The Shadow of Fu-Manchu (24 page)

“Stand back!”

“We must close the door!”

One of the men raced up, and managed to close the door. He came down again, suffocating, fighting for breath. A crash louder than any before shook the office.

“What is it?” gasped the choking man. “Is there going to be an explosion? For God’s sake”—he clutched his throat—“what’s happening?”

“Disintegration,” muttered Shaw wildly. “Disintegration. The plant is crumbling to… powder.”

Pandemonium in the Huston Building. Fruits of long labor falling from the branches. A god of power reduced to a god of clay. But not a sound to disturb the silence of Falling Waters; a silence awesome, a silence in which many mysteries lay hidden. Yet it was at least conducive to thought.

And Morris Craig had many things to think about. He would have more before the night ended.

In the first place, he couldn’t understand why Michael Frobisher had been so damnably terse when he had insisted on standing the twelve to four watch. At four, Sam was taking over. Sam had backed him up in this arrangement. Craig had had one or two things to say, privately, to Sam, concerning the deception practiced on him; and would have others to mention to Nayland Smith, when he saw Smith again. But Sam, personally, was a sound enough egg.

So Morris Craig mused, in the silent library.

What was that?

He stood up, and remained standing, motionless, intent.

Dimly he had heard, or thought he had heard, the sound of a hollow cough.

He experienced that impression, common to all or most of us, that an identical incident had happened to him before. But when—where?

There was no repetition of the cough—no sound; yet a sense of furtive movement. Guiding himself by a sparing use of a flashlamp, he crossed to the foot of the stair. He shone a beam upward.

“Is that you, Camille?” he called softly.

There was no reply. Craig returned to his chair…

What was old Frobisher up to, exactly? Why had he so completely lost his balance about the envelope business? Of course, Stein had dramatized it absurdly. Queer fish, Stein. Not a fellow he, personally, could ever take to. Barbarous accent. Clearly, it had forced Nayland Smith’s hand. But what had Smith’s idea been? Was there someone in the household he didn’t trust?… Probably Stein.

No doubt the true explanation lay in the fact that Frobisher, having sunk well over half a million dollars in his invention, now saw it slipping through his fingers. It might not be the sort of thing to trust to development by a commercial corporation, but still—rough luck for Frobisher…

Then Craig was up again.

This time, that hollow cough seemed to come from the front of the house.

He dropped his cigarette and went over to the arched opening which gave access to Frobisher’s study, and, beyond, to the cedarwood dining room. He directed a light along a dark passage. It was empty. He crossed the library again and opened a door on the other side. There was no one there.

Was he imagining things?

This frame of mind was entirely due to the existence of a shadowy horror known as Dr. Fu-Manchu. He didn’t give a hoot for the Soviet agent, whom- or whatever he might be. Nobody took those fellows seriously. The British agent he discounted entirely. If there had been one, Smith would have known him.

The idea of watching in the dark had been Sam’s. As an F.B.I. operative, he had carried the point. Naturally enough, he wanted to get his man. It was a ghostly game, nevertheless. That drip-drip-drip of water outside was getting on Craig’s nerves.

Incidentally, where
was
Sam? Unlikely that he had turned in.

But above all, where was Camille? There had been no chance to make it definite; but he had read the message in her eyes as she went upstairs with Stella Frobisher to mean, “I shall come down again.”

Frobisher had retired shortly after the women. “I’m going to sleep—and the hell with it all!”

A faint rustling sound on the stairs—and Craig was up as if on springs.

The ray of his lamp shone on Camille, a dressing gown worn over a night robe that he didn’t permit himself to look at. Her bare ankles gleamed like ivory.

“Camille!—darling! At last!”

He trembled as he took her in his arms. She was so softly alluring. He released her and led her to the deep leathern settee, forcing a light note, as he extinguished the lamp.

“Forgive the blackout. Captain’s orders.”

“I know,” she whispered.

He found her hand in his, and kissed her fingers silently. Then, as a mask for his excited emotions:

“I have a bone to pick with you,” he said in his most flippant manner. “What did you mean by turning down my offer to make an honest woman of you? Explain this to me, briefly, and in well chosen words.”

