Emperor Fu Manchu

Pain, anger, gave him a brief renewal of strength. He grasped the bowl, forced himself to his feet, and hurled the bowl at the head of the retreating Thing.

It reached its target. He heard the dull thud. It rebounded and crashed against the glass of the opened window.

But the living dead horror vanished . . .

Lights . . . voices . . . arms which lifted him . . . the tang of brandy.

Tony came to life.

The lighted office looked red. His head swam. Through this red mist he saw Nayland Smith bending over him.

“A close call, McKay! Take it easy”

Tony found himself in a deep rest-chair. He had some difficulty in swallowing. He managed to sit up.

“It went through the window,” he croaked hoarsely; “although . . . I hit it on the head with . . . that.”

The bronze bowl lay amongst a litter of glass.

“I know,” Sir Denis snapped. “It’s phenomenal. We have search parties out.”

“But—”

“Don’t strain your throat, McKay. Yes. It has the cipher manuscript . . .”

* * *

In Lao Tse-Mung’s library, surrounded by an imposing collection of books in many languages, four men assembled. A servant, awakened for the purpose, placed a variety of refreshments on a low table around which they sat, and was dismissed. The staff’s quarters were separated from the house, and the disturbance in the office had not reached them. Mercifully, it had failed to arouse Moon Flower, whose apartment was in the west wing. So that the thing which had happened in the night was known only to these four who met in the library.

Lao Tse-Mung and his frightened secretary sipped tea. Tony and Nayland Smith drank Scotch and soda. Tony smoked a cigarette and Sir Denis smoked his pipe.

“My chief mechanic reports,” their host stated in his calm voice and perfect English, “that the connections are undisturbed. Six men are now examining the possible points of entry, and if anything is discovered to account for the presence of this thief in my house, I shall be notified immediately.”

“When it’s daylight,” Nayland Smith said, “I’ll take a look, myself.”

“Of course you understand. Sir Denis, what has happened? We have had a visit from a Cold Man. These creatures have been reported in the neighborhood of Chia-Ting on more than one occasion, but never here. It is a punishable offense to touch them. If seen, the police must be informed. An ambulance from a hospital established recently in that area by the governor, Huan Tsung-Chao, is soon on the scene, I understand; the attendants seem to know how to deal with these ghastly phenomena. They are believed, by the ignorant people, to be vampires and are known as ‘the living-dead’. “

“The ignorant people have my sympathy!” Tony declared hoarsely.

“Personally,” Nayland Smith snapped, “I’m not surprised. That master of craft. Dr. Fu Manchu, has discovered that I am here. That it was he who murdered Skobolov in order to recover this manuscript is beyond dispute. But how he found out that it had fallen into my hands is a mystery.”

“I warned you,” Lao Tse-Mung pointed out in his quiet way, “that my house would be watched.”

“You did,” Nayland Smith agreed, bitterly. “But even so, how did the watcher discover the very room in which this manuscript lay? And, crowning mystery, how did the Cold Man get in to steal it? Damn the cunning devil! He has tricked me again!”

As he ceased speaking, the large room seemed to become eerily still. And this stillness was broken by a sound which sent a chill through Tony’s nerves. Although a long way off, it was clearly audible, penetrating, and horrifying as the wail of a banshee.

A long minor cry, rising to a high final note on which it died away.

Even Lao Tse-Mung clutched the arms of his chair. Nayland Smith sprang up as if electrified.

“You heard it, McKay?”

“Of course I heard it. For God’s sake, what was it?”

“A sound I hadn’t heard for years and never expected to hear in China. It was the warning cry of a dacoit. Fu Manchu has always employed these Burmese robbers and assassins. Come on McKay! I have a revolver in my pocket. Are you armed?”

“No.”

“Allow me to arm you,” Lao Tse-Mung volunteered, entirely restored to his normal calm. From under his robe he produced a small but serviceable automatic. “It is fully charged. What do you propose to do, Sir Denis?”

“To try to find the spot from which that call came.”

Nayland Smith was heading for the door when a faint bell note detained him.

“Wait,” Lao Tse-Mung directed.

The old mandarin drew back the loose sleeve of his robe. Tony saw that he wore one of the phenomenal two-way radios on his wrist. He listened, spoke briefly, then disconnected.

“My chief mechanic reports. Sir Denis, that the cry we heard came from a point between the main gate and the drive-in to the garage. He is there now.”

“Come on, McKay!” Nayland Smith repeated, and ran out, followed by Tony.

They headed for the main gate, a spot which Tony was never likely to forget, two figures grotesque in their pajamas and robes. Sir Denis ran at a steady jog trot, harboring his resources.

“These radios,” Tony said as he ran, “are supernormal. On what frequency do they operate and where does the power come from?”

“We don’t know !” Nayland Smith replied jerkily. “Our technicians worked for over a year on the only one we ever captured from a Fu Manchu agent. Gave up trying to find out. Concentrated on making an exact duplicate. At last, got contact between the two. Found it had an unlimited range. No blind spots. No interference.”

“Not from Fu Manchu?”

“Nothing. Entirely new principle . . . Here we are!”

They slowed down as they reached the main gate, stood still, and listened. A sound of voices reached them from somewhere ahead.

And Tony found himself retracing that sloping path which, behind the high wall, led to the garage, the path along which Mai Cha had taken him on the memorable night he had escaped the Master.

The light of a flashlamp presently led them to Lao Tse-Mung’s chief mechanic, who answered to the name of Wong. He had two other men with him. A tall ladder was propped against the wall, and another man could be seen on the top staring over. Sir Denis was expected, for Wong saluted and reported. He spoke Chinese with a Szechuan accent which seemed to puzzle Sir Denis but with which Tony’s travels in the area had made him fairly familiar. Fortunately, he also spoke fairly good English.

He had been walking toward this point, scanning the parapet of the wall with his flashlamp, when that awful cry broke the silence, and died away. “It came from about here. I called out, and the nearest man of the search party ran to join me. My orders were not to open the gates and not to disconnect the wiring. The gardeners brought a ladder so that we could look into the road. It is set so that the rungs don’t touch the wires. But the man up there can see nothing and I have ordered him to come down.”

“You have heard no other sound?” Tony asked him.

“Not a movement,” the man assured him. “Nothing stirred

When the gardener descended from the long ladder and was about to remove it:

“One moment,” Nayland Smith rapped. “I want to take a look. This interests me.”

“Be careful of the wiring!” Wong warned. “It carries a high voltage and a touch is enough!”

“That wouldn’t interest you!” Tony called out as Nayland Smith started up the ladder.

“That’s just what does interest me!” Sir Denis called back.

He mounted right to the top of the ladder. He didn’t look out on to the road he looked fixedly at the parapet where the wires were stretched. Then he came down. From a pocket of his gown he took his pipe and his pouch.

“There are two other things I must know, McKay. For one of them we have to wait for daylight. The other it’s just possible we might find tonight.” He turned to Wong. “Take the ladder away. I’m glad you brought it.”

He grasped Tony’s arm. “I have a flashlamp in my pocket. Walk slowly back to the house—not by the route we came, but the nearest way to the windows of your room and the office.”

And so they started, Nayland Smith, pipe in mouth, flashing light into shadowy shrubberies which bordered the path:

“I don’t know what you’re looking for,” Tony declared.

“I may be wrong, McKay. It’s no more than what you call a hunch. But I do know what I’m looking for. It’s a hundred to one chance and if I’m wrong, I’ll tell you. If I’m right, you’ll see for yourself.”

They walked slowly on. There was little breeze. Sometimes the flashlamp created queer rustling in the shrubberies as of sleeping creatures disturbed or nocturnal things scuffling to shelter. In the light of a declining moon, bats could be seen swooping, silent, overhead.

His gruesome experience with a Cold Man vividly in mind. Tony found himself threatened, as they moved slowly along, by a shapeless terror. Partly, it was a creation of the dark and the stillness, an upsurge of hereditary superstition. Things he couldn’t explain had happened. At any moment, he thought, icy fingers might clutch his throat again. Of human enemies he had no fear. But what were these Cold Men? Were they human—or were they as some who had seen them believed, animated dead men, zombies?

His own encounter with a Cold Man suggested that they were not mortal.

But Nayland Smith worked diligently along, yard by yard.

He found nothing.

And Tony knew, by noting the furious way in which he puffed at his pipe, that he was disappointed

They had reached the gate lodge, which was in darkness, and had turned left, instead of to the right, which was the way they had come, before Sir Denis uttered a word. Then:

“Here’s our last chance!” he said rapidly.

They were in a narrow path, little used, overgrown by wild flowers. It led to the east wing of the house but to no entrance. It would, though, as Tony realized, lead them to a point directly below the window of his own room and that of the office.

Tirelessly, Nayland Smith explored every shadow with his flash-lamp, but found nothing, until, in a clump of tangled undergrowth surrounding a tall tulip tree, he pulled up.

“I was right!”

The ray of the lamp lighted a grisly spectacle.

A man lay there, a man whose body was grey, whose only clothing consisted of a loin cloth, and this was grey, and a tightly knotted grey turban. He lay in a contorted attitude, his head twisted half under his body.

“This is what I was looking for!” Nayland Smith rapped. “Look! His neck’s broken!”

“Good God! Is this—”

“The Cold Man who attacked you? Yes. And you killed him! “

Tony stood, hands clenched, looking at the ghastly object under the tulip tree. Suddenly, in that warm night, he felt chilled.

“The first specimen,” Nayland Smith stated grimly, “to fall into my hands. Rumor hasn’t exaggerated. I can feel the chill even here.” He stepped forward.

“Sir Denis!”

Nayland Smith turned. “The poor devil’s harmless—now—McKay. He’s out of the clutches of Dr. Fu Manchu at last. Some day, I hope, we shall know how these horrors are created. His skin is an unnatural grey, but I recognize the features. The man is Burmese.” He stooped over the contorted body. “Hullo! Thank heaven, McKay, the hundred to one chance has come off!”

From the grey loin cloth he dragged out a bundle of papers, shone the ray of the lamp on to it—and sprang upright so unusually excited that he dropped his pipe.

“Sun Shao-Tung’s notes—and the Chinese manuscript’. Our luck’s changed, McKay.” He picked up his pipe. “Let me show you something.” He stooped again, lighted the face of the Cold Man. “Contrary to official belief, Dacoity (said to be extinct) is a religious cult, like Thuggee. Look!”

He tore the grey turban from the dead man’s head. Tony drew nearer.

“What, Sir Denis?”

The flashlamp was directed on the shaven head.

“The caste mark.”

Tony looked closely. Just above the line of the turban he saw a curious mark, either tattooed or burnt on to the skin.

“A dacoit!” Nayland Smith told him.

“Then it was he who gave that awful cry?”

“No!” Sir Denis rapped. “That was my hunch! It was another dacoit who gave the cry . . .”

Chapter XIV

Three times Matsukata, the Japanese physician in charge of the neighboring clinic, had come into a small room attached to Dr. Fu Manchu’s laboratory in which the Doctor often rested, and sometimes, when he had worked late, in which he slept. It was very simply equipped, the chief item of furniture being a large, cushioned divan.

A green-shaded lamp stood on a table littered with papers and books, and its subdued light provided the sole illumination. The air was polluted with sickly fumes of opium.

Dr. Fu Manchu lay on the divan entirely without movement. Even his breathing was not perceptible. A case of beautifully fashioned opium pipes rested on a small table beside him, with a spirit lamp, a jar of the purest chandu, and several silver bodkins. In spirit Dr. Fu Manchu was far from the world of ordinary man, and his body rested; perhaps the only real rest he ever knew.

Matsukata stood there, silent, watching, listening. Then once more he withdrew.

Some few minutes had passed in the silent room, when Fu Manchu raised heavy lids and looked around. The green eyes were misty, the pupils mere pinpoints. But, as he sat up, by some supreme command of his will the mist cleared, the contracted pupils enlarged. He used opium as he used men, for his own purpose; but no man and no drug was his master.

It was his custom, in those periods of waiting for a fateful decision which the average man spends in pacing the floor, checking each passing minute, to smoke a pipe of chandu and so enter that enchanted realm to which opium holds the key.

He was instantly alert, in complete command of all his faculties. He struck a small gong on the table beside him.

Matsukata came in before the vibration of the gong had ceased.

“Well?” Fu Manchu demanded.

Matsukata bowed humbly. “I regret to report failure. Master.”

Fu Manchu clenched his hands. “You mean that Singu failed?”

“Singu failed to return. Master.”

