President Fu-Manchu (16 page)

“Yes; but why do you say he was murdered?”

“Because I know who murdered him and so do you:
Dr. Fu-Manchu
.”

He laid stress on the name, staring into Moya’s eyes. But with those words he had enabled her to speak the truth, Unafraid. That he referred to the President she divined; but to all connected with the organization the President’s name was unknown, except that on two occasions she had heard him referred to as “the Marquis.”

“To the best of my knowledge,” she replied quietly, “I have never met anyone called Dr. Fu-Manchu.”

Mark Hepburn, who had obtained Nayland Smith’s consent to handle this matter in his own way, realized that he had undertaken a task beyond his powers. This woman knew that she was fighting for her freedom—and he could not torture her. He was silent for a while, watching her, then:

“I should hate to think of you,” he said, “undergoing a police interrogation, Mrs. Adair. But you must know as well as I know that there’s a plot afoot to obtain control of this country. You are in on it: it’s
my
business to be. I can guarantee your safety; you can quit the country if you like. I know where you come from in County Wicklow; I know where your father is at the present time…”

Moya Adair’s eyes opened fully for a moment, and then quite closed. This man was honest, straight as a die: he offered her freedom, the chance to live her own life again… and she could not, dared not, accept what he offered!

“You have no place in murder gangs. You belong in another sphere. I want you to go back to it. I want you to be on the right side, not on the wrong. Trust me, and you won’t regret it, but try any tricks and you will leave me no alternative.”

He ceased speaking, watching Moya’s face. She was looking away from him with an unseeing gaze. But he knew because of his sensitively sympathetic character that she had understood and was battling with some problem outside his knowledge. The half-lighted lobby was very quiet, so that when a man who had been seated in a chair at the farther end, unsuspected, crossed to the elevator, Mark Hepburn turned sharply, glancing in his direction. Mrs. Adair remained abstracted. At the end of a long silence:

“I am going to trust you,” she said, and looked at him steadily, “Because I know I can. I am glad we have met—for after all there may be a way. Will you believe me if I swear to carry out what I am going to suggest…?”

Two minutes later, the man who had gone up in the elevator was speaking on the telephone in his apartment.

“Miss Eileen Breon talking in the lobby with a bearded man wearing spectacles and a black caped topcoat. Time 2.55 a.m. Report from Number 49.”

O
rwin Prescott opened his eyes and stared about the small bedroom—at two glass-topped tables, white enamelled walls, at a green-shaded lamp set near an armchair in which a nurse was seated; a very beautiful nurse whose dark eyes were fixed upon him intently.

He did not speak immediately, but lay there watching her and thinking.

Something had happened—at Carnegie Hall. The memory was not clear-cut; but something had happened in the course of his debate with Harvey Bragg. Had over-study, over-anxiety, resulted in a nervous breakdown? This was clearly a clinic in which he found himself.

In this idea he thought he saw a solution of the mental confusion in his mind. He was fascinated by the darkly beautiful face framed in the white nurse’s cap. Vaguely, he knew that he had seen the nurse before. He moved slowly, and found to his delight that there seemed to be nothing physically wrong with him. Then he spoke:

“Nurse—” his voice was full, authoritative; he recognized that in brain and body he was unimpaired by whatever had happened—“this is very bewildering. Please tell me where I am.”

The nurse stood up and walked to the bed: she was very slender, her movements were graceful.

“You are in the Park House Clinic, Dr. Prescott, and I am happy to say entirely your old self again.”

He watched her full lips, sensitive with sympathy.

“I collapsed during the debate?”

She shook her head smilingly.

“What a strange idea, Doctor. But I can understand that that would be upon your mind. Surely you remember walking out from Weaver’s Farm, your cousin’s home? There was snow on the ground, and you slipped and fell; you were unconscious for a long time. They brought you here. You are under the care of Dr. Sigmund. But all’s well, you see.”

“I feel as well as I ever felt in my life.”

