President Fu-Manchu (17 page)

From behind, an expanding gag was slipped into his gaping mouth. He gurgled, groaned, tried to kick, then collapsed as the pressure of fingers made itself felt, agonizingly, upon his eyeballs…

He had not even seen his assailants when straps were buckled about his legs, and his arms lashed behind him.

Throughout, Dr. Fu-Manchu never stirred. But when the man, his eyes fixed in frenzied hate upon the Chinese doctor, was carried, uttering inarticulate sounds, from the room, and the curtain fell behind his bearers:

“It is good, my friend,” Fu-Manchu said gutturally, addressing the mummy-like figure on the settee, “that you succeeded in bringing me a few expert servants.”

“It was well done,” old Sam Pak muttered.

“Tonight,” the precise tones continued, “we put our fortunes to the test. The woman Adair, to whom I have entrusted the tuition of Harvey Bragg, is one I can rely upon; I hold her in my hand. But the man himself, in his bloated arrogance, may fail us. I fear for little else.” His eyes became closed; he was thinking aloud. “If Enemy Number One has Abbot Donegal, all approaches to Carnegie Hall must be held against them. This I can arrange. We have little else to fear.”

From the material upon the table he delicately charged a hypodermic syringe with a pale-green fluid. Sam Pak watched him with misty eyes, and Dr. Fu-Manchu stood up.

“It is unfortunate,” he said, but there was a note of scientific enthusiasm in the guttural voice, “that my first important experiment in the use of this interesting drug should involve in success or failure such high issues. Come, my friend; I desire you to be present…”

Across the silent temple of the seven-eyed goddess they went: Fu-Manchu with his catlike walk; old Sam Pak shuffling behind. The place was silent and empty. They descended a stone stair, traversed the corridor lined with the six painted coffins, and passed the steel door beyond which a secret passage led to East River.

In a small, cell-like room, brightly lighted by a pendant lamp, Herman Grosset lay strapped to a fixed teak bench. The two immobile Chinamen had just completed their task as Dr. Fu-Manchu entered, and:

“Go!” he commanded in Chinese.

The men bowed and went out; their muscular bodies were dewy with perspiration. Grosset’s skin also gleamed wetly. He had been stripped to the waist; his eyes were starting from his head.

“Remove the gag, my friend,” Dr. Fu-Manchu directed.

Old Sam Pak stepped forward, bent over Grosset, and with a sudden, amazingly agile movement, wrenched the man’s mouth open and plucked out the expanding gag. Grosset turned his head aside and spat disgustedly; then:

“Dirty yellow thugs!” he whispered: he was panting. “You’ve been bought over! Maybe you think”—his powerful chest expanded hugely—“that if you get Harvey, Orwin Prescott has a chance! I’m telling you this: If any harm comes to Harvey, there’ll never be a Dictator in the United States.”

“We do not doubt,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “your love for Harvey Bragg.”

“No need to doubt it! Looks like I’m dying for him right here and now. I want to tell you this: He’s the biggest man this country has known for a whole generation and more. Think that over. I say it.”

“You would not consider changing your opinion?”

“I knew it!” Grosset was recovering vigor. “Saw it coming. Listen, you saffron-faced horror! You couldn’t buy me for all the gold in Washington. I’ve lived for Harvey right along… I’ll die for Harvey.”

“Admirable sentiments,” Dr. Fu-Manchu muttered, and bent over the strapped figure, hypodermic syringe in hand.

“What are you going to do to me?” Grosset shrieked, a sudden note of horror in his voice. “What are you going to do to me? Oh, you filthy yellow swine! If only my hands were free!”

“I am going to kill you, my friend. I have no future place for you in my plans.”

“Well, do it with a gun,” the man groaned, “or even a knife if you like. But that thing—”

He uttered a wild, despairing shriek as the needle point was plunged into his flesh. Veins like blue whipcords sprang up on his forehead, on his powerful arms, as he fought to evade the needle point. All was in vain: he groaned and, in the excess of his mental agony, became still.