“But Singu was a Cold Man, a mere automaton under your direction,” Fu Manchu spoke softly. “If anything failed, Matsukata, it was your direction.”

“That is not so. Master. Something unforeseen occurred. Where, I cannot tell. But when more than ten minutes over his allotted time had elapsed. Ok, who was watching from the point of entry, reported a man with a flashlamp approaching. I ordered Ok to give the warning to which Singu should have replied. There was no reply. I ordered Ok to remove evidence of our mode of entry. It was just in time. A party of men was searching the grounds.”

Dr. Fu Manchu stood up slowly. He folded his arms.

“Is that all your news?” he asked in a sibilant whisper. “The Si-Fan register is lost?”

“That is all. Master.”

“You may go. Await other orders.”

Matsukata bowed deeply, and went out . . .

* * *

In Lao Tse-Mung’s library, Nayland Smith was speaking. Grey ghostly daylight peered in at the windows.

“Dacoits never work alone. During my official years in Burma, I furnished reports to London which proved, conclusively, that Dacoity was not dead. I also discovered that, like Thuggee, it was not merely made up of individual gangs of hoodlums, but was a religious cult. Dr. Fu Manchu, many years ago, obtained absolute control of the dacoits and also of the thugs. He has a bodyguard of dacoits. Probably the Cold Man, who lies dead out there, was formerly one of them.”

Lao Tse-Mung’s alert, wrinkle-framed eyes were fixed upon Sir Denis. Tony chain-smoked.

“Of the powers of these creatures, called, locally. Cold Men, we know nothing. But we do know, now, that they are—or were—normal human beings. By some hellish means they have been converted to this form. But certainly their powers are supernormal, and the temperature of their bodies is phenomenal. I have never heard that the fabulous zombies of Haiti are cold as blocks of ice!”

Tony found himself shuddering. His first encounter with a Cold Man had made an impression that would last forever.

“How you got on to the fact that he was lying somewhere on that path is beyond me,” he declared.

“It was a theory, McKay, based on experience. Whenever I have heard that call it has always been a warning to one dacoit, who was operating, from another who was watching. As it’s getting light, I hope to find out shortly how the Cold Man got into the grounds.”

“But how did he get into the office?”

“That,” Nayland Smith rapped, “is not so difficult. There is a tall tulip tree growing close to the house some twenty yards from the window. These Burmese experts often operate from the roof. Evidently, even when changed to Cold Men, they retain these acrobatic powers.”

“Professional thieves in this Province,” Lao Tse-Mung remarked, “use much the same methods. But how they do it, I have yet to learn.”

“I hope I may be able to explain later,” Nayland Smith told him. “So that although the Cold Man may have dropped from the office window, for dacoits are capable of performing astonishing falls, it’s more likely that he returned to the roof. Your lucky shot with the metal bowl registered,” he turned to Tony—”it would have killed a normal man. It only dazed the dacoit. He got back as far as the tall tulip tree, sprang to a high branch—and missed it.”

He knocked ashes from his pipe and began to reload the charred bowl.

“Your analysis of the night’s events,” came Lao Tse-Mung’s mellow voice, “is entirely credible. But there’s one mystery which you have not cleared up. I refer to the fact that those who instructed this man (if he ;’s a man) must have known that the document in cipher was here.”

Nayland Smith paused in the act of pressing down tobacco in the bowl of his pipe.

“I don’t think they knew it,” he replied thoughtfully. “But as McKay was identified in Niu-fo-Tu as the escaped prisoner, and as the dying Skobolov was in the neighborhood at the same time, Fu Manchu may have surmised that McKay had got possession of the document and brought it to me . . .”

In the early morning, a party of frightened and shivering men under Nayland Smith’s direction carried a long, heavy wooden box out from the main gate and across the narrow road. In a cypress wood bordering the road they dug a deep grave, and buried the Cold Man.

The body remained supernaturally chilled.

Sir Denis, having dismissed the burial party, set off at a rapid pace in the direction of the gate lodge. A man now was in charge there, old Mai Cha having moved up to the big house to look after Moon Flower.

They passed the silent bungalow and went on to the spot where the gardeners had placed the ladder that night. Nayland Smith quickly identified it by marks on the soil where it had rested. Then, foot by foot, he examined every inch of ground under the wall for several yards east and west of it. And at last:

“Look!” he cried triumphantly and pointed down. “As I thought!”

Tony looked. He saw two narrow holes in the earth, as if made by the penetration of a walking stick.

“What does this mean?”

“It means what I expected, McKay. I have the key of the main gate. Here it is. Go out and walk back along the road. I’ll sing out to guide you. When you get to the spot where I’m standing inside, look for similar marks, outside.”

Tony took the key and ran to the gate. He unlocked it and began to do as Nayland Smith had directed. When he reached a point which he judged to be near that where Sir Denis waited, he called out.

“Three paces more,” came crisply.

He took three paces. “Here I am.”

“Search.”

Tony found the job no easy one. Coarse grass and weeds grew beside the road close up to the wall. But, persevering, he noticed a patch which seemed to have been trodden down. He stooped, parted the tangled undergrowth with his fingers, and at last found what he was looking for:

Two identical holes in the earth!

“Found ‘em?” Nayland Smith rapped from the other side of the wall.

“Yes, Sir Denis. They’re here!”

“Come back, and relock the gate. It isn’t supposed to be opened until the gate porter is on duty.”

Tony obeyed; rejoined Nayland Smith. “What does all this mean?”

Sir Denis grinned impishly. “It means two light bamboo ladders, long enough to clear the wiring and meeting above it on top. It’s as easy as that!”

Tony gaped for a moment; then he began to laugh.

“So much for Lao Tse-Mung’s fortress!”

“Quite so.” Nayland Smith spoke grimly. “It could be entered by an agile man using only one ladder. But he would have to stay inside until he found another way out. So that’s that. Now, to find the last piece of evidence on which my analysis of this business rests. I have examined the wall below the office window, and no one could reach the window from the ground. Therefore, he reached it from the roof.”

They returned to the house, where Wong was waiting for them.

“The trap to the roof,” he reported, “is above the landing of the east wing. I have had a step-ladder put there and have unbolted the trap.”

“Good.” Nayland Smith lighted his pipe. “Lead the way.”

The opening above the ladder gave access to a low, stuffy loft formed by the curved, tiled roof which projected over the house like an umbrella. Wong carried a flashlamp, directing its light on to the cross-beams and warning them to stoop. Four of the many ornamental brackets supporting the eaves—viewed from outside, a picturesque feature of Chinese architecture—masked traps by which it was possible to get on to the upturned lip of the curving roof, and so inspect or repair the tiles.

Lao Tse-Mung had gently grafted modern efficiency on to ancient feudalism.

“This is the nearest,” Nayland Smith muttered, and turned to Wong. “Open this one up.”

Wong ducked his head, stepped into the narrow, V-shaped closet, reached up and opened a trap. A shaft of daylight appeared in the opening.

“Wait until I’m up, McKay,” Sir Denis directed. “Then follow on. Four eyes are better than two.”

He raised his arms, wedged his foot on a projection, and was gone. Tony followed—to find himself lying at the base of the curved roof, and only prevented from falling off by the curl of the highly decorated edge. Nayland Smith, on all fours, was already crawling along the ledge. Tony glanced over the side, and saw at a glance that they were no more than a few yards from the office and his own room below.

As this fact dawned upon him, Nayland Smith turned his head, looked back.

“I was right!” he cried. “Here’s what I was looking for!”

He held up a length of shiny thin rope. One end apparently was fastened to an ornament on the curling lip of the roof.

Tony turned cautiously and crawled back. He decided that the profession of steeplejack was not for him. He noted, when Sir Denis joined him, that he carried the coil of rope. But it was not until they were in Tony’s room that he explained what already was fairly clear. He held up the thin line.

“Note,” he rapped, “that it’s knotted at intervals. It’s a silk rope and strong as a cable. You saw that it was fastened to one of the gargoyles decorating the edge of the roof. A dacoit’s rope. I have seen many. At a pinch, it can serve the same purpose as a thug’s cord. His weight, as he first swung down to the window and then hauled himself up again, so tightened the knot that he couldn’t get it free. He dared not wait. He ran along the roof to the tulip tree—and broke his neck.”

Chapter XV

That night a counsel of war was held.

“Whatever information he may have,” Lao Tse-Mung stated, “The Master dare not take active steps against me. It is clear that we hold a document which is of vital import to him. This is my shield. Your presence. Sir Denis, requires no explanation, nor does that of Moon Flower. But you. Captain McKay, as a secret agent once under arrest, pose a problem.”

“I quite agree, sir,” Tony admitted.

“What are we going to do?” Moon Flower asked, her blue eyes anxious. “Even if Fu Manchu does not have you arrested. Sir Denis has told you that his awful servants, the Cold Men, can get in almost any night!”

Lao Tse-Mung smiled in his gentle way.

“For a few more nights, possibly. Moon Flower. And I have arranged a patrol of the walls which will make even this difficult. Then, advised by Sir Denis, and in conference with my engineers, I have prepared a surprise for invaders.”

“It boils down to this,” Nayland Smith rapped out: “We’re all three going to move—tonight! We meet at the house of the lama, Dr. Li Wu Chang, in Niu-fo-Tu. I could discard disguise and travel openly, as I’m entitled to do, taking Jeanie with me. Fu Manchu knows I’m in Szechuan, although I’m uncertain how he found out. It’s open warfare. But in view of all we have to do, this would be to play into Fu Manchu’s hands. He must be made to believe that I have returned to Hong Kong—Our good friend, Lao Tse-Mung, has undertaken this part of the scheme, and his private plane will leave for Hong Kong tonight.”

“But you won’t be on board?” Tony suggested.

“I shall be on my way to Niu-fo-Tu. I shall take over the part of the Burmese monk retiring to his monastery with a young disciple. Our host has provided me with suitable papers. Hang on to those you have. You, also, must travel as a Buddhist priest. You know your own story, your name and the name of your monastery. The travel permit for disciple I must have,7

“All clear.”

“We’ll set out together, in the old Ford, until I say ‘Beat it!’ Then you’ll beat it, and be on your own!”

“Agreed,” Tony said.

“Leave the details to me. Yours may be the harder part, McKay, but you’re used to the hard way. Jeanie insists on joining us, so let it go at that. We start at nine sharp . . .”

On a long, cane settee, outside the library, where flowering vines laced the terrace, and the gardens under a crescent moon looked like fairyland. Tony and Moon Flower continued the conference.

“Yueh Hua,” he whispered, “why must you come with us? God knows I always want you near me, but we’re up against enemies who stick at nothing. Dr. Fu Manchu uses strange methods. These Cold Men! Couldn’t you stay right here, where you’re safe, until a better time comes to join me?”

He could feel her heart beating against his own when she answered.

“No, Chi Foh. I know Sir Denis has some plan to release my father, and I may be part of it. I can’t be wrong, because otherwise I’m sure he would have told me to stay.”

Tony held her close. “When Sir Denis needs you he will send for you.”

“He needs me now, or he wouldn’t take me. Don’t worry about me, Chi Foh. It is you I’m worrying about! If we have to separate, and someone recognizes you as an escaped prisoner—”

“The odds are against it. I know enough about the game, now, to take care of myself. I have credentials, too, and I’ll get by.”

“Please heaven you do, my dearest.”

The rest of the conference had no bearing on the problem . . .

* * *

There was a fairly good road, as Chinese roads go, to Niu-fo-Tu, as Tony remembered. And when they set out, Nayland Smith driving, Moon Flower beside him, and Tony in the back, moonlight was adequate to prevent a driver from coming to grief on the many obstacles met with.

Nayland Smith was an expert driver, but his speed, on this unpredictable surface, might have alarmed a nervous passenger. There was no great distance to go, and he took bends with a confidence which showed that he meant to get there in the shortest possible time.

“I’m afraid, Jeanie,” Tony heard him say, “my many journeys in the old days with Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad have taught me bad manners!”

His remarkable driving got them intact to within sight of dim lights which indicated the market town of Niu-fo-Tu—of unhappy memory.

And suddenly these dim lights were reinforced by a red light!

“Beat it, McKay!” Nayland Smith rapped and slowed down. “Make a detour. You know something of the lay of the land. Head for Li Wu Chang’s back door. If picked up, do your stuff. Admit that’s where you’re going. You’re fellow Buddhists.”

Tony jumped out. He had a glimpse of Moon Flower looking back; then, he made his way to the roadside, tried to recall what he knew of the immediate neighborhood to place himself, and groped a way through a bamboo jungle to a spot where he could sit down.