Camille crept closer to him in the dark.

“I mean to explain.” Her soft voice was unsteady. “I came to explain to you—now.”

He longed to put his arms around her. But some queer sense of restraint checked him.

“I’m waiting, darling.”

“You may not know—I don’t believe you do, even yet—that for a long time, ever so long”—how he loved the Gallic intonations which came when she was deeply moved!—“your work has been watched. At least, you know now, when it is finished, that they will stick at nothing.”

“Who are ‘they’? You mean the Kremlin and Dr. Fu-Manchu?”

“Yes. These are the only two you have to be afraid of… But there is also a—British agent.”

“Doubtful about that, myself. How d’you know there’s a British agent?”

“Because I am the British agent.”

There were some tense moments, during which neither spoke. It might almost have seemed that neither breathed. They sat there, side by side, in darkness, each wondering what the other was thinking.
Drip-drip-drip
went the rainwater… Then Craig directed the light of his lamp onto Camille’s face. She turned swiftly away, raised her hands:

“Don’t! Don’t!”

“Camille!” Craig switched the light off. “Good God!”

“Don’t look at me!” Camille went on. “I don’t want you to see me! I had made up my mind to tell you tonight, and I am going to be quite honest about it. I didn’t think, and I don’t think now, that the work I undertook was wrong. Although, of course, when I started, I had never met
you.
”

Craig said nothing.

“If I have been disloyal to anyone, it is to Mr. Frobisher. For you must realize, Morris, the dreadful use which could be made of such a thing. You must realize that it might wreck the world. No government could be blind to that.”

Subtly, in the darkness, Morris Craig had drawn nearer. Now, suddenly, he had his arm around her shoulders.

“No, Morris! Don’t! Don’t! Not until I have told you everything.” He felt her grow suddenly rigid. “What was that?”

It was the sound of a hollow cough, in the distance.

Craig sprang up.

“I don’t know. But I have heard it before. Is it inside the house, or out?”

Switching on the lamp, he ran in turn to each of the doors, and stood listening. But Falling Waters remained still. Then he directed the light onto Camille—and away again, quickly. In a moment he was beside her.

“Morris!”

“Let
me
say something—”

“But, Morris, do you truly understand that I have been reporting your work, step by step, to the best of my ability? Because I never quite understood it. I have been spying on you, all through… At last, I couldn’t bear it any longer. When Sir Denis came on the scene, I thought I was justified in asking for my release…”

Morris’s kiss silenced her. She clung to him, trembling. Her heart fluttered like a captive bird released, and at last:

“You see now, Morris, why I felt it was well enough for us to be—lovers. But how could I marry you, when—”

“You were milking my brains?” he whispered in her ear. But it was a gay whisper. “You little redheaded devil! This gives me another bone to pick with Smith. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“I was afraid he would! Then I remembered he couldn’t… Morris! I shall be all bruises! There are traditions in the Secret Service.”

At which moment, amid a subdued buzzing sound like that of a fly trapped in a glass, the cabinet over the bookcase came to life!

Camille grasped Craig’s hand as he leapt upright, and clung to it obstinately. A rectangle in the library darkness, every detail of the grounds surrounding Falling Waters showed as if touched with phosphorescence.

“We’re off!” Craig muttered. “Look!”

A shadow moved slowly across the chart.

“That’s the back porch!” Camille whispered. “Someone right outside.”

“Don’t panic, darling. Wait.”

The faint shadow moved on to where a door was marked. It stopped. The buzzing ceased. The chart faded.

“Someone came into the kitchen!”

“Run back and hide on the stair.”

“But—”

“Please do as I say, Camille.”

Camille released his hand, and he stood, automatic ready, facing that doorway which led to the back premises.

He saw nothing. But he was aware that the door had been opened. Then:

“Don’t shoot me, Craig,” rapped a familiar voice, “and don’t make a sound.” A flashlamp momentarily lighted the library. Nayland Smith stood there watching him—hatless, the fur collar of his old trench coat turned up about his ears. Then Smith’s gaze flickered for a second. There came a faint rustling from the direction of the stairs—and silence.

Sam appeared just behind Smith. The lamp was switched off.

