President Fu-Manchu (15 page)

Almost at the same moment, in a room at the top of the Regal Tower, Mark Hepburn spoke on the telephone. He had had all calls put through to his own room in order that Nayland Smith might not be disturbed; for, at last, Smith was sleeping.

“This Englishman who left Airlines at Elmira,” he said in his dry, monotonous voice, “sounds to me like the man we’re looking for. The fact that he wears plus fours and a monocle doesn’t count, nor the fact that he is traveling with a golf bag. I have learned that Abbot Donegal used a single eyeglass before he took to spectacles. He could probably get along with it quite well except for reading. Also, he’s a golfer. The English accent means nothing. Abbot Donegal is a trained orator. Check up on all roadhouses and hotels along possible routes which he might follow if, as you suspect, he left by road from Elmira. Take a radio car so we keep track of you. Report from point to point. If he is definitely identified take no action until you have my instructions. We have contrived to silence the newspapers about his disappearance. But he is probably coming to New York to take Prescott’s place at Camegie Hall—if Prescott fails to arrive. This would ruin our plans… All right—good-bye.”

He hung up the receiver.

* * *

In the vestibule of a small country hotel two men sat over their coffee before a crackling log fire. Outside, a storm raged. The howling of the wind could be heard in the chimney, and whenever the main door was opened a veil of sleet might be seen in the light shining out from inside. It was a wild night.

The men seated before the fire were an odd couple. One, of slight but wiry build, clean-shaven and fresh colored, lean-faced, his hair graying, wore a tweed suit with plus fours, thick woolen stockings and brown brogues. A monocle glittered in the firelight as he bent to refill his pipe. His companion, a clergyman equally lean of feature, watched him, blinking his eyes in the way of one shortsighted. A close observer might have noted a physical but not a spiritual resemblance.

“I mean to say,” said the man with the monocle, stuffing tobacco into the bowl of his briar, “it’s a bad time to see America. I agree; but I couldn’t help myself, if you see what I mean. It had to be now or never sort of thing. People have been awfully nice—” he paused to strike a match—“
I
am the silly ass; nobody else to blame. Thanks to you, I know it would be stupid to push on tonight.”

“I am told,” said the priest, his gentle voice a contrast to that of the other speaker, “that Colonel Challoner lives some twenty miles from here. For my own part I have no choice.”

“What!” The man with the monocle, in the act of lighting his pipe, paused, looked up. “You’re pushing on?”

“Duty demands.”

“Oh, I see, sir. A sick call, I take it?” The clergyman watched him silently for a few moments.

“A sick call—yes…

The outer door opened, admitting a blast of icy air. Three men came in, the last to enter closing the door behind him. They were useful-looking men, thick-set and hard.

“In luck at last!” one of them exclaimed.

All three were watching the man with the monocle. One, who was evidently the leader of the party, square-jawed and truculent, raised his hand as if to silence the others, and stepped forward. As he did so the proprietor of the hotel appeared through an inner doorway. The man paused, glanced at him.

“Find some Scotch,” he ordered—“real Scotch. Not here—inside, some place. Me and these boys have business to talk over.”

The proprietor, a taciturn New Englander, nodded and disappeared. The speaker, not removing his hat, stood staring down at the man with the eyeglass. His companions were looking in the same direction. The focus of attention, pipe between his teeth, gazed at the three in blank astonishment.

“Don’t want to intrude—” the leader gave a cursory nod to the clergyman—“real sorry to interrupt; but I must ask
you—
” he placed a compelling hand on the shoulder of the wearer of the monocle—“to step inside for just a minute. Got a couple o’ questions to put to you.”

“What the deuce d’you mean?”

“I’m a government agent, and I’m on urgent business. Just a couple of questions.”

“I never heard of such balderdash in my life,” the other declared. He turned to the clergyman. “Did you?”

“It will probably save trouble in the long run if you assist the officer.”

“Right-oh. I’m obliged for the tip. Very funny and odd, but still…”

Pipe firmly clenched between his teeth, he walked out followed by the leader of the party, the other two members of which brought up the rear. They found themselves in a small back hall from which arose a stair communicating with upper floors. On a table stood a bottle of whisky, glasses and a pitcher of ice water.

“No need to go farther,” said the agent; “we’re all set here.” He stared hard at the man in plus fours. “Listen, Abbot: why the fancy dress?”

“What d’you mean, Abbot?” was the angry reply. “My name’s not Abbot, and if it were you’d have a damned cheek to address me in that way!”

“Cut the funny lines. They ain’t funny. I’m here on business. You don’t have to try to make me laugh. What’s the name that goes with the eye-window?”

“I’m tempted,” said the man addressed, speaking with a cold anger which his amiably vacant manner would not have led one to anticipate, “to tell you to go to hell.” He focused an icy stare in turn upon each of the three grim faces. “You’ve stepped off with the wrong foot, my friends.”

He plunged to an inside pocket. Instantly three steel barrels covered him. He ignored them, handing a British passport to the leader of the party. There was a minute of ominous silence during which the man scrutinized the passport and the photograph, comparing the latter with its subject. At last:

“Boys!”—he turned to his satellites—“we’re up the wrong gum tree. We’ve got hold of Captain the Honorable George Forsdyke-Forsdyke of the Grenadier Guards! Schultz, jump to the phone. Notify Base and ask for President’s instructions…”

Some ten minutes later the Honorable George Forsdyke-Forsdyke found himself in sole possession of the little vestibule. The three federal officers had gone. He had had a glimpse through the driving sleet of a powerful car drawn up before the door. The amiable clergyman had gone. He was alone, mystified, irritated.

“Well, I’m damned!” he said.