He had a packet of cigarettes and a lighter in the pocket of his ungainly robe. He took them out, lighted a cigarette, and sat down to consider his next move.

Which side was the river? If he could mentally locate the spot where the sampan had been tied up, he could work out his route to that path which would lead him to the back door of the lama’s house.

From cover, he watched the Ford pass out of sight.

He was alone again. He must act alone.

A few minutes’ reflection convinced him that the Lu Ho river lay on his left. Then he must follow the road as close as possible to the outskirts of the town. As the road ran roughly east and west, on this side of Niu-fo-Tu he must bear north- westerly, if he could find a path, and this would bring him to the open country behind the lama’s house.

Without further delay, he returned to the road and started walking.

What was Nayland Smith’s plan? That he had one seemed evident, as he was re-entering the danger zone. Tony’s heart sank when he reflected that he had rescued Moon Flower from the clutches of Fu Manchu and that now she was venturing again into his reach. But how he loved her loyalty, her intrepid spirit, that glorious, fighting spirit, ready to defy even such an enemy as Dr. Fu Manchu.

He knew that heaven had been good to him, and strode along confidently until he had a distant view of the gate of the town—but not the gate by which he had entered on a previous occasion. He pulled up, made a swift mental calculation, and got his bearings.

As he stepped aside from the high road into a tangle of bushes, a heavy wagon of market produce lumbered along, and from cover he saw, again, the red light spring up ahead.

Evidently, there was a guard at the gate. What was the reason of these unusual precautions? . . . And how had Nayland Smith been received?

Anxiety surged up in him like a hot spring.

He peered out. The big cart was being detained. He saw a number of men around it. He moved on. Still keeping parallel with the road, he tried to find some sort of path leading in the direction he wanted to go.

And, soon, he found one.

It was a footpath from the highroad, bearing north-westerly, just such a path as he had hoped to find. He sighed with relief; began to trudge along.

But, fifty yards from the road, he stopped. His heart seemed to stop, too.

A Ford car (and he couldn’t mistake it!) stood beside the narrow footpath!

He sprang forward. The car was empty. It had been deserted.

His brain began to behave like a windmill, and he broke into a run. What did it mean? What had happened? This was the car Nayland Smith had been driving. Where was Nayland Smith—and where was Moon Flower?

The path led into a patch of dense shadow, deserted by moonlight. He ran on.

A steely grasp on his ankle! He was thrown—pinned down!

Tony twisted, threw off his unseen enemy, nearly got on to his knees, when a strangle-hold ended the struggle.

“The light—quick!” came a snappy command.

A light flashed dazzlingly on to Tony’s face.

“Chi Foh!” Moon Flower’s voice!

“Damn it, McKay! I’m awfully sorry!”

He had been captured by Nayland Smith . . .

* * *

“I thought my maneuver had been spotted,” Sir Denis explained. “Hearing someone apparently in pursuit, I naturally acted promptly.”

“You did!” Tony admitted. “I’m getting quite used to being strangled!”

“You see, McKay, in sight of the town gate, I saw a loaded cart being examined there; several lanterns were brought out. By great good luck, I recognized one of the searchers—the big Nubian! That settled it. I looked for an opening where I could turn in, scrapped the old Ford and went ahead on foot.”

“I understand. I did the same thing; and I think, but I’m not sure, that you have picked the right path. If so, we haven’t far to walk. But what’s going on in Niu-fo-Tu? Is Fu Manchu expecting us?”

They were walking ahead cautiously, speaking in low tones.

“That’s what bothers me,” Nayland Smith confessed. “I don’t understand it.”

Moon Flower had said little for some time, but now she broke her silence. “As we have the mysterious manuscript, surely Fu Manchu would expect us to get away and not to come back here.”

“I agree,” Sir Denis said. “There may be some other reason for these strange precautions.”

They came out from the shadow of trees. The path led sharply right, and silvered by moonlight, they saw the scattered houses of Niu-fo-Tu. The house of the Lama, Dr. Li Wu Chang, was easy to identify, and Tony recognized the door by which he had escaped.

“Is the Lama expecting us?” he asked Nayland Smith.

“Yes. He has been advised. Hurry! We can be seen from several points now.”

m less than two minutes they were at the door. It was a teak door with a grille. It was locked.

Nayland Smith fumbled about urgently, and presently found what he was looking for. A faint bell note sounded inside the house.

“I think someone is coming along this way,’ Moon Flower whispered. “Perhaps we have been seen!”

The grille opened. There was an outline of a face behind the bars.

“Nayland Smith!” Sir Denis snapped.

The door was opened. They hurried in, and the old woman who had opened the door reclosed and barred it.

At that moment the lama came out of his study, hands extended.

“You are welcome. I was growing anxious. My sister, who looks after me, will take charge of Miss Cameron-Gordon, and presently we will all share a frugal supper . . .”

Later in the Lama’s study, with its church-like smell, and refreshed by a bottle of excellent wine: “I have brought you a problem. Doctor,” Nayland Smith said, “which I know will appeal to you. Guard it carefully—for its solution may determine the fate of China.”

And he handed the Lama the Chinese manuscript.

The old Lama glanced over a few pages, smiled, looked up.

“It is unusual. Sir Denis, but I don’t despair. No doubt you have a

copy?”

Nayland Smith nodded. “I had one made at Lao Tse-Mung’s.” “I received a message from him. He called to learn if you had arrived. It seems that a Cold Man entered his house to steal this document, but that the attempt was frustrated and the creature killed?” “Correct,” Nayland Smith agreed. “He was also buried.” “So I understand. Sir Denis. Lao Tse-Mung informs me that his chief mechanic, a very faithful and intelligent servant, reported to him shortly after you had departed that he had heard voices and strange sounds from the cypress grove in which the burial had taken place. He asked for permission to investigate. It was granted.”

“Wong’s a good man,” Nayland Smith said, his grey eyes lighting up. “I don’t know another of them all that would go near that grave at night. What did he find?”

“He found the grave reopened—and empty!”

* * *

A blue light went out in the small cabinet which faced Dr. Fu Manchu. He glanced across at General Huan who sat watching him. “Mahmud reports that the consignment from Lung Chang has passed through Niu-fo-Tu. On the outskirts of the town it will be transferred to the motor wagon and should be here very shortly.”

General Huan took a pinch of snuff, “m my ignorance. Master, it seems to me that to employ your great powers upon a matter which cannot advance our cause—”

Fu Manchu raised his hand, stood up slowly. His eyes became fixed in an almost maniacal stare, his fingers seemed to quiver.

“Cannot advance our cause?” The words were hissed. “How do you suppose, Tsung-Chao, that I have accomplished even so little? Is it because I am a master politician? No. Because I am a great soldier? No. Why do I stand before you, alive? Because I was chosen by the gods to outlive my normal span of years? No!”

His voice rose to a guttural cry. He clenched his hands.

“I regret my clumsy words. Master. I would have said—”

“You would have spoken folly. It is because I have explored more secrets of nature than any man living today. The fools who send rockets into space: what cause do these toys advance? I constructed a machine thirty years ago which defies the law of gravity. What of those who devise missiles with destructive warheads to reach distant targets? I could erase human life from the face of the earth without employing such a clumsy device.”

Fu Manchu dropped back into his chair, breathing heavily.

“Forgive me. I had no wish to disturb you.”

“I am not disturbed, Tsung-Chao. I am disappointed to find that our long association has not shown you that it is my supremacy as a scientist which alone can carry our projects to success. And what is my greatest achievement to this present hour? The creation of the Cold Men. You may not know, therefore I tell you, that the Cold Men are dead men.”

Huan Tsung-Chao stirred uneasily, looked aside.

“You are startled! Matsukata alone knew the secret, which now you share. Every one of the Cold Men has died, or has been put to death, and from the cold ashes I have re-created the flame of life. None, save Singu, has ever been buried as dead. For a man once dead cannot die a second time!”

General Huan’s mask-like features relaxed into an expression which almost resembled one of fear.

“I am appalled. Master. Forgive my ignorance—but Matsukata reported that Singu died of a broken neck.”

Dr. Fu Manchu laughed harshly. “He reported that Singu had suffered a dislocation of the anterior ligament as the result of a fall on his head. There were other injuries to the skull which may indicate the cause of this fall. The ligament I can repair; the other injury also.”

“But—”

“But if I cannot restore Singu to life long years of research will have led me to a hollow fallacy. I believed the Cold Men to be indestructible except by total disintegration.”

There was a faint sound, and Fu Manchu turned a switch. The voice of the Japanese physician, Matsukata, came faintly:

“I have the body in the clinic. Master.”

“Do nothing until I join you.”

Dr. Fu Manchu stood up. “Would you care to witness one of the most important experiments I have ever carried out, Tsung-Chao?”

“Thank you, no,” the old soldier replied. “I fear no living man; but dead men who walk again turn my old blood to water . . .

Chapter XVI

Tony stared out of a window into one of the busiest streets of Chia-Ting. This was part of the city he had never previously visited. His knowledge of Chia-Ting was confined to the waterfront and the jail. Accompanied by the old Lama, whose credentials were above suspicion, they had made the thirty-odd miles journey without incident, as members of his family bound for Chengtu.

Nayland Smith and Tony had adopted the dress of members of the professional class, and Moon Flower was a girl again—Sir Denis’s daughter. The house in Chia-Ting belonged to a cousin of the Lama, a prosperous physician and a fervent anti-Communist.

But, this evening. Tony was worried.

Nayland Smith and his “daughter” had traced, at last, the house in which Shun-Hi, former servant of Dr. Cameron-Gordon (now employed in the summer villa of the governor of the province) was living. Moon Flower’s memory of its location was rather hazy. They had gone to interview Shun-Hi.

And, although dusk was near, they had not returned.

Sir Denis had insisted that, until the time for action came. Tony must not show himself unnecessarily in Chia-Ting. Too many people knew him, and the reward for his arrest would stimulate recognition. But he suffered agonies whenever Moon Flower was out on the search.

He still had little more than a vague idea of Nayland Smith’s plan. That the girl, Shun-Hi, was a link with Moon Flower’s father he saw clearly. But, regarding his release from Dr. Fu Manchu, he saw no prospect whatever. Only his faith in the chief who had employed him shone like a guiding star. If anyone could do it, Nayland Smith was the man.

Just before suspense became unendurable. Tony saw Moon Flower and Sir Denis making for the door below. They had a girl with them whom he guessed to be Shun-Hi, and a few moments later all three came into the room.

Nayland Smith looked elated. “Our luck holds, McKay! Here’s a useful recruit. Sit down, Shun-Hi. We have a lot to talk about.”

Shun-Hi, a good-looking working-class girl, smiled happily at Moon Flower and sat down. Moon Flower sat beside her, an encouraging arm thrown around Shun-Hi’s shoulders, as Nayland Smith began to fill his pipe.

“Is your father well, Yueh-Hua?” Tony asked.

Moon Flower nodded. “Yes—but very unhappy.”

“Shun-Hi,” Sir Denis explained, “speaks remarkably good English. So now, Shun-Hi, I want to ask you some questions. Your old employer, the doctor, you tell me, works in a laboratory in the garden but sleeps in the house. How large is this laboratory?”

“It is—” Sun-Hi hesitated—”like four of mis room in a row—so.” She extended her hands.

“Along, low building. I see. And where’s the door?”

“One at each end. From the door at the far end there is a path to a gate. But the gate is always locked.”

“And inside?”

“No one is allowed inside. Sometimes, I carry a tray down for the doctor. His lunch. But I put it on the ledge of a window and he takes it in. This was how I got Miss Yueh-Hua’s message to him and got his reply back.”

“Does he work alone there?”

“Yes. Except when a Japanese from the hospital comes, or when The Master is here. The Master spends many hours inside this place.”

“And when the window is opened, what can you see?”

“Only a very small room, with a table and some chairs.”

“Does Dr. Cameron-Gordon work there late?”

“I don’t know. He is always there when I leave in the evening.”

“Does he never go outside the walls?”

“No.”

“When he leaves the laboratory, what is to prevent him walking out by one of the gates?”

“They are always locked, except when visitors come. Then, a gate porter opens them. There is a small door in the wall, used by the staff. It is opened for us when we arrive and again when we leave.”

Moon Flower smiled. “That was the door, Shun-Hi, I watched until I saw you come out one evening. Do you remember?”

Shun-Hi turned her head and affectionately kissed the hand resting on her shoulder.