Dr. Fu-Manchu handed the syringe to the old mandarin, who unemotionally had watched the operation. He stooped and applied his ear to the diaphragm of the unconscious man. Then, standing upright, he nodded.

“The second injection two hours before we want him.” He looked down at the powerful body strapped to the bench. “You have killed many men in defense of your idol, Grosset,” he murmured, apostrophizing the insensible figure. “Seven I have checked, and there are others. You shall end your career in a killing that is really worth while…

* * *

Carnegie Hall was packed to saturation point. It was an even bigger audience than Fritz Kreisler could have commanded; an audience equally keen with anticipation, equally tense. The headlong advance made by Harvey Bragg—once regarded as a petty local potentate by serious politicians, now recognized as a national force—had awakened the country to the fact that dictatorship, until latterly a subject for laughter, might, incredible though it seemed, be imminent.

The League of Good Americans reputedly numbered fifteen million members upon its roll. That many thousands of the homeless and hopeless had been given employment by Harvey Bragg was an undisputed fact The counter measures of the old administration, dramatically drastic, had apparently done little to check a growing feverish enthusiasm awakened throughout the country by “Bluebeard.” An ever-expanding section of the public regarded him as a savior; another and saner element recognized that he was a menace to the Constitution. Dr. Orwin Prescott, scholarly, sincere, had succeeded in driving a wedge between two conflicting bodies—and the gap was widening.

That Orwin Prescott advocated a sane administration, every sensible citizen appreciated. His avowed object was to split the Bragg camp; but there were those who maintained, although he had definitely denied the charge, that secretly he aimed at nomination to the Presidency.

There was a rumor abroad that he would declare himself tonight.

Among the more thoughtful elements he undoubtedly had a large following, and if the weight of the Abbot of Holy Thorn at the eleventh hour should be thrown into the scales, it was obvious to students of the situation that the forces of Orwin Prescott would become nearly as formidable as those of Harvey Bragg.

In the course of the last few hectic months other contestants had been wiped off the political map. Republican voters, recanting their vows of 1932, had rallied to Orwin Prescott. Agriculture stood solid for the old administration, although Ohio had a big Bragg faction. The ghost of a conservative third party had been exorcised by Abbot Donegal, a close friend of Prescott.

There was a certain studious mystery about Dr. Orwin Prescott which appealed to a large intellectual class. His periodical retirements from public life, a certain aura of secret studies which surrounded him, and the recent silence of Abbot Donegal, had been interpreted as a piece of strategy, the importance of which might at any moment become manifest. One would have had to search far back in American history for a parallel of the almost hysterical excitement which dominated this packed assembly.

The huge building was entirely in the hands of police and federal agents. Hidden patrols covered the route from the Dumases’ apartment on Park Avenue right to the door of the hall by which Harvey Bragg would enter. Up to an hour before the meeting was timed to open, no one knew where Prescott was, or even if he were in the city. The audience, which numbered over three thousand, had been admitted to their seats, every man and woman closely scrutinized by hawk-eyed police officers. The buzz of that human beehive was something all but incredible.

A military band played patriotic music, many numbers being sung in unison by three thousand voices. Suspense was intense; excitement electrical.

Nayland Smith, in an office cut off from the emotional vibrations of that vast gathering, was in constant touch with police headquarters, and with Fey, who sat at the telephone at the top of the Regal Tower. Mark Hepburn, bearded and bespectacled, ranged the building from floor to floor, reporting at intervals in the office which Nayland Smith had made his temporary base.

Outside, limelight turned night into day, and a team of cameramen awaited the arrival of distinguished members of the audience. Thousands who had been disappointed in obtaining admittance thronged the sidewalks; the corner of 57th Street was impassable. Patrolmen, mounted and on foot, kept a way open for arriving cars.

Hepburn walked into the office just as Nayland Smith replaced the telephone. Smith turned, sprang up.