At which moment, and while through the howling of the storm the purr of the departing car might still be heard, came the roar of a second and even more powerful engine. Again the door was thrown open, and two men came in. Forsdyke-Forsdyke turned and faced them.

“O.K. this time, Chief!” said one, exhibiting a row of glittering white teeth.

The other nodded and stepped forward.

“Good evening, Dom Patrick Donegal,” he said, and pulled aside a dripping leather overcoat to exhibit a gold badge. “A nice run you’ve given us!”

“Here! I say!” exclaimed Forsdyke-Forsdyke. “This damn joke is getting stale!”

And in a dilapidated but roadworthy Ford the amiable priest was driving furiously through the storm in the direction of New York: the Abbot of Holy Thorn was one stage further on his self-imposed journey.

M
oya Adair stepped out of the elevator, crossed the marble lobby of the luxurious apartment house and came out on to Park Avenue. She was muffled up in her mink coat, the little Basque beret which she wore in rough weather crushed tightly upon mahogany-red curls. A high, fiercely cold wind had temporarily driven the clouds away, and a frosty moon looked down from a glittering sky. Moya inhaled delightedly the ice-cold air from the Avenue. It was clean and wholesome in contrast to the smoke-laden atmosphere of the Dumas apartment.

Her new assignment terrified her. For some reason known only to the President, that awful Chinaman who dominated her life, she had been chosen to supplant Lola Dumas. And she feared the enmity of Lola Dumas second only to that of the President. It was the yellow streak, more marked in her than in her father, which made her terrible; Moya, who had met her several times, had often thought of Lola as a beautiful, evil priestess of Voodoo—a dabbler in strange rites.

She began to walk briskly in the direction of a nearby hotel where, as Miss Eileen Breon, accommodation had been provided for her by the organization to which unwillingly she belonged. She felt as though she had escaped from an ever-present danger.

Harvey Bragg, potential Dictator of America, had accepted her appearance in the spirit in which sultans had formerly welcomed the present of a Circassian slave girl, And she had nowhere to turn for help—unless to the President. Oddly enough, she trusted that majestic but evil man.

The newspapers, in which politics occupied so much space, were nevertheless giving prominence to the mysterious death of James Richet. In her heart of hearts Moya Adair believed that James Richet had been executed by the President’s orders. The power of the sinister Chinaman was terrifying; yet although he held a life dearer than her own in his hands, Moya’s service was not wholly one of fear. He had never called upon her to do anything which her philosophy told her to be despicable. Sometimes in her dreams she thought that he was Satan, fallen son of the morning, but in her very soul she knew that his word was inviolable; that execrable though his deeds appeared to Western eyes, paradoxically he might be trusted to give measure for measure.

Her first instructions in regard to Bragg had related to the forthcoming debate at Carnegie Hall. She had given him certain typed notes; with many of which he had quarrelled furiously. The odd fact had dawned upon her during this first interview that Bragg had never met the President!

“I’ll play this bunch of underground stiffs just as long as their funds last out,” he had declared. “But you can tell your President that what I need is his money, not his orders!”

Moya pointed out that directions received in the past had invariably led to success. Bragg, becoming more and more deeply intrigued, had tried to cross-examine. Failing, he had changed his tactics and made coarsely violent love to her…

She raised her face, as she hurried along, to the healing purity of the moonlight. Salvaletti tactfully had terminated that first hateful interview; but she shrank from Salvaletti as she instinctively shrank from snakes. Since then, the scene had been re-enacted—many times.

She had reached her hotel and was just turning into the doorway when a hand touched her shoulder…

It had come—and, almost, it was welcome!

Since that snowy night outside the Tower of the Holy Thorn, hourly she had expected arrest. She glanced swiftly aside.

A tall, bearded man who wore glasses, a black hat and a caped topcoat stood at her elbow.

“Live here, Mrs. Adair?” he asked drily.

A stream of traffic released at that moment by a changing light almost drowned her reply, in so low a voice did she speak.

“Yes. Who are you, and what do you want?”

Yet even as she spoke she knew that she had heard that monotonous voice before. Under the shadow of his hat brim the man’s eyes glistened through the spectacles.

“I want to step inside and have a word with you”

“But I don’t know you.”

The man pulled the caped coat aside, and she saw the glitter of a gold badge. Yes, she had been right—a federal officer! It was finished: she was in the hands of the law; free of the awful President, but…

The lobby of the expensively discreet apartment hotel was deserted, for the hour was late. But as they sat down facing each other across a small table, Moya Adair had entirely recovered her composure. She had learned in these last years that she could not afford to be a woman; she blessed the heritage of courage and common sense which was hers. It had saved her from madness, from suicide; from even worse than suicide.

And now the federal agent removed his black hat. She knew him and, in the moment of recognition, wondered why she was glad.

She smiled into the bearded face—and Moya was not ignorant of the fact that her smile was enchanting.

“Am I to consider myself under arrest?” she asked. “Because, if so, I don’t expect to have the same luck as last time.”

Mark Hepburn removed his black-rimmed spectacles and stared at her steadily. She remembered his deep-set eyes—remembered them as dreamy eyes, the eyes of a poet. Now, they were cold. Her brave flippancy had awakened the Quaker ancestors, those restless Puritan spirits who watched eternally over Mark Hepburn’s soul. This was the traditional attitude of a hardened adventuress. When he replied, his voice sounded very harsh.

“Technically, it’s my duty to arrest you, Mrs. Adair; but we’re not so trammeled by red tape as the police.” He was watching her firm, beautifully modeled lips and trying to solve the mystery of how she could give her kisses to Harvey Bragg. “I have been waiting ever since that night at the Tower for a chat with you.”

She made no reply.

“An associate of yours on Abbot Donegal’s staff was murdered recently outside the Regal Hotel. You may have heard of it?”

Moya Adair nodded.