“Is Huan Tsung-Chao a good master?” Nayland Smith asked.

“Yes. He is kind to us all.”

“But you would rather be with Dr. Cameron-Gordon again?”

“Oh,yes!”

“And The Master—do you have much to do with him when he is there?”

“No!” Shun-Hi spoke shudderingly. “I should be afraid to go near him!”

Nayland Smith had not lighted his pipe. He did so now; and as smoke rose from the bowl:

“Tell me, Shun-Hi,” he rapped, “is any watch kept in the gardens at night?”

“I don’t know. I am never there at night. But I don’t think so. It is just a summer house where his Excellency comes for a rest.”

Nayland Smith nodded. “Do you take a tray to Dr. Cameron-Gordon every day?”

“Oh, no. Some days one of the other girls is sent.”

“And does the same girl bring it back?”

“As a rule, yes. The doctor leaves it on the ledge. But, the day I gave him the message, he waited until I came to return the tray and give me the reply.”

Nayland Smith pulled at the lobe of his ear, thoughtfully. “So that if we gave you another message for Dr. Cameron-Gordon, it might be several days before you could deliver it?”

“Yes.”

“H’m! That complicates matters.”

Tony, who had listened to every word, broke in: “It only means, Sir Denis, a few days more delay.”

“Perhaps. But Fu Manchu is merely a bird of passage in Szechuan. He may move on at any time. I haven’t an idea in what way he’s employing Cameron-Gordon’s special knowledge. But as it’s obviously of some value to Fu Manchu, when one goes the other goes with him!”

Moon Flower’s eyes opened widely. “Oh, I couldn’t bear it! We are so near to him—and yet!”

“We have to face facts, Jeanie,” Sir Denis said. “Even if we’re given our chance, it may not come off. But I have a strong conviction that if we make no mistakes it will.”

* * *

At a glass-topped table a man whose iron-grey hair, fresh complexion and a close-trimmed grey mustache lent him something of the look of a Scottish sergeant major bent over a powerful microscope. He wore the white linen jacket which is the scientist’s field uniform. Whatever he was studying absorbed all his attention.

A faint sound made by an opening door failed to distract him.

The tall figure which had entered, that of a man also in white, stood silent, watching.

The student, without removing his eye from the instrument, scribbled something on a pad which lay near his hand. He looked a while longer, then standing up and completing the note he had made, sat down and turned to a globular lamp-glass, the top closed with cotton-wool, standing in a Petri dish. Several sheets of damp filter paper lay in the bottom. He took up a lens and stared intently into the glass globe.

“I see, Doctor,” came a sibilant voice from the shadowed doorway, “you are studying my new sandflies.”

“Yes.” The man addressed didn’t even glance aside.

“Are you satisfied?”

“Yes. But you won’t be.”

“Why?”

“They are not absorbing the virus.”

“It is fed to them.”

“It is here, on the filter-papers. But they reject it.” He looked up for the first time. Light-blue eyes blazed under shaggy eyebrows. “For your own filthy purpose these new imports are useless.”

Fu Manchu walked slowly into the room, stood over the seated man; smiling his icy smile.

“Your mulish obstinacy in ignoring my high purpose begins to annoy me.” He spoke softly. “You are well aware of the fact that I do not strike at random. Only the guilty suffer. You persist in confusing my aims with those of the crazy Communist fools who wrecked your mission hospital. You presume to classify my work with that of the ignorant, power-drunk demagogues who have forced their way into the Kremlin.”

“Your methods are much the same.”

There was a moment of tense silence, broken only by a rhythmic throbbing in the adjoining room. Fu Manchu’s clenched hands relaxed.

“You forget that I saved you from the mob who burned your home.”

“By arresting me and making me a prisoner here. It was you who inspired the mob—for that purpose alone.”

Fu Manchu’s voice was coldly calm when he spoke again. “Dr. Cameron-Gordon, I respect your knowledge. I respect your courage. But I cannot respect your blindness to the fact that our ideals are identical. My methods in achieving them are beyond your understanding. Be good enough to leave your work for an hour. I wish to talk to you.”

“When I undertake a thing, though I may loathe it, I carry it out. My work here is not finished.”

“You are dedicated to your studies, Doctor. That is why I admire you. Please come with me.”

Dr. Cameron-Gordon shrugged his shoulders and stood up. He followed the tall figure to the room at the end of the long, low building which Fu Manchu used as a rest room; sat down in a comfortable chair. Fu Manchu opened a closet.

“May I offer you a Scotch and soda, Doctor?”

“Thank you, no.” Cameron-Gordon sniffed. “But I have no objection to your smoking a pipe of opium. If you smoke enough the world will soon be rid of you.”

Dr. Fu Manchu smiled his mirthless smile. “If I told you for how many years I have used opium, you would not believe me. Opium will not rid the world of me.”

He closed the closet, sat down on the couch.

“That’s a pity,” Cameron-Gordon commented dryly

Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff, then pressed the tips of his fingers together. “I have tried many times, since you have been my guest—,, Cameron-Gordon made a snorting sound—”to enlighten you concerning the aims of the Si-Fan. I have told you of the many distinguished men who work for the Order—”

“You mean who are slaves of the Order!”

“I mean convinced and enthusiastic members. It is unavoidable, Doctor, if the present so-called civilization is not to perish, that some intellectual group, such as that which I mention, should put an end to the pretensions of the gang of impudent impostors who seek to create a Communist world. This done, the rest is easy. And the Si-Fan can do this.”

“So you have told me. But your methods of doing it don’t appeal. My experience of the Si-Fan isn’t exactly encouraging!”

Fu Manchu continued calmly, “I have no desire to use coercion. Without difficulty, and by purely scientific means, I could exact your obedience.”

“You mean, you could drug me?”

“It would be simple. But it is a method which, in the case of a delicately adjusted brain such as yours, might impair your work. As I wish you to continue your researches during my absence, I have been thinking that your daughter—”

Cameron-Gordon came to his feet at a bound, fists clenched, eleven stones of dangerous Scot’s brawn fighting mad. In two strides he stood over Dr. Fu Manchu.

“By God! Speak another word of that threat and I’ll strangle you with my bare hands!”

Fu Manchu did not stir. He remained perfectly still, the lids half lowered over his strange eyes.

“I spoke no threat,” he said softly. “I was thinking that your daughter would be left unprovided for if any rash behavior on your part should make her an orphan.”

“In other words, unless I submit to you, I shall be liquidated.”

“I did not say so. You can join the Si-Fan whenever you wish. You will enjoy complete freedom. You can practice any form of religion which may appeal to you. Your place of residence will be of your own choosing. Your daughter can live with you. All that I shall call upon you to do will be to carry out certain experiments. Their purpose will not concern you. My object is to crush Communism. You can help me to attain that goal.”

Cameron-Gordon’s clenched hands relaxed. Dr. Fu Manchu’s sophistry had not deceived him, but it had made him reflect.

“Thanks for the explanation,” he said dourly “I’ll be thinking it over. Maybe I could get back to my work now?”

“By all means. Doctor.” Fu Manchu raised drooping lids and gave him a brief, piercing glance of his green eyes. “Return to your experiment . . .”

Chapter XVII

It was early next morning when Nayland Smith and Tony joined the stream of workers, many of them silk weavers, pouring through the narrow streets. Tony wore thick-rimmed glasses, a sufficient disguise. Shun-Hi hurried along ahead, and they kept her in sight.

On the outskirts of the town, she was joined by two companions, evidently fellow servants. And after passing a large factory in which the stream of workers were finally absorbed, they came to the country road leading to the summer villa of Huan Tsung-Chao. Sir Denis and Tony, and the three girls ahead, now alone remained of the former throng.

“Drop back a bit,” Nayland Smith cautioned. “Those other girls might think we’re following them from amorous motives.” He grabbed Tony’s arm. “In here!”

They stepped through an opening in a cactus hedge and found a path parallel to the road which bordered a large field of poppies.

“Gosh!” Tony exclaimed. “Here’s a crop!”

“The Reds have certainly stepped up the opium trade,” Nayland Smith rapped dryly

They went ahead, guided by the girls’ voices, and when these grew faint in the distance came out again on to the road. Shun-Hi and her friends had turned into a side-path. Tony caught a glimpse of the three figures just before they were lost in the shadows of a cypress grove.

“We must chance it,” Nayland Smith muttered. “Have to keep them in sight. I want a glimpse of this staff entrance Shun-Hi and Jeanie mentioned.”

But they had gone all of another mile before they saw the roof of a large house gleaming in the morning sun. It stood on a slight eminence in the middle of what was evidently a considerable estate, and the narrow lane along which, now, the girls were hurrying, was bordered by a high wall of similar construction to that

which enclosed the property of Lao Tse-Mung.

They had drawn up closer to the three, and suddenly:

“There’s the entrance!” Tony exclaimed. “They’re just going in! “So I see,” Nayland Smith spoke quietly. “We must wait awhile, in case there are others to come. We might venture a little farther and then take cover. That stately banyan twenty yards ahead appeals to me.

And three minutes later, having forced a way through tangled undergrowth, they stood in the shade of the huge tree. The gate in the wall was clearly in view.

It was a metal-studded teak door, evidently of great strength; and at the moment it remained open.

“Someone else expected,” Sir Denis muttered.

They waited. And Tony, watching the open door in the high wall, realized for the first time that the high wall alone separated two implacable enemies. The thought appalled him. He and Nayland Smith were alone. On the other side of the wall, in the person of the governor, all the strength of the Red Regime was entrenched.

“Hullo! What’s this?”

Nayland Smith grabbed his arm.

Four bearers appeared from somewhere along the lane, carrying the Chinese equivalent of a sedan chair. It was a finely made chair, and the men wore some kind of uniform. They stopped before the open door; set the chair down.

A tall man, wearing a mandarin robe and a black cap with a coral beard, came out and stepped into the chair. The bearers took it up and passed so close to the banyan tree that Sir Denis dragged Tony down on to his knees. The chair went by. Nayland Smith, still grasping his arm, stared into Tony’s eyes.

“Dr. Fu Manchu!”

Neither spoke during a long minute, then: “It’s too optimistic to hope that he’s leaving Szechuan,” Tony said.

“I’m afraid so,” Nayland Smith agreed. “But, having a revolver in my pocket. I’m wondering if I should have missed such an opportunity!”

Oddly enough, this aspect of the thing had never occurred to Tony. Only as Sir Denis spoke did he realize how deep was the impression which the personality of Fu Manchu had made upon him. The regal dignity and consciousness of power which surrounded the Chinese doctor like a halo seemed to set him above common men.

“I wonder, too.”

“Don’t fall for the spell he casts, McKay. I admit he’s a genius. But—”

Tony looked hard at Nayland Smith. “Could you do it?”

“Once, I could have done it. Now, when I have learned to assess the phenomenal brilliance of that great brain—I doubt myself. My hand would falter. But we can at least carry out our investigations without meeting Fu Manchu! He, alone, would know me. You have no one to fear but the big Nubian.”

They came out of cover. The chair with its four bearers had disappeared in the direction of the town. First, they walked to the door in the wall. Nayland Smith examined it carefully; turned away. “Pretty hopeless,” he rapped.

The lane was deserted, and they followed the high wall for all of a quarter-mile without finding another entrance. Nayland Smith scanned it yard by yard, and at a point where the pink blossom of a peach tree evidently trained against the wall peeped over the top, he paused.

“Apparently an orchard. Do you think you could find the spot at night, McKay?”

“Quite sure.”

“Good.”

Tony asked no questions as they passed on. Another twenty yards and they came to a comer. The wall was continued at a right angle along an even narrower lane, a mere footpath choked with weeds. They forced a way through. This side of Huan Tsung-Chao’s property was shorter than that on the south side, but Nayland Smith studied every yard of the wall with eager attention. It ended where they had a prospect of a river, and turned right again on a wider road.

This road was spanned by a graceful bridge from the grounds of the big house, and Tony saw a landing stage to which a motor cruiser was tied up.

“That river will be the Tung Ho, I suppose,” Nayland Smith muttered; stared up at the bridge; “and this will be the governor’s water-gate.”

“He must be a wealthy man.”

Sir Denis grinned. “Huan Tsung-Chao is a fabulously wealthy man. He’s a survival of imperial days and God alone knows his age. How he came to hold his present position under the Peiping regime is a mystery.”

“Why?”

“He is Dr. Fu Manchu’s chief of staff! I met him once, and whatever else he may be, he is a gentleman, however misguided.”

