President Fu-Manchu (23 page)

“I should feel safer with forty men behind me.”

“So should I. The proper routine would be in all probability to re-close the river door, ring the bell seven times, and continue in this way until the whole party was inside.”

“Sounds reasonable—but how do we do it?… Hullo! Look at this!”

Corrigan directed the light of his torch downwards; his hand shook with excitement. Discord of shouting voices grew louder. A crack appeared at the bottom of the iron door. Slowly, it was being raised!

“The opening of the outer door drops it automatically in half a minute or less,” said Nayland Smith. “Normally it is raised when the door is closed. They must have moved the spar. Contact has been established which raises it again.”

“I’m waiting,” Corrigan replied grimly, his gaze fixed upon the slowly moving door. “I’m not built like an eel. When I can get out I’ll be the first to cheer…”

In the streets of Chinatown a cordon had been drawn around the suspected area. During the course of the day a census had been taken of the inhabitants in the section indicated by Nayland Smith; outgoings and incomings, all had been accounted for. Most of those interrogated were Chinese, and the Chinaman is a law-respecting citizen. Almost any other would have openly resented the siege conditions to which the inhabitants of this section of New York City found themselves subjected on this occasion.

Mark Hepburn with a guard of three men directed operations. He was feverishly anxious, as his deep-set eyes indicated to everyone he approached. His duty was to make sure that none of the invisible members of Dr. Fu-Manchu’s organization should escape by the street exits which the vigilance of government men and police engaged upon the inquiry had failed to detect. The importance of his duty was great enough to enable him to force into the background the problem of Moya Adair. Apart from this personal interest, she formed an invaluable link, if only he could succeed in reconciling his conscience with his duty, his own interests with those of the State.

The night had grown bitterly cold; high winds had blown themselves away across the Atlantic; the air had that champagne quality which redoubles a man’s vigor.

Many streets were barricaded; a sort of curfew had been imposed upon part of Chinatown. Every householder had been made responsible for the members of his household. Restaurants and cafes were scrutinized from cellar to roof, particularly Wu King’s Bar. Residents returning to the barricaded area were required to establish their identity before being admitted. Visitors who did not reside there were escorted to their destination and carefully checked up.

Mark Hepburn had tackled the situation with his usual efficiency. Pretense had been cast aside. All Chinatown knew that the section was being combed for one of the big shots of the underworld.

And all Chinatown remained in suspense; for now the news had spread through those mysterious channels which defy Occidental detection that other members of the Council of the Seven of the Si-Fan were in the city. The dreaded Black Dragon Society of Japan was no more than an offshoot of the Si-Fan, which embraced in its invisible tentacles practically the whole of the colored races of the world. No dweller east of Suez or west of it to Istanbul would have gambled a dollar on the life of a man marked down by the Si-Fan.

* * *

In the cave of the seven-eyed goddess Dr. Fu-Manchu sat, eyes closed, long, ivory hands extended upon the table before him, listening to the silver tones of that distant speaker, to the rising excitement of the audience which he addressed; an audience representing but a fraction of that which from coast to coast hung upon his words—words destined to play a strange part in the history of the country. The other listeners, invisible in the queer cells which surrounded the central apartment, were equally silent, motionless.

In the seventh of these, that which communicated with a series of iron doors protecting the place from the street above, old Sam Pak crouched mummy-like upon a settee listening with the others to that wonderful, inspiring voice speaking in a southern state.

A very faint buzz directly above his head resulted in slit-like eyes being opened in the death mask. Sam Pak turned, glanced up. A tiny disk of blue light showed. Slowly he nodded his shrivelled head and watched this blue light. Two, three, four minutes elapsed and the blue light still prevailed. Whereupon that man of vast knowledge and experience acted. There was something strange here.

The appearance of the blue light was in order, for a seventh representative even now was expected by way of the river-gate. The blue light indicated that the river-gate had been opened by one of the two men on duty who knew its secret. Its persistence indicated that the river-gate had not been reclosed; and this was phenomenal.

But even as Sam Pak stood up and began silently to shuffle in the direction of the door, the blue light flickered, dimmed, flickered again and finally went out.