“
Smith
!—How did you get in?”

“Not so loud. I have been standing by outside for some time.”

“
I
let him in, doc,” Sam explained.

“There’s some kind of thing slinking around out there,” Nayland Smith went on, an odd note in his voice, “which isn’t human—”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Just that. It isn’t a baboon, and it isn’t a man. Normally, I should form a party and hunt it down. I have a strong suspicion it is some specimen out of Fu-Manchu’s museum of horrors. But”—Craig, dimly, could hear Smith moving in the dark—“just shine a light onto this.”

Craig snapped his lamp up. Nayland Smith stood right beside him, holding out an enlargement of a snapshot. Sam stood at Smith’s elbow. Upstairs, a door closed softly.

The picture was that of a stout, bearded man crowned with a mane of white hair; he had small, round, inquisitive eyes.

“Lights out,” Smith directed. “I waited at police headquarters for that to arrive. Recognize him?”

“Never saw him in my life.”

“Correct. Following his release from a Nazi prison camp, he disappeared. I think I know where he went. But it’s of no immediate importance. That is the once celebrated Viennese psychiatrist, Doctor Carl Hoffmeyer!”

“What do you say?”

“Smart, ain’t it?” Sam murmured.

“The man New York knew as Professor Hoffmeyer was
Dr. Fu-Manchu!
”

“Good God! But he was here today!”

“I know. A great commander must be prepared to take all the risks he imposes on others.”

“But he speaks English with a heavy German accent! And—”

“Dr. Fu-Manchu speaks every civilized language with perfect facility—with or without an accent! Lacking this evidence, I could do nothing. But I made one big mistake—”

“We all made it,” said Sam. “You’re no more to blame than the rest.”

“Thanks,” rapped Smith. “But the blame is mine. I had the Hoffmeyer clinic covered, and I thought he was trapped.”

“Well?” Craig asked eagerly.

“He didn’t go back there!”

“Listen!” Sam broke in again. “We had three good men on his tail, but he tricked ’em!”

There was something increasingly eerie about this conversation in the dark.

“The clinic remains untouched,” Nayland Smith continued. “But Fu-Manchu’s private quarters, which patients never saw, have been stripped. Police raided hours ago.”

“Then where has he gone?”

“I don’t know.” Nayland Smith’s voice had a groan in it. “But all that remains for him to do, in order to complete his work, is here, in this house!”

“Shouldn’t we rouse up Frobisher?” Craig asked excitedly.

“No. There are certain things I don’t want Mr. Frobisher to know yet.”

“Such as, for instance?”

“Such as—this is going to hit you where it hurts—that your entire plant in the Huston laboratory was destroyed tonight—”

“
What!
”

“Quiet, man!” Nayland Smith grasped Craig’s arm in the darkness. “I warned you it would hurt. The Fire Department has the job in hand. It isn’t their proper province. The thing is just crumbling away, breaking like chocolate. Last report to reach the radio car, that huge telescope affair—I don’t know its name—has crashed onto the floor.”

“But, Smith!…”

“I know. It’s bad.”

“Thank heaven! My original plans are safe in a New York City bank vault!”

Silence fell again, broken only by a dry cough from Sam, until:

“They are not,” Nayland Smith said evenly. “They were taken out two days ago.”

“Taken out? By whom?”

“In person, by Mrs. Frobisher. In fact, by Dr. Fu-Manchu. Frobisher doesn’t know—but the only records of your invention which remain, Craig, are the blueprints hidden somewhere in this house!”

“They were in back of the desk there,” Sam mumbled. “But they’ve vanished.”

“You’re not suggesting”—Craig heard the note of horrified incredulity in his own voice—“that Mrs. Frobisher—”

“Mrs. Frobisher,” said Nayland Smith, “is as innocent in this matter as Miss Navarre. But—we are dealing with Dr. Fu-Manchu!”

“Why are we staying in the dark? What happens next?”

“What happens next I don’t know. We are staying in the dark because a man called Dimitri Sokolov, a Soviet official in whom Ray Harkness is interested, has a crew of armed thugs down by the lower gate… Sokolov seems to be expecting someone.”