Tony was too much amazed to say anything. He saw, several hundred yards along, what was evidently the main entrance. A man in military uniform stood outside.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“Turn back. I don’t want that fellow to see us. Come on!”

They retired around the comer; and Nayland Smith pulled up.

“How high do you guess that bridge to be, McKay, at its lowest point where it crosses the wall?”

Tony thought for a moment, then, “About twelve feet,” he answered.

Nayland Smith nodded. “I should judge it fourteen. In either case, too high.”

* * *

Before a gate in a barbed-wire fence. Dr. Fu Manchu stepped out of his chair. A soldier on duty there saluted The Master as he went in. There were flowering trees and shrubs in the enclosure surrounding a group of buildings evidently of recent construction. A path bordered by a cactus hedge led to the door of the largest of these.

The door was thrown open as Fu Manchu appeared, and the Burmese doorman bowed low. Fu Manchu ignored him and went on his way, walking slowly with his strange catlike step. The place unmistakably was a hospital, with clean, white-walled corridors, and before a door at the end of one of these corridors, above which a red light shone, Fu Manchu paused and pressed a button.

A trap masking a grille in the door slid aside and someone looked out. At almost the same moment the door was opened. Matsukata, the Japanese physician, stood inside.

“Your report,” Fu Manchu demanded tersely.

“There is no change, Master.”

Dr. Fu Manchu made a soft hissing sound, not unlike that of certain species of snakes.

“Show me the chart.”

They went into a small dressing-room. Fu Manchu removed his robe and cap and put on a white jacket similar to that worn by the Japanese. Matsukata turned away, but was back again as Fu Manchu completed his change of dress.

“Here is the chart, Master.”

It was snatched from his hand. Dr. Fu Manchu scanned it rapidly

“You have checked everything—the temperature inside, the oxygen supply?”

“Everything.”

Fu Manchu walked out of the room and into another, larger room equipped as a surgery. In addition to the operating table and other usual equipment, there were several quite unusual pieces of apparatus here and one feature which must have arrested the attention of any modem surgeon.

This was a glass case, not unlike one of those in which Egyptian mummies are exhibited, and the resemblance was heightened by the fact that it contained a lean, nude, motionless body. But here the resemblance ended.

The heavy case rested upon what were apparently finely adjusted scales. A dial with millesimal measurements recorded the weight of the case and its contents. A stethoscopic attachment to the body was wired to a kind of clock. There was an intake from a cylinder standing beside the case; a mechanism which showed the quality of the air inside; and two thermometers. The instrument (known by a sixteen-letter name) for checking blood pressure was strapped to an arm of the inert grey figure and communicated with a mercury manometer outside the case. There were also a number of electric wires in contact with the body.

Dr. Fu Manchu checked everything with care, comparing what he saw with what appeared on the chart.

He began to pace up and down the floor.

“Are you sure, Master,” Matsukata ventured, “that in repairing the spinal fracture you did not injure the cord?”

Fu Manchu halted as suddenly as if he had walked into a brick wall. Then, he turned, and his eyes blazed murderously, madly.

“Are you presuming to question my surgery?” he shouted. “Am I, now, to return to Heidelberg, to the Sorbonne, to Edinburgh, and beg to be re-enrolled as a student—I, who took highest honors at all of them.”

He was in the grip of one of those outbursts of maniacal frenzy which, years before, had led Nayland Smith, and others, to doubt his sanity.

Matsukata seemed to shrink physically. He became speechless.

Fu Manchu raised clenched hands above his head. “God of China!” he cried, “give me strength to conquer myself—or I shall kill this man!”

He dropped down on to a chair, sank his head in his hands. Matsukata began to steal away.

“Stand still!” Fu Manchu hissed softly.

Matsukata stood still.

There was complete silence for several minutes. Then, Dr. Fu Manchu stood up. He was calm; the frenzy had passed.

“Prepare the cold room,” he ordered. “I must reexamine the patient . . .”

On his return from the early morning investigation, Nayland Smith’s behavior was peculiar. After a hasty meal, he appeared dressed as a working man. Grinning at Tony and Moon Flower:

“I’m off again!” he announced. “All I want you two to do is to stay indoors until I come back. Can you bear it?”

Tony and Moon Flower exchanged glances. Tony’s inclinations and his sense of duty were at war. “Can’t I be of any use, Sir Denis?” he asked.

“There’s not a thing you could do, McKay, that I can’t do better alone.”

And off he went.

“Chi Foh—” Moon Flower spoke almost in a whisper—”it’s wonderful for us to be together again. I know that Sir Denis is working to rescue father. But you must feel, as I do, that to stay inactive is dreadful.”

Tony threw his arms around her. “You weren’t inactive, Moon Flower, in finding Shun-Hi, and I don’t think it will be long before we are active again. I’m learning a lot about Sir Denis. When he tells me to stay put, I stay put. He’s a grand man, and I’m glad to take his orders . . .”

Their party occupied a floor of the house, and their landlord and host, the doctor, had his office and residence on the floor below. The lama had arranged everything. They enjoyed complete privacy. So that the interval of waiting, to these affianced lovers, was rapturous rather than boring. But, even with Moon Flower’s arms around him. Tony had pangs of conscience. Nayland Smith was on the big job, and he was dallying.

And as the day wore on, and Sir Denis didn’t return, this uneasiness became alarm.

Where had he gone? What was he doing?

With the coming of dusk, both were wildly uneasy. Tony’s sight of Dr. Fu Manchu that morning had sharpened his dread of The Master. He was painfully aware of the fact that if anything happened to Nayland Smith they would be helpless; two wanderers lost behind the second Bamboo Curtain.

Tony paced the room. Moon Flower rarely stirred from the window.

“If I had any idea where he had gone . . .” Tony said desperately.

There sounded a crisp step on the landing. Nayland Smith walked in.

“Thank God!” Tony added.

Moon Flower turned in a flash. “I didn’t see you on the street!”

“No, Jeanie. I came another way and entered by the back door. I had an uneasy feeling I was being followed.”

“I hope you were wrong,” Tony said.

“So do I,” Sir Denis admitted, opening the closet where they kept a scanty stock of liquor. “A stiff Scotch and soda is clearly indicated.”

“I had hoped to hear from Shun-Hi,” Moon Flower began—

“No luck today,” Nayland Smith rapped. “I have seen her. She’ll try again to-morrow. By that time we’ll be ready to go into action.”

“Why tomorrow and not to-day?” Tony asked.

Sir Denis grinned in his impish way. “I had to clear the course,” he stated cryptically, and began to fill his pipe . . .

Chapter XVIII

Tony woke early on the following morning. Looking across the room which he shared with Nayland Smith, he saw that the bed was empty. He thought little about it, for Sir Denis’s hours of rising were unpredictable. He took a shower, went into the living-room and lighted a cigarette.

When the woman who looked after their apartment appeared, to lay the table for breakfast, he asked her in Chinese at what time Sir Denis had gone out. They always spoke Chinese in the presence of the servants. She looked surprised and told him that it must have been before six o’clock, as no one had gone out since.

Moon Flower joined him half an hour later. “Isn’t Sir Denis up yet?” she asked in surprise.

“Very much up!” Tony told her. “He must have gone out around dawn!”

She stared at him in a puzzled way. “He’s behaving very oddly, isn’t he? Of course, I know it’s all something to do with getting father free, but I wish he wouldn’t scare us by these disappearances.”

“Who’s scaring you?” came a snappy voice from the direction of the doorway.

Tony turned—and there was Nayland Smith smiling at them. He wore his workman’s clothes.

“Where on earth have you been?” Tony asked. “And at what time did you start?”

“I started some time before daylight, McKay. I didn’t disturb you by taking a bath, so I’ll take one now. As to where I have been, I have been finishing the job of clearing the course. All we’re waiting for is word from Cameron-Gordon. Be with you in ten minutes.”

And a moment later they heard the bath water turned on; for the house of the Lama’s cousin, who had graduated in New York, boasted Western equipment.

During breakfast, in spite of Moon Flower’s cross examination, Nayland Smith evaded any explanation of his plans. “I believe, Jeanie, I have done all that can be done so far. Our next move will be touch-and-go. And I don’t want to raise false hopes.”

He spent the forenoon smoking his pipe near the window, constantly watching the passers by. Once, he spoke to Tony, out of Moon Flower’s hearing: “If they once suspected we were here, all my plans would be shattered.”

Tony felt like a greyhound on the leash, and Moon Flower, reproachfully, retired to her own room.

During luncheon, Nayland Smith tried to divert their gloomy thoughts with memories of his many encounters with Dr. Fu Manchu, particularly those in which he had foiled the cunning Chinese scientist. “I’m only a moderately competent policeman. This man is a criminal genius. But I have had him on the mat more than once. Unfortunately, he always got up again . . .”

The afternoon was passed in the same way; and when evening drew near, Nayland Smith’s imperturbable calm began to show signs of breaking down. Several times he looked at his watch, then out of the window again, until suddenly:

“Here she is!” he cried out, and sprang to the room door in his eagerness.

Shun-Hi, flushed and excited, came in. Moon Flower ran to meet her.

“Here it is, Miss Yueh Hua. The answer from your father!”

Moon Flower almost snatched a folded sheet of paper which Shun-Hi held in her hand.

“Quick, Jeanie—is it for tonight?” Nayland Smith snapped.

She read quickly, tears in her eyes, then looked up.

“Yes! To-night! Oh, Sir Denis, please God you succeed!”

* * *

In the dusk, Tony and Nayland Smith set out. They had weathered a bad storm with Moon Flower.

“I simply dare not take her, McKay,” Sir Denis said. “I understand her anxiety to see her father; but if anything goes wrong tonight, we shall have walked into hell! Whatever happens to you and me, Jeanie will be safe, if she does as I told her to do. You heard my instructions to Lao Tse-Mung. If we get Cameron-Gordon clear, the plans are laid for Jeanie and her father to fly to Hong Kong. Your capture of the Chinese manuscript was a divine miracle. We may have Dr. Fu Manchu at our mercy. But Skobolov’s correspondence has given me ideas about the Soviet research center We are going to take a look at the Soviet research center, McKay . . .”

They followed the route which they had taken before when Shun-Hi had led them to the staff entrance of General Huan’s house. But tonight the streets were not thronged. In one quarter a fringe of which touched their route they could see in adjoining streets lighted lanterns, and hear barbaric music, but it was soon left behind.

Once clear of the outskirts of the town, two working men and their moon-shadows alone walked the highway.

There was something melancholy in the empty countryside, in the breathless silence, which bred in Tony’s mind a sense of foreboding. In his long journey by land and water, before he had met Moon Flower, he had known many such lonely nights; but they had not created quite the same impression of impending harm. Nayland Smith had been silent for some time. Suddenly he spoke.

“Your automatic is ready, I take it, McKay?”

And the words suggested to Tony that Sir Denis was victim of a similar depression.

“Yes, sure.”

“So’s my revolver. Always want to be prepared.”

Tony was possessed by an urgent desire to talk, and so, “You said you had cleared the course,” he went on, trying to speak lightly. “To which part of the course did you refer?”

“The last hundred yards,” Nayland Smith said, and fell silent again.

Twenty paces on, he stopped suddenly, grasped Tony’s arm. “Listen!”

Tony stood stock-still, and listened. He could hear nothing.

“What did you think you heard?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Someone behind us. But there’s no one in sight.”

But, as they resumed their march, Tony knew that the shadow which had fallen upon his spirits had also touched Nayland Smith.

They reached the point where they had turned into the poppy field, but now kept to the highroad. Soon, they were on the path into which Shim-Hi and her friends had gone, and deep in the shadow of the cypresses. Tony’s spirits sank even lower in the darkness,

Nayland Smith pulled up, detained him with a touch.

A weird, plaintive wail rose on the night—died away.

“Stupid of me,” Sir Denis rapped. “For one unpleasant moment I thought it was a dacoit. Night hawk!”

They came to the lane bordering the high wall. Nayland Smith looked swiftly to right and left before stepping out. That side on which they stood, opposite the wall, lay in shadow. “All clear. Come on!”

Almost silent in their straw sandals they moved on nearer to the door in the wall. In the shade of the banyan tree, Nayland Smith turned aside, plunging into undergrowth. Tony followed. He was completely at a loss until Sir Denis produced a flashlamp and shone a light on to the tangled roots of the great tree.

“Look!”

And Tony looked; was astounded by what he saw.

A long, slender bamboo ladder lay there!