Something definitely was wrong! A lesser man would have alarmed the council, but Sam Pak was a great, man. Quietly he opened the iron door and ascended the stairs beyond. He opened a second door and mounted higher, switching on lights. Halfway along a stone-faced corridor, stone-paved, he paused beneath a pendant lamp. Reaching up he pulled this pendant.

It dropped, lever fashion, and a section of the seemingly solid wall some five feet high and three feet wide dropped backwards like a drawbridge. So perfectly was it fitted, so solid its construction, that he would have been a clever detective indeed who could have found it when it was closed. Sam Pak, stooping, went into the dark opening. An eerie lapping of moving water had become audible at the moment that the secret door had dropped back. There was a dank, unwholesome smell. He reached for, and found, an iron rail; then from beneath his blue robe he produced a torch and shone its ray ahead.

He stood on a gallery above a deep sewer, an inspection-gallery accessible to, and sometimes used by, the sanitary authorities of the city. Into this a way had been struck from the secret warren below Chinatown and another way out at the farther end by the river bank.

He moved slowly along, a crouched, eerie figure in a whispering, evil place. At a point where the oily waters disappeared beneath an arch, the gallery seemingly ended, and before a stone wall he paused.

His ancient, claw-like hands manipulated some piece of mechanism, and a small box came to light, a box in which a kind of telephone stood. Sam Pak raised the instrument; he listened.

“Chee, chee, chee!” he hissed.

He hung up the telephone, re-closed the box in which it was hidden and began to return along the iron gallery, moving now with extraordinary rapidity for a man of his years. The unexpected, but not the unforeseen, had happened.

The enemy had forced the water-gate.

* * *

At the corner of Doyers Street a crowd had gathered beyond the barricade. Those who wished to pass were referred by the police officer on duty to another point, which necessitated a detour. A tall, bearded man, his coat collar turned up and his hat brim pulled down, stood beside a big car, the windows of which were bullet-proof, lurking in shadow and studying the group beyond the barricade. A messenger from local police headquarters made his way to his side.

“Captain Hepburn?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“We seem to have lost contact with the party operating under Federal Officer Smith down on East River.”

“No news?”

“Not a thing.”

Mark Hepburn experienced a sudden, great dread. The perils of the river-gate, although a large party had been assembled, were unknown—unknown as the resources of the formidable group which Nayland Smith sought to break up. His quick imagination presented a moving picture of things which might have happened. Johnson was perfectly capable of taking charge of routine here on the street; indeed, Johnson had done most of the work, Hepburn merely supervising and taking reports. On the other hand, a dash to the water front would be technically to desert his post. He turned to the man beside him.

“Go personally,” he directed in his monotonous way; “take a launch if you can’t make it on shore. Then hurry right back to me to report just what you have seen.”

“All right, Captain.”

The man set out.

Mark Hepburn entered the bullet-proof car and gave brief directions to the driver.

Outside Wu King’s Bar the car stopped. Mark Hepburn went in, followed by the three men who had accompanied him. The place was almost wholly patronized by Asiatics, except when squads of sightseers were brought there, Wu King’s being one of the show places in Chinatown tours.

A buzz of conversation subsided curiously as the party entered. Following Hepburn’s lead they walked through the restaurant to the bar at the farther end, glancing keenly at the groups of men and women occupying the tables set in cubicles. Behind the bar Wu King, oily and genial, presided in person, his sly eyes twinkling in a fat, pock-marked face.

“Ah, gen’l’men,” he said, rubbing his hands and speaking with an accent which weirdly combined that of the Bowery and Shanghai, “you want some good beer, eh?”

Everyone in the place except Wu King spoke now in a lowered voice; this serpentine hissing created a sinister atmosphere.

“Yes,” said Hepburn, “some beer and some news.”

“Anything Wu King know, Wu King glad to tell.” He pumped up four glasses of creamy lager. “Just say what biting you and Wu King put right, if know enough, which plobably not.”

