and looked into the lean, sunbaked face of Nayland Smith.

  “It’s rough on you, Kerrigan,” he said quietly. “Really you need rest. I know what you were thinking. But don’t despair. Gallaho has set a watch on every known point of departure.”

  “Do you expect any result?”

  He watched me for a moment, compassionately, and then:

  “No,” he replied, “she is probably already on her way to America.”

  I stifled a groan.

  “What I cannot understand,” I said, “is how these journeys are managed. Fu-Manchu seems to travel with a considerable company and to travel fast. He was prepared to include Barton and myself in the party. How is it done, Smith?”

  “I don’t know! I have puzzled over that very thing more times than enough. He returned from the West Indies ahead of me; yet no liner carried him and no known plane. Granting, it is true, that he commands tremendous financial resources, in war time no private yacht and certainly no private plane could go far unchallenged. I don’t know. It is just another of those mysteries which surround Dr. Fu-Manchu.”

  “Those two men are watching the house, Smith—”

  “It’s their job: Scotland Yard! We shall have a bodyguard up to the moment that we leave Croydon by air for Lisbon. This scheme to isolate the United States Navy is a major move in some dark game. It has a flaw, and Barton has found it!”

  “But they have the chart—”

  “Apart from the fact that he has copied the chart, Barton has an encyclopaedic memory—hence Fu-Manchu’s anx
iety to make sure of him.”

  London was not awake: it came to me that Nayland Smith and I alone were alive to a peril greater than any which had ever threatened the world. In the silence, for not even the milkmen were abroad yet, I could hear Barton breathing regularly in the spare room—that hardened old campaigner could have slept on Judgement Day.

  My phone bell rang.

  “What’s this?” muttered Smith.

  I opened the communicating door and went into the writing-room. I took up the receiver.

  “Hullo,” I said, “Who wants me?”

  “Are you Paddington 54321?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call from Zennor… You’re through, miss.”

  My heart began to beat wildly as I glanced towards the open door where Nayland Smith, haggard in grey light, stood watching.

  “Is that you?” asked a nervous voice.

  I suppose my eyes told Smith; he withdrew and quietly closed the door.

  “Ardatha! My dear, my dear! This is too wonderful! Where are you?”

  “I am in Cornwall. I have risked ever so much to speak to you before we go; and we are going in an hour—”

  “But Ardatha!”

  “Please listen. Time is so short for me. Hassan told me what happened. I knew your name and found your number in the book. It was my only chance to know if you were alive. I thank the good God that you are, because, you see, I am so alone and unhappy, and you—I like to believe that I have forgotten, now, because otherwise I should be ashamed to think about you so much!”

  “Ardatha!”

  “We shall be in New York on Thursday. I know that Nayland Smith is following us. If I am still there when you arrive I will try to speak to you again. There is one thing that might save me—you understand?—a queer, a silly little thing, but—”

  “Yes, yes, Ardatha! What is it? Tell me!”

  “I risked capture by the police to try to catch Peko—Dr. Fu-Manchu’s marmoset. That was when… we met. This strange pet, he is very old, is more dear to his master than any living thing. Try to find out…”