“Always glad to learn from the enemy, McKay. This clears the course from here to the laboratory, where Cameron-Gordon is waiting for us!”

“You still have me guessing.”

Nayland Smith laughed. “This ladder is light enough for a child to carry. It’s long enough to reach the top of General Huan’s wall. It’s strong enough to support a man of reasonable weight. We’re both lean specimens. All clear?”

“So far, all clear. But where did you get it?”

“I found a friendly carpenter. Told him I was a gardener employed in a place where there were tall trees to be pruned. He had the ladder ready by evening. I collected it, and carried it halfway to the governor’s house, where I parked it in a clump of bamboos. Quite impossible to spot from the road. Early next morning, when no one was about, I carried it here.”

He dragged the light ladder from the out-flung roots of the tree.

“I get it!” Tony spoke excitedly.

“What a frozen dacoit can do, we can do!”

They returned to the lane. Tony carrying the ladder on his shoulder. “I have to look out for the peach tree?”

“Right. Go ahead. I want to keep an eye on the lane behind.”

Tony tramped on. Promise of action blew aside the cloud of foreboding which had crept over him. And soon, against the bright sky, he saw peach blossom peeping over the wall, to awaken a memory of a Japanese water-color painting.

“All clear,” Nayland Smith rapped. “Set the ladder up, McKay.”

Tony found a spot among the weeds at the foot of the wall where he could make the base of the ladder firm, and gingerly maneuvered its delicate frame into place.

“All ready”

“Stand by, McKay. I must make sure that the trellis is strong enough to be safe. We may want to retire in a hurry!”

Nayland Smith went up the ladder with an agility surprising in a man no longer young. Tony watched, breathless with excitement. Sir Denis climbed over the wall and began to climb down on the other side. When his head was level with the pink blossom:

“Follow on,” he instructed. “Safe as an oak staircase!”

“Do I leave the ladder?”

“No choice, McKay. If it’s moved, we’ll have to drop from the wall.”

Tony was up in a count of seconds; looked over the top. He saw a well-planted orchard, pear trees, plum, and other fruits. Nayland Smith stood below.

“A wire frame, clamped to the wall. Perpendicular but safe.”

Tony swung his leg over, found a stout branch and scrambled down.

“What’s our direction. Sir Denis?”

“Not quite sure. Must get my bearings.”

Nayland Smith stood there, in the shadow of the wall, tugging at his ear.

“Shun-Hi tried to explain the location of the laboratory.”

“She did. And it’s clear in my mind, now. Follow on.”

* * *

They had to make a wide detour around the house. The property was landscaped as a pleasure garden, with lily ponds and streams of running water; with miniature waterfalls amid a blaze of rockery flowers. In moonlight it was entrancing, but Tony felt more concern about sticking to the shadows than admiration of the many beauties of the garden.

The laboratory, when at last they sighted it, proved to be partly screened in a grove of orange trees. This was all to the good. It was an ugly building evidently of recent construction; a long, narrow hut, but much larger than Tony had visualized.

“We have to show ourselves in the moonlight to reach the orange trees, which frightens me,” Nayland Smith said. “But at this point we’re not in view from the house.”

“There isn’t a light in the house,” Tony pointed out.

“That’s what frightens me. Let’s make a dash for it!”

They raced across the moon bright patch and into the shadow of the trees.

Two windows of the laboratory building were lighted; a small one near the door; a larger at the side of the hut. Tony pushed forward. But Nayland Smith stood still, looking back, listening. He said nothing, but joined Tony on a narrow path which led to the door.

He rapped on the panels. The light in the window disappeared. The door was opened, and a man in a white coat peered out.

“Smith!”

“Cameron-Gordon!”

“Quick! Come in! Who’s with you?”

“Tony McKay, one of us.”

They entered in darkness. The door was closed again and a light sprang up.

* * *

Tony saw a tiny room, with a table and two chairs, such as Shun-Hi had described. The man in the white coat spoke hoarsely:

“Thank God you found me, Smith! I didn’t know you were in China. And God bless Jeanie for getting my message through! I didn’t want to show a light when I opened the door. I never know when I’m watched.”

“Nor do I,” Nayland Smith rapped. “I suggest we start.” Cameron-Gordon had his hand in a fervent grip of greeting. “Wait just a few moments, Smith. I want you to see the kind of work I do.” He transferred the hand grip to Tony. “You must be a sound man to be here, and I’m glad to meet you.”

He opened a door, beckoned them to follow. They did so, reluctantly.

On the threshold they halted, both together. There was a muffled buzzing sound, and a strange, repulsive odor The place was lined by glass cases, in which, as Cameron-Gordon switched light on, a feverish activity came to life. The cases were filled with insects, some with wings and some without; huge flies, bloated spiders, ants, centipedes, scorpions!

“My God!” Tony muttered.

“I have seen something like this before,” Nayland Smith said; “in another of Fu Manchu’s establishments.”

“My dear Smith”—Cameron-Gordon was alight with the enthusiasm of the specialist—”he is doing work here which, if it were used for the good of humanity would make his name immortal. His knowledge of entomology is stupendous.”

“I have had some experience of it,” Nayland Smith rapped dryly “ ‘My little allies’, he once called these horrors.”

Cameron-Gordon ignored the interruption. “His experiments, Smith, are daring beyond what is allowed to God-fearing men. He has bred hybrids of the insect world which never before existed except for sufferers from delirium tremors I’ll show you some. But he has also prepared drugs from these sources which, if made available to physicians, would almost certainly wipe out the ravages of many fatal diseases.”

“Tell me, Doctor,” Tony said faintly, “what is that?”

He was staring at a case which contained an enormous centipede of a dull red color It was fully a foot long and was moving around its glass prison with horrible, febrile activity.

“A Mexican specimen of the morsitans species. Twice its hitherto known largest size. From its toxin he hopes to prepare an inoculation giving immunity from cholera. One of my duties is to extract the toxin!”

“And what about this hideous spider?”

“Known in New Zealand as a katipo, but in this instance, crossed with a tarantula! Its sting is deadly. Dr. Fu Manchu has a poison made from that creature’s toxin which, swallowed—and it’s tasteless—would kill in five minutes; injected, kill instantly! Look at that colony of red ants! Another hybrid species. They multiply from hundreds to millions in a short time. They eat anything. Set loose here in China, they would turn Asia into a desert from the sea to the Himalayas in a few months!”

Nayland Smith was glancing anxiously at his watch. But Cameron-Gordon remained in the grip of professional enthusiasm.

“These”—he pointed—”are plague fleas. They are reinforced with plague-cultures. One bite would mean the end—I have to feed them!”

Sir Denis broke in: “These cases rilled with buzzing flies particularly interest me. What are they?”

“ Tsetse flies,” Cameron-Gordon told him, turning. “Each one of the cases is kept at a different temperature, which I regulate. The first, at which you are looking, is kept at tropical heat, the normal temperature for these insects. The second is sub-tropical. The third is temperate. And the fourth is arctic. So far, we have failed with the fourth. But some of the flies in there are still alive.”

“So I see.”

“They are fed on blood plasma, charged with the trypanosome of sleeping-sickness. They are so reinforced that their bite would induce a form of the disease which would pass through its entire course in a matter of days instead of months! They could operate anywhere short of the Arctic Circle. They are utterly damnable!”

Nayland Smith looked grimly at Tony. “Now we know how Skobolov died!”

And, as he spoke, the light went out.

“I fear,” came a cold, sibilant voice, “that you know too much. Sir Denis . . .”

In complete darkness. Tony, his heart beating a tattoo, realized that he stood nearest to the door. He reached it—to find it unopenable.

“We’re trapped, McKay!” Nayland Smith said. “What about—”

“What about the other door, you were thinking. Sir Denis?” came the mocking voice. “Unfortunately, as it belongs to my laboratory, I make a point of keeping it locked.

Tony, cool again after that first shock, began to peer through the darkness in the direction from which the voice came. His hand closed over the butt of his automatic. He had seen something.

High up at the end of this home of insect horrors, he saw a square patch of dim light. He raised his automatic and fired.

The odor of the discharge mingled with the other unpleasant smell which haunted the place. Vibration caused a rattle of glass, but it came from the surrounding cases. Then, the silence was complete again, except for faint buzzing of the tsetse flies and whispering sounds made by some of the other inhabitants of the cases.

“No good, McKay,” Nayland Smith said sharply. “I saw that opening, too.”

“It’s over the door of my workroom,” Cameron-Gordon whispered. “That’s where he is.”

His words were answered by a harsh laugh from Dr. Fu Manchu.

“Since the arrival of my old acquaintance. Sir Denis, in China, I have made it a practice to look in unobtrusively whenever you have remained late at work. Dr. Cameron-Gordon. To-night I seem to have disturbed you showing your friends around this small collection of rare specimens.”

“Enough of idle chatter!” Nayland Smith cried angrily. “You have trapped us. Very well—come and take us!”

“Sir Denis, how strangely you misread my purpose. If I desired your death, it would be necessary only to shatter any one of the cases of specimens surrounding you—which I assure you I could do without exposing myself to your fire. Should you prefer the tsetse flies? This would be a lingering death. Or, perhaps, the fleas and the painful result of bubonic plague?”

“You’re not a man, you’re a demon!” Tony rasped.

“I have knowledge which few men possess, Mr. McKay—that, I understand, is your name. And as you are clearly a man of courage, possibly you would prefer to try to repel in the dark the attack of my katipo tarantula? He is a strangely active nocturnal creature.”

“Stop talking!” Nayland Smith shouted. “Words don’t frighten us. Smash everything in the place, if you like, but stop talking!”

“That is indeed the familiar language of the British policeman! But for your very stubbornness I admire you. Sir Denis. Dr. Cameron-Gordon is useful to me, and I believe I could use the qualities of Mr. McKay also.”

“You never will!” Tony assured him.

“Let me explain myself,” the cold, emotionless voice continued.

“There are more ways than the way of drugs, of physical pain, to enforce obedience. One of these means I hold in my hands. There is no place for heroics. Dismiss any plans you may have made. I assure you that you have no alternative other than acceptance of my terms—whatever they may be . . .”

Chapter XIX

Tony opened his eyes; looked around. He closed his eyes again. This was part of the dream. In the part which had passed earlier he had wandered in a strange paradise. There were trees laden with blossoms he had never seen before and the ground upon which he trod was carpeted with flowers. The air was filled with their intoxicating perfume.

Seated under one of the dream trees, from which in a gentle breeze fragrant petals dropped from time to time, a gracefully beautiful girl had joined him, seated herself beside him. She carried a flask of wine and two crystal glasses. She smiled, and her dark eyes challenged him, provocatively. She filled the glasses.

“You will drink with me?” she whispered, handing him one of them. “I belong to you, and so let us drink together.”

Tony hesitated. She wore a gauzy robe through the mist of which every line of her shapely body was visible. She threw her arms around his neck. Her ripe lips were very near.

Some swift revulsion swept over him. He dashed his glass to the ground—and sudden darkness fell . . .

When the dark cloud passed, he found himself in another part of the garden. A sweet voice, a woman’s voice, spoke from the shadows of a flowering bush near to which he lay.

“Why are you so sad?” the voice asked. “You are young and the world is before you. There is nothing to prevent a soldier trained in diplomacy from rising to the greatest heights. Your President is a soldier-diplomat. May I talk to you?”

“Yes,” he remembered saying.

He was joined by a fair woman, neither so young nor so beautiful as the dark siren who had offered him wine, but all the same very attractive. She seated herself beside him on the mossy bank where he lay. She had strange violet eyes, alight with intelligence.

“Together,” she said softly, “we could go far.”

Tony looked into the violet eyes, and as he looked they seemed to turn green, the fair features to become yellow—and he found himself staring into the face of Dr. Fu Manchu!

So the dream had ended, and now, he thought, it was continuing.

He opened his eyes again.

The wonderful garden had gone. But he lay, not among flowers, but on a cushioned divan. Looking around, he still saw what he had seen before: a small room luxuriously furnished in the Oriental manner. The only light came from a shaded lantern hung from the ceiling. But there were rich rugs on the floor, lacquer-ware gleamed from the shadows. There was a faint odor of sandalwood.

He sat up, conscious of a swimmy feeling but with no trace of headache to explain what he supposed to have been delirium. He tried to stand up. He couldn’t do so. Looking down, angrily, at his ankles, he saw that they were secured by a tiny cord of something that resembled catgut. He put his heels together and tried to snap it.

The effort was useless. The fastenings pierced his skin, and he knew that any further attempts would only cut the tendons.