Mark Hepburn paid for the beer and nodded to his companions. Leaning against the bar they all directed their attention towards the groups in the little cubicles. There was another room upstairs, and according to the local police, still another above that where fan-tan and other illegal amusements sometimes took place.

“You seem to be pretty busy?” Hepburn said.

“Yes.” The Chinaman revealed a row of perfect but discolored teeth. “Pletty busy. Customers complain funny business outside. You gen’l’men know all about it I guess?”

“My friends here may know. What I want is copy.”

“Oh, sure! You a newspaperman?”

“You’ve got it, Wu. I guess you know most of your customers?”

Know ’em all, mister. All velly old friend. Some plenty money, some go tick, but all velly good friend. Chinaman good friend to each other, or else”—he shrugged his shoulders—”what become of Chinaman?”

“That’s true enough. But I’m out for a story.” He turned, fixing deep-set eyes upon the fat face of the proprietor. “I’m told that one of
the Seven
is in town. Is that right, Wu?”

Less experienced than Nayland Smith in the ways of the Orient, he looked for some change of expression in the pock-pitted face—and looked in vain. Wu King’s immobile features registered nothing whatever.

“The Seven?” he said innocently. “What seven’s that, mister?”

* * *

“I’ll say I’m glad to get out,” said Corrigan as, assisted by willing helpers, he crawled under the partly raised iron door. “I don’t like the looks of that tunnel.”

From out of the echoing hollow under the dock came a shouted order:

“Silence!”

A buzz of excited words ceased. The men crowded into the narrow space between the two doors—the outer one partly jammed open by the spar—became silent.

“That’s Eastman,” said Corrigan. “Let’s see what’s new.”

Outside in a Dantesque scene peopled by moving shadows:

“Launch just been signaled from the bridge,” the invisible Eastman explained. “Are you held up there?”

“We were,” Corrigan replied shortly. He turned to Nayland Smith. “What now?”

Nayland Smith, a parody of his normal self, wearing a shabby suit and a linen cap which had once been white pulled down over one eye, stood silent behind the speaker. He was tugging at the lobe of his left ear.

“A change of plan,” he rapped. “This is something I had not foreseen. Get all the men under cover again, Corrigan, and run the launch out of sight downstream. Pick two good men to remain with us. Jump to it.”

“D’you hear that, Eastman?” Corrigan shouted. “Everybody under cover, just like when we first came up. The launch to clear the dock, lay up and wait for signals. Get busy.” He turned to two men who stood near to the spot where the spar projected into the partly open doorway. “You two,” he said, “stand by. Everybody else up the ladder.”

An ordered scuffling followed; three men tumbled into the launch and the others, some of whom had been crowded into the narrow space between the two doors, hurried up the ladder to the deck of the dock above. The launch went out astern, a phantom craft against the myriad lights reflected in the water, and disappeared from view.

“I want a small wedge fixed in that door; a clasp-knife would do, or anything that will bear the pressure.”

Smith ran inside, flashing the light of his torch ahead, and springing over the spar which crossed the tunnel. The iron door beyond was about two-thirds raised.

“All ready, Chief,” came a voice. “I’ve got the door jammed.”

“Good. Now, Corrigan, join us. You two men get inside but hang on to the door.”

There came a further scuffling. The men, two black silhouettes, crossed the narrow opening.

“Are you ready?” rapped Nayland Smith.

“All ready, Chief.”

“Pull. Now, Corrigan, we have to get the spar inside.”—Pulling simultaneously, the thing was done and the spar laid down against one wall of the tunnel.

“Now,” Nayland Smith directed breathlessly, “ease the door to. Don’t let it bang if you can help it.”

Slowly the door, propelled by a powerful spring, closed, almost dragging the two men with it; and as it closed, that second door which resembled a sluice-gate rose, inch by inch. At last:

“Can’t hang on any longer, Captain,” one of the men reported; “we shall get our hands jammed.”

“Let go,” Smith ordered.

The door snapped to; there was a slight grinding sound as its edge came in contact with the obstacle which had been placed there to hold it. Nayland Smith flashed his light upwards.…

Less than two inches of the drop-gate showed in the slot in the ceiling of the tunnel.