“You
are
as well.”

She sat down beside the bed and rested a cool hand on his forehead. Her dark eyes when she bent towards him he thought extraordinarily beautiful.

And now Orwin Prescott sat up. There was vigor in his movements.

“Still I don’t understand. I assure you I recall whole passages in the debate at Carnegie Hall! I can remember Bragg’s triumph, my own ineptitude, my inability to counter his crude thrusts…”

“You were dreaming, Doctor; naturally the debate has been on your mind. Don’t overtire yourself.”

Gently she compelled him to lie down again.

“Then what really occurred?” he challenged.

The nurse smiled again soothingly.

“Nothing has occurred yet: except that we have got you in splendid form for the debate tonight.”

“What!”

“The debate at Carnegie Hall takes place tonight, and after a talk with your secretary, Mr. Norbert, who is waiting outside, I am quite sure you will be ready for it.”

Orwin Prescott stared at the speaker fixedly. A new, a dreadful idea, had presented itself to him, and:

“Do you assure me,” he said—“I beg you will be frank—that the debate has not taken place?”

“I give you my word,” she answered, meeting his glance with absolute candor. There is no mystery about it all except that you have had a vivid dream of the thing upon which your brain has been centered for so long.”

“Then I have been here—?”

“Ever since the accident, Doctor.” She stood up, crossed, and pressed a bell. “I am sending for Mr. Norbert,” she explained. “He is naturally anxious to see you.”

But whole phases of the debate seemed to ring in Prescott’s ears! He saw himself, he saw Bragg, he saw the vast audience as though a talking picture were being performed inside his brain!

The door opened, and Norbert came in; dark, perfectly groomed. The neat black moustache suggested a British army officer. He came forward with outstretched hand.

“Dr. Prescott!” he exclaimed, “this is fine.” He turned to the nurse. “Nurse Arlen, I must congratulate you. Dr. Sigmund, I know, is delighted.”

“Perhaps, Norbert,” said Prescott, “now that you are here we can get this thing straight. There are many points which are quite dark to me. It is all but incredible that I could have lain here—”

“Forget all that, Doctor,” Norbert urged, “for the moment. I am told that you are fit to talk shop, and so there is one thing upon which to concentrate—tonight’s debate.”

“It really is tonight?”

“I understand your bewilderment—but it really is tonight. Imagine our anxiety! It means the biggest check in Bragg’s headlong career to the White House. I am going to refresh your memory with all our notes up to the date of the accident at Weaver’s Farm. I had left you, you recall, to go to Washington. I have added some later points. Do you feel up to business?”

He turned to the nurse. “Nurse Arlen, you are sure it will not tire him?”

“Dr. Sigmund is confident that it will complete his cure.”

Orwin Prescott’s glance lingered on the beautiful dark face. Then, again sitting up, he turned to Maurice Norbert. He was conscious of growing enthusiasm, of an intense ardor for his great task.

“Perhaps one day I shall understand,” he said, ‘but at the moment—”

Norbert opened his portfolio.

* * *

In a small, square, stone-faced room deep in the Chinese Catacombs, old Sam Pak crouched upon a settee placed against a wall. One would have thought, watching the bent, motionless figure, that it was that of an embalmed Chinaman. There was little furniture in the room: a long narrow table, with a chair set behind it; upon the table appointments suggesting a medical consultant; upon the floor, two rugs. The arched doorway was closed by scarlet tapestry drapings.

Now these were drawn aside. A tall figure entered, a man who wore a black overcoat with a heavy astrakhan collar, and an astrakhan cap upon his head; also, he wore spectacles. As he entered, and he entered quite silently, Sam Pak stood up as if electrified, bowing very low in the Chinese manner. The tall man walked to the chair behind the table and seated himself.

He removed his spectacles. The wonderful lined face which had reminded so many observers of that of Seti I was revealed in its yellow mastery. Dr. Fu-Manchu spoke.

“Be seated,” he said.