And, in that moment of acute pain, real memory came, bridging the mirage which had clouded his mind. He remembered that last scene in the insect vivarium lined with cases of loathsome creatures, remembered the mocking words of Fu Manchu.

Then had come that perfumed cloud, oblivion . . .

A heavy curtain was silently drawn aside—and Dr. Fu Manchu came in.

He wore a yellow robe, and his nearly hairless head was bare. A sort of Satanic majesty seemed to radiate from the tall figure. Silent, he stood watching Tony. Then, at last, he spoke.

“Your impersonation of Chi Foh, the fisherman, was excellent. Almost you deceived me. I must congratulate you.”

Tony said nothing.

“The gas which overcame you is a preparation perfected by me some years ago. If any of it had penetrated the cases, it would not have affected the creatures confined there.”

It was hard to sit and listen to that cold voice. Dr. Fu Manchu spoke English with careful perfection and his manner was that of a professor addressing a class of students.

“What a pity!” Tony commented.

“I note that you are imitating the brand of repartee favored by Sir Denis Nayland Smith. It is usually prompted by bravado in moments of danger. I am completely acquainted with the psychological features of Sir Denis’s character. I endeavored to learn something of your own, particularly of one aspect, during the time that you remained under the influence of the drug. Its composition renders the subject peculiarly impressionable to what is sometimes termed hypnotic suggestion.”

Tony began, now, to listen intently.

“I projected on to your brain images of two desirable women, who are members of my organization. There was no trace of sexual reaction. You rejected their overtures. In fact, you dispelled the second image, for I saw recognition of myself dawning in your eyes. But I had learned what I wanted to know. You are completely enslaved by one woman. And I think I know her name.”

* * *

Tony found himself alone again. Dr. Fu Manchu had stepped silently to the draped opening, raised the curtain and silently disappeared.

He could detect no sound of any kind. Where was he? What place was this? And where were Nayland Smith and Cameron-Gordon? He stood up; and learned that by taking short, mincing steps he could walk; for there was about a foot of fine, unbreakable cord between his ankles.

First, he crossed to the curtain from behind which Fu Manchu had entered and retired. He raised the heavy brocade. He saw a blank wall. That it masked a door was perfectly obvious; but to find how to open it was another matter.

He hobbled right around the room, examining the wall foot by foot.

The room had no window, and no door!

For one horrifying moment panic touched him with its icy finger.

Except that it was exotically furnished, this place was no better than an oubliette, one of those dreadful medieval dungeons without exit other than an inaccessible trap, of which he had seen an example in an ancient French castle.

He returned to the settee and tried to recover composure, to get himself in hand.

That he might be left in this luxurious cell to starve to death was a nightmare he could safely dismiss. Dr. Fu Manchu had other plans for him; for he had spoken of terms, which “whatever they may be”, he must accept.

He wanted to shout out curses on Fu Manchu, that cold-blooded villain who used human emotions as ingredients in a scientific formula. But he smothered the useless words, clutched his head and groaned.

How long a time had elapsed since that moment when, surrounded by obscene insects, they had heard the sardonic voice of Dr. Fu Manchu? He could have been unconscious for hours, days, weeks! The devilish genius who had them all in his power possessed medical knowledge which, as Cameron-Gordon had said, properly belonged to the future of science.

Tony groped in his Chinese garments. He was desperately thirsty, but a smoke might steady his nerves. His automatic was gone, but a packet of cigarettes and a lighter remained. He lighted a cigarette.

As he blew smoke from his lips he noted that it hung motionless in the stagnant air. There was little or no ventilation.

But sitting there, watching the smoke, trying to conquer useless anger and to think constructively, he became aware of two curious facts. The first: smoke clouds began to swirl; second, the air grew suddenly cold.

A premonition swept into his mind. He dropped the cigarette in a jade bowl which lay on a table near the divan, and stood up.

The curtain masking the hidden opening was moving!

It was swept aside.

The gaunt figure of a man wearing only a loin-cloth stood there, looking into the room . . .

His neck was fixed in a brace which seemed to make his head immovable, for he never turned it in the slightest degree. Ghastly grey features and fish-like eyes in that rigid head were indescribably revolting. There was a long scar over the creature’s heart.

But, crowning terror, this apparition unmistakably was that of the Cold Man whom he had killed, whose body, with a broken neck, he had seen lying at the foot of a tree near the wall of Lao Tse-Mung’s house!

Tony stifled a cry of horror. He became cold as though his spine had frozen; incapable of action.

The grey thing spoke. Its voice resembled one on a worn-out record. “Follow!”

Very slowly, the grey figure turned, never moving the rigid neck. A black opening in the wall gaped behind him. The temperature of the room had perceptibly become lower. Tony, fists clenched convulsively, hesitated. Every human instinct prompted him to refuse to follow a thing which he could only believe to be of another world.

He overcame that helpless inertia, which had seized him; took a deep breath. Dead or alive, the creature which had said “Follow” offered a way out of the prison in which he was trapped . . . But perhaps this was another dream, a further example of Dr. Fu Manchu’s psychological examinations—a test of his courage!

Tony followed; slowly, because of the fastenings around his ankles, fearfully because uncertain if he dreamed or was awake.

Ahead, silhouetted against a lighted opening, he could see the mummylike figure moving. He kept his distance. Even the narrow passage was chilled by the creature’s presence. There was a short stair. He allowed the grey thing to reach the top before he followed, and found himself in a white-walled corridor, doors opening to right and left. The corridor was empty.

Before one of these doors, the grey figure paused, pressed a bell and went on, moving mechanically like an automaton. When Tony came to the door—it was a sliding door—he found it wide-open. He hesitated, glanced along the lighted passage. His phantom guide had disappeared.

He looked into a small room. The only illumination came from one wall of the room which appeared to be made of glass.

Three chairs were set facing the glass wall; and two of them were occupied.

“Hullo, McKay!” Nayland Smith’s unmistakably snappy speech! “You’re rather late. But the curtain hasn’t gone up yet . . .”

* * *

As Tony stepped in, the sliding door closed noiselessly behind him.

He made his way to the vacant chair next to Nayland Smith; sat down. Dr. Cameron-Gordon, his head in his hands, occupied the third chair. Somewhere below Tony could see, through the glass wall, a large, dimly lighted place masked in vague shadows. Sir Denis grasped his hand.

“Keep smiling, McKay! I don’t know what all this is about any more than you do. But we’re still alive.”

Came Cameron-Gordon’s voice: “It’s all over. Smith! What will become of Jeanie when we disappear for good?”

“Don’t worry,” Nayland Smith said. “We’re in a tight comer, but I have got out of tighter ones.”

Cameron-Gordon sighed and dropped his head into his hands again.

“I was led here by the dacoit we buried in the cypress grove!” Tony whispered to Sir Denis. “It’s supernatural!”

“Nothing is supernatural where Dr. Fu Manchu is concerned. You may recall that the dacoit was dug up again?”

“What about it?”

“I have known of others buried as dead who have been disinterred by Fu Manchu and restored to life.”

“But a man with a broken neck!”

“Clever surgeons have mended broken necks before now. And Dr. Fu Manchu is probably the greatest surgeon the world has ever known.”

As Nayland Smith stopped speaking. Tony noted for the first time how completely silent the cabinet in which they were assembled seemed to be. Not a sound was audible from outside its walls . . . until suddenly the stillness was broken by a voice, apparently the voice of someone in the room. But no one else was in the room!

“I am instructed,” this modulated voice said, “to explain the purpose of what you are about to see. This is a sound-proof observation room which both I and The Master use frequently. He is about to pay his daily visit to the necropolites, known locally as Cold Men—a duty which devolves on me when The Master is absent.”

“Dr. Matsukata,” Cameron-Gordon muttered, “Fu Manchu’s chief technical assistant.”

“Is that so?” Nayland Smith rapped. “Why don’t you join us. Dr. Matsukata, instead of speaking on radio?”

“I am following my instructions. Be so good. Sir Denis, as to listen to what I am here to tell you.”

“Seems we have no choice!” Tony commented.

The precise voice continued: “I believe you have already made the acquaintance of a necropolite and must have noted the unusual qualities which these creatures possess. In certain respects they resemble the Haitian zombies, whose existence has been disputed in some quarters. In fact, in certain respects, the process of reanimation is similar, but superior. They work as automata, being entirely under control of the power miscalled hypnotic suggestion. Otherwise than by complete disintegration, their faculties are indestructible. So that the necropolite is perfectly equipped to carry out dangerous missions.”

“You’re telling me nothing!” Tony broke in. “But there’s one thing you might tell me—what a Japanese is doing in Fu Manchu’s gang!”

“For a friend of Sir Denis Nayland Smith, you betray remarkable ignorance of the Order of the Si-Fan,” Matsukata answered heatedly. “Its membership is not confined to China. It includes the whole of Asia, the Near East, many parts of Europe and America. Its secret power is at least equal to that of Communism . . .”

Light sprang up in the dim place below—and Tony found himself looking down upon a morgue!

Nearly a score of grey bodies lay there in two rows, one row on the right and one on the left. But here the resemblance to a morgue ended. They lay, not on stone slabs, but on neat hospital cots.

“The necropolites,” came Matsukata’s voice. “This clinic was constructed for the purpose of creating and maintaining them. They represent The Master’s supreme achievement; for they are dead men who live again at his command. The process of reducing their bodies to the low temperature at which alone reanimation can be brought about is too technical for description here. But I should be glad to discuss it, later, with Dr. Cameron-Gordon.”

“Thank you, no,” Cameron-Gordon muttered. “I want to keep what little sanity I have left.”

“Be good enough to watch closely what now takes place. I must explain that a necropolite retains in his living-death whatever useful qualities were his in normal life—also his physical appetites or vices. Without occasional gratification of the latter, the creature’s usefulness deteriorates. Watch carefully.”

Tony was watching more than carefully. He was trying hard to convince himself that this thing was reality, that he wasn’t lost again in a nightmare dream. Nayland Smith’s crisp voice came to reassure him.

“I warned you, McKay, that if we made a mistake, we should walk into hell!”

Dr. Fu Manchu came into the ward below with its rows of grey corpses. He wore a white coat, and his manner was that of cool detachment which marks the specialist visiting a hospital ward. A white-coated orderly followed, pushing a glass-topped cabinet on rubber-tired wheels. He was sallow-faced, but looked European.

Not a sound penetrated to the observation room, and Matsukata remained silent.

Dr. Fu Manchu stopped beside the first cadaver at the end of the row and made a swift, skillful examination. He spoke over his shoulder to the orderly. The man charged a hypodermic syringe; handed it to him. Fu Manchu gave an injection, not in the arm, but in the breast of me still body, and passed on to the next.

This singular proceeding continued until every cot had been visited. Two of the Cold Men received no injection.

And, as Fu Manchu walked out with his strange, feline step, followed by the orderly wheeling the glass trolley . . . three or four of those Cold Men first treated began to stir!

Tony found himself shivering.

“My God! It’s unholy!” Cameron-Gordon whispered.

Matsukata spoke again. “The Master has detected signs in two of the necropolites which necessitate their removal to the surgery for further examination.”

Almost as he ceased speaking, two stretchers were carried in and the two Cold Men placed on them and carried out.

“The most instructive feature of the treatment,” the smooth Japanese voice went on, “will now begin. The Master will project to each creature the images appropriate to his particular appetite when a normal man. To one, the figure of his enemy; to another, a banquet of his favorite food; to a third, the image of a seductive woman—and so forth.”

Now, the Cold Men were rising up, moving grey arms convulsively; and all seemed to be crying out.

“They are calling for Looma,’ Matsukata explained. “By this name they know a drink which transports them to a dream life where there is no satiety. One can kill his enemy a hundred times, another eat and drink without experiencing repletion, a third enjoy the pleasures of love indefinitely. Something like the promised paradise of Mohammed.”

“Don’t they murder one another?” Tony asked shakily.

“They cannot leave their cots. Their movements are restricted by a length of slender cord, such as that which is attached to your ankles. They are about to receive their instructions.”

Dr. Fu Manchu returned, alone. He carried a lamp of unusual design. The light of this lamp was shone into the face of the Cold Man until his twitching and mouthing ceased. Then, Fu Manchu rested his long fingers on the creature’s temples and stared into his eyes. This routine was continued until all had been dealt with.

“Now comes Looma, their wine of paradise,” Matsukata said softly.