Sarah Lakin, seated in a rest-chair on the other side of the big desk, flashed an earnest query into the bespectacled eyes. Mark Hepburn shook his head and removed his spectacles.

“Almost certainly,” he said in his dry, unemotional way, “Abbot Donegal is not in the hall, so far.”

Nayland Smith began to walk up and down the room tugging at the lobe of his ear, then:

“And there is no news from the Mott Street area. I am beginning to wonder—I am beginning to doubt.”

“I have deferred to your views, Sir Denis,” came the grave voice of Miss Lakin, “but I have never disguised my own opinion. In assuming on the strength of a letter, admittedly in his own hand, that Orwin will be here tonight, I think you have taken a false step.”

“Maurice Norbert’s telephone message this morning seemed to me to justify the steps we have taken,” said Hepburn drily.

“I must agree with you there, Captain Hepburn,” Miss Lakin admitted; “but I cannot understand why Mr. Norbert failed to visit me or to visit you. It is true that Orwin has a custom of hiding from the eye of the Press whenever an important engagement is near, but hitherto I have been in his confidence.” She stood up. “I know, Sir Denis, that you have done everything which any man could do to trace his whereabouts. But I am afraid.” She locked her long, sensitive fingers together. “Somehow, I am very afraid.”

A sound of muffled cheering penetrated to the office.

“See who that is, Hepburn,” snapped Nayland Smith.

Hepburn ran out. Miss Lakin stared into the grim, brown face of the man pacing up and down the floor. Suddenly he stopped in front of her and rested his hand upon her shoulder.

“You may be right and I may be wrong,” he said rapidly. “Nevertheless, I believe that Orwin Prescott will be here tonight.”

Mark Hepburn returned.

“The Mayor of New York,” he reported laconically. “The big names are beginning to arrive.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Plenty of time yet.”

“In any event,” said Nayland Smith, “we have neglected no possible measure. There is only one thing to do—wait.”

O
rwin Prescott dressed himself with more than his usual care. Maurice Norbert had brought his evening clothes and his dressing-case, and in a perfectly appointed bathroom which adjoined the white bedroom, Prescott had bathed, shaved, and then arrayed himself for the great occasion.

The absence of windows in these apartments had been explained by Nurse Arlen. This was a special rest room, usually employed in cases of over-tired nerves and regarded as suitable by Dr. Sigmund, in view of the ordeal which so soon his patient must face. The doctor he had not seen in person; quite satisfied with his progress, the physician—called to a distant patient—had left him in the care of Nurse Arlen. Orwin Prescott would have been quite prepared to remain in her care for a long time. Although he more than suspected the existence of a yellow streak in Nurse Arlen’s blood, she was the most fascinating creature with whom he had personally come in contact.

He knew that he was forming an infatuation for this graceful nurse, whose soothing voice had run through all the troubled dreams which had preceded his complete recovery. And now, as he stood looking at himself in the glass, he thought that he had never appeared more keenly capable in the whole of his public life. He studied his fine, almost ascetic features. He was pale, but his pallor added character to the curt, gray military moustache and emphasized the strength of dark eyebrows. His gray hair was brushed immaculately.

The situation he had well in hand. Certainly there were remarkable properties in the prescriptions of Dr. Sigmund. His mental clarity he recognized to be super-normal. He had memorized every fact and every figure prepared for him by Norbert! He seemed to have a sort of pre-vision of all that would happen; his consciousness marched a step ahead of the clock. He knew that tonight no debater in the United States could conquer him. He had nothing to fear from the crude rhetoric of Harvey Bragg.

Satisfied with his appearance, delighted with the issue of this misadventure which might well have wrecked his career, he rang the bell as arranged, and Maurice Norbert came in. He, too, was in evening dress and presented a very smart figure.

“I have arranged, Doctor,” he said, “for the car to be ready in twenty minutes. I will set out now to prepare our friends for your arrival, and to see that you are not disturbed in any way until the debate is over. I have never seen you look more fit for the fray.”