Sam Pak resumed his seat.

“You guarantee,” the harsh, guttural voice continued—those brilliant green eyes were fixed inflexibly upon the ancient Chinaman, “the appearance of Dr. Orwin Prescott tonight?”

“You have my word, Marquis.”

“Three drops of the tincture must be administered ten minutes before he leaves.”

“It shall be administered.”

“Already, my friend, we are suffering at the hands of the bunglers we are compelled to employ. The pestilential priest Patrick Donegal has slipped through all our nets. Nor is it certain that he is not in the hands of Enemy Number One.”

The ancient head of Sam Pak was slowly nodded.

“The appearance of the Abbot at Carnegie Hall,” Dr. Fu-Manchu continued, “might be fatal to my plans. Yet”—removing heavy gloves he laid two long bony hands upon the table before him—“I remain in uncertainty.”

“In war, Master, there is always an element of uncertainty.”

“Uncertainty is part of the imperfect plan,” Fu-Manchu replied sibilantly. “Only the fool is uncertain. But the odds are heavy, my friend. Produce to me the man Herman Grosset, whom you have chosen for tonight’s great task.”

Sam Pak moved slightly, pressing a bell. The curtain was drawn aside, and a Chinese boy appeared. A few words of rapid instructions and he went out, dropping the curtain behind him.

There was silence in the queer room. Dr. Fu-Manchu, eyes half closed, leaned back in his chair. Sam Pak resembled a mummy set upright in ghastly raillery by some light-minded excavator. Then came vigorous footsteps, the curtains were switched aside and a man strode in.

Above medium height, of tremendously powerful build, dark-faced and formidable, Herman Grosset was a man with whom no one would willingly pick a quarrel. He looked about him challengingly, meeting the gaze of those half-closed green eyes with apparent indifference and merely glancing at old Sam Pak. He stepped to the table, staring down at Dr. Fu-Manchu.

His movements, his complete sang-froid, something, too, in the dark-browed face, might have reminded a close observer of Harvey Bragg; and indeed, Grosset was a half-brother of the potential dictator of the United States.

“So you are the President?” he said—and his gruff voice held a note of amused self-assurance. “I’m sure glad to meet you, President There’s some saying about ‘fools step in…’ I don’t know if it applies to me, but it’s kind of funny that you’ve stayed in the background with Harvey, but asked me to step right into the office.”

“The circumstances under which you stepped into the office,” came coldly, sibilantly, “are such that if you displease me, you will find it difficult to step out again.”

“Oh! I’m supposed to be impressed by the closed auto and the secret journey?” Grosset laughed and banged his fist on the table. “Look!”

With a lightning movement he snatched an automatic from his pocket and covered Dr. Fu-Manchu.

“I take big risks, because I know how to protect myself. While you’re for Harvey, I’m for you. If I thought you’d dare to cross him, you’d start out for your Chinese paradise this very minute. Harvey is going to be President. Harvey is going to be Dictator. Nothing else can set the country to rights. I wouldn’t hesitate—” he tapped the gun barrel on the table, watching out of the corner of his eye the old Chinaman on the settee—“I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot down any man living that got in his way. When he made me boss of his bodyguard he did the right thing.”

Dr. Fu-Manchu’s long, yellow hands with their cruelly pointed nails remained quite motionless. He did not stir a muscle; his eyes were mere green slits in the yellow mask. Then:

“No one doubts your loyalty to Harvey Bragg,” he said softly; “that point is not in dispute. It is known that you love him.”

“I’d die for him.”

The automatic disappeared into the pocket from which it had been taken. Two men stripped to the waist entered so silently that even the movement of the curtain was not audible. They sprang from behind like twin panthers upon Grosset.

“Hell!” he roared, “what’s this game!”

He bent his powerful body forward, striving to throw one of his assailants across his shoulder, but realized that he was gripped in a stranglehold.

“You damned yellow double-crosser,” he groaned, as his right arm was twisted back to breaking-point.