And, as Dr. Fu Manchu went out, a nurse in a trim white uniform came in, followed by the same orderly pushing the glass trolley. It carried, now, a large glass jug filled with some liquid of a color resembling green Chartreuse, and a number of small glasses. The orderly filled the glasses and the nurse carried each to a Cold Man. In every case it was grasped avidly and swallowed in one eager draft.

But Tony scarcely followed what took place after the appearance of the nurse.

For the nurse was Moon Flower . . .

Chapter XX

Tony’s impressions of the next few minutes were chaotic. The frantic behavior of Cameron-Gordon, the crisp, soothing words of Nayland Smith, the tumult in his own mind, had built up a jungle of frustrated hopes, terror and abject misery in which the details of what actually occurred were lost.

He knew that the tiny but tough shackles which confined their ankles had been removed by a smiling Chinese mechanic, dexterously and swiftly. The man used an instrument resembling a small electric buzz-saw.

And now the three of them were assembled in a room which reminded him of that in which he had been confined, except that it was larger. There was a low, round table in the center, and on it lay a note in small, legible characters which Nayland Smith picked up and read aloud:

“You may refresh yourselves as you please. I beg you to do so. Chinese hospitality forbids me to poison my guests. Sir Denis will assure you that my word is inviolable. Fu Manchu.”

Nayland Smith had just finished reading the letter when the door opened and two Chinese servants came in carrying laden trays. They placed on the table a delicate meal of assorted dishes, also a variety of wines, a bottle of Napoleon brandy, Scotch whiskey, a number of glasses and an English siphon of soda water. One of the servants uncorked all the bottles, placing the white wines in ice, and withdrew.

Nayland Smith grinned almost happily. “Let’s make the best of it, and prepare for the worst!,,

“We’ll all be drugged!” Cameron-Gordon said.

Sir Denis held up the note. “This is the first example of Fu Manchu’s handwriting which I have seen,” he declared. “But it must obviously be genuine. I accept his word—for I have never known him to break it.”

Cameron-Gordon groaned. “Right or wrong, a shot of brandy is what I need.”

“It would do none of us any harm,” Sir Denis agreed, and poured out three liberal tots. “A compromise is going to be offered. It will be one we can’t accept. But let us all sharpen our wits, and have something to eat.”

But Cameron-Gordon made a very poor attempt. “How did that cunning fiend get his hands on Jeanie?” he asked in a voice of despair.

“I suspect,” Sir Denis told him, “owing to her own obstinacy.”

“Meaning what?” Tony wanted to know.

“Meaning that I detected, or thought that I detected, the footsteps of someone following us. Jeanie is high-spirited, and as nearly fearless as any woman I ever met. My guess is that Jeanie was the follower. We have even to suppose that she climbed the bamboo ladder and was actually in the garden when Fu Manchu saw her.”

“God help her!” Cameron-Gordon groaned; “for no one else can, now.”

“I don’t agree,” Nayland Smith rapped in his sudden fashion. “There are weak spots in Fu Manchu’s armor I think I can find one. But leave the talking to me.”

Nayland Smith, alone of the three, did justice to the smörgåsbord He particularly favored, too, an excellent bottle of burgundy.

And presently the Chinese servants reappeared, cleared the table, leaving only the brandy, and served coffee. They also brought cigars and cigarettes, port and a number of liqueurs. When they went out:

“It’s evidently dinner time,” Sir Denis remarked. “I had an idea it might be luncheon.”

“I have lost all track of time,” Tony confessed. “My wrist watch is missing.”

“All our watches are missing. We’re not intended to know the time.”

They had finished their coffee, and Cameron-Gordon sat deep in • silent gloom, when the door opened again.

The huge Nubian stepped in. He wore some kind of uniform, had a revolver in a holster and a tarbush on his head.

“March out!” He had a deep, negroid voice. “One at a time. I will follow.”

Nayland Smith glanced wrily at Tony, shrugged his shoulders. “You go first, McKay; then Cameron-Gordon. I’ll bring up the rear.”

The big colored man stood stiffly beside the open door, his hand on the butt of his revolver, as they filed out. Tony was seized by sudden misgiving. To what ordeal were they being taken? He dared not allow himself to think of Moon Flower . . .

At the end of a short passage he came to a flight of stairs.

“Go down!” came the deep voice.

Tony went down. He was in one of the white-walled corridors which he had seen before. His fellow captives followed silently. He came to a cross-passage.

“Right turn!”

He obeyed. He was a cadet again, being ordered about by a drill-sergeant.

The cross-passage ended in what appeared to be a vestibule. It was well lighted. He could see a large double door which might be the main entrance to the building.

“Halt!”

The tone of command was unmistakable. This big African was an ex-soldier.

Tony halted, standing stiffly upright, then recovered himself, turned, looked back. Cameron-Gordon, grim and angry, growled, “Impudent swine!” Nayland Smith grinned reassuringly. The Nubian stepped forward and pointed to a long, wooden bench.

“Sit down.”

They sat down. Tony was assessing their chances of overpowering the man by a simultaneous attack. But even assuming that the double-doors opened on freedom, how far could they go . . . and how would it help Moon Flower?

Nayland Smith seemed to read his thoughts, for he caught his eye and shook his head, as a side door opened and two stocky Burmese came out.

Tony submitted to having his eyes scientifically bandaged. He divined rather than knew that his companions were undergoing the same indignity. Next, he was raised to his feet and led out into the open air. He was helped into a vehicle which he judged to be a limousine. A slight odor of petrol told him that it was an automobile.

All three were packed into the back seat, the door was closed and the car started. The engine had the velvet action of a Rolls.

“No talking!” came the deep African voice.

The big Nubian was still with them!

A dreadful idea crossed Tony’s mind. They were being taken to the jail at Chia-Ting! The thought seemed to chill his blood. Once inside that grim prison they would be lost to the world. Even Sir Denis, with all the power of Britain behind him, would merely be listed as missing!

But the horror was quickly dismissed. The car stopped long before they could have reached Chia-Ting, and he was hauled out. Unseen hands guided him through what he knew to be a garden; for a faint fragrance of flowers told him so.

He was led in on to a softly carpeted floor, led upstairs. He could hear the stumbling footsteps of his friends who followed. He was thrust down in a chair. And, last, the bandage was removed from his eyes.

Tony blinked, for a light shone directly on to his face. For awhile, he couldn’t get accustomed to it after complete darkness. But at last he did . . .

He saw a luxuriously furnished room. There were rich Chinese rugs, cabinets in which rare porcelain vases gleamed, trophies of arms; openings veiled by silk curtains. The lighting was peculiar. It came from a shaded lamp, the shade so constructed that light shone fully on to his face and on to the faces of his two companions. This lamp stood on a long lacquer desk, its gleaming surface littered with a variety of objects: books, manuscripts, some curious antique figures on pedestals, a small gong, and several queer-looking objects of the nature or use of which he was ignorant.

But these things he saw clearly later. His first impression of them was a vague one. For his attention became focused upon the man who sat behind the lacquer desk, wearing a plain yellow robe, his long-fingered hands resting on the desk before him. Owing to the cunning construction of the lampshade, his face was in half-shadow.

His green eyes glinting under partly lowered lids. Dr. Fu Manchu sat passively regarding the three trapped men.

“It is a long time. Sir Denis,” he said softly, “since I had the privilege of entertaining you. I trust you enjoyed your supper?”

“Oh! it was supper?—it was excellent.”

“Prepared by a first-class French chef.”

“Tell him if he cares to come to London I can find him better employment.”

Dr. Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff. “Incorrigible as always. In our many years’ association I cannot recall that you ever admitted defeat.”

Nayland Smith didn’t reply. The green eyes were turned upon Tony, and he felt, again, the horrible sensation that they looked, not at him, but through him.

“You have proved yourself a nuisance. Captain McKay,” the sibilant voice continued; “but not a serious menace. Suppose I offered you your freedom, on two conditions?”

“What conditions?”

“One that you married Miss Cameron-Gordon.”

Tony’s throat grew dry. “And the other?”

“That you both took the oath of allegiance to the Order of the Si-Fan.”

Tony turned and met a glance from the haggard eyes of Cameron-Gordon as he cried out, “I don’t understand. I didn’t know you were even acquainted!”

“We were thrown together for a long time, sir. I love your daughter deeply, sincerely. And she has consented to marry me, with your approval . . . but not until you are free.”

“I have already offered Dr. Cameron-Gordon his freedom.” Fu Manchu murmured.

“On the same terms,” Cameron-Gordon began, then stopped, sank his head in his hands.

Nayland Smith sat silent, looking neither right nor left, but straight ahead at Dr. Fu Manchu.

“Suppose I decline?” Tony asked hoarsely.

Fu Manchu struck the small gong. Draperies before one of the several doors were swept aside, and Moon Flower came in!

She wore the nurse’s uniform in which Tony had recently seen her.

“Yueh Hua!” he gasped, half stood up.

“Jeanie, darling!” Cameron-Gordon’s voice rose on a note of high emotion.

She ignored them. Her blue eyes were turned upon Dr. Fu Manchu. Without even glancing in her direction:

“You are happy in your new work?” he asked.

“I am happy. Master.”

“You may go.”

Moon Flower turned and walked out automatically through the opening by which she had come in.

Cameron-Gordon and Tony sprang simultaneously to their feet. Nayland Smith reached out right and left and grabbed an arm of each in a powerful grip.

“Sit down!” he snapped. “Don’t act like bloody fools!”

Tony conquered the furious rage which had swept sanity aside, and sat down. Cameron-Gordon resisted awhile, but finally sank back in his chair. “You yellow blackguard!” he muttered. “Why didn’t I strangle you long ago!”

Fu Manchu, who had remained impassive, replied in that sibilant undertone so like a snake’s hiss, “Probably out of consideration for your daughter. Doctor. I am obliged to you. Sir Denis. If you will glance behind you, I think you must realize how childish any display of force would have been.”

Tony turned in a flash.

Four stockily built Burmese, armed with long knives, stood behind their chairs!

“I knew they were there,” Nayland Smith told him.

“You have the ears of a desert fox. Sir Denis,” Fu Manchu said, “and a long experience of my methods.”

He added three guttural words, not in English, and Tony knew, although he heard no sound, that the four body-guards had retired.

“Now let us hear—” Nayland Smith spoke crisply—”what plans for our welfare you may have in mind if your generous offer is declined.”

His irony ruffled Dr. Fu Manchu no more than Cameron-Gordon’s violence had done. Resting his elbows on the desk, he pressed the tips of his long fingers together. Moon Flower’s evident submission to the will of the perverted genius had shaken Tony so badly that his brain seemed numbed.

Waiting for Fu Manchu’s next words, he felt like a criminal awaiting sentence.

“There was a time. Sir Denis,” he heard the sibilant, cool voice saying, “when I employed medieval methods. You may recall the Wire Jacket and the Seven Gates of Wisdom?”

Tony looked aside at Nayland Smith, noted a tightening of the jaw muscles, and knew that he had clenched his teeth; then:

“Quite clearly!” he rapped. “Hungry rats featured in the Seven Gates, I remember.”

“I have abandoned such crudities. Doubtless they were appropriate in dealing with the river pirates, if only as a warning to other low-class criminals. But I recognized that they were useless to me. I had to deal with enemies on a higher social and intellectual plane. Therefore more subtle means were indicated—”

“Such as kidnapping and hypnotizing a man’s daughter!” Cameron-Gordon burst out.

“You are misinformed. Doctor,” the poisonously suave voice assured him. “It is not a case of kidnapping. On my way to visit you in the laboratory I found your daughter hiding on General Huan’s property.”

“Go on,” Nayland Smith said irritably. “We are splitting hairs. The plain fact is that you have all four of us in your hands. What do you propose to do with us?

“I hope to make you understand that it is my methods and not my ideals against which you have fought, without notable success, for many years. In England, I agree, those methods were unusual. In consequence, your Scotland Yard branded me as a common criminal. My political aims were described as “The Yellow Peril7!”

Fu Manchu’s strange voice had increased in volume, had become guttural. He had changed his passive pose. Lean hands lay clenched upon the desk before him.

“Was Scotland Yard wrong?” Nayland Smith asked, coolly.

Fu Manchu half stood; then dropped back in his chair. “Sometimes your persistent and insufferable misunderstanding rouses my anger. This is bad—for both. You are perfectly well aware that the Si-Fan is international. Ridding China of Communism is one of its objectives—yes. But ridding the world of this Russian pestilence is its main purpose. In this purpose do we, or do we not, stand on common ground?”

Tony almost held his breath. He sensed a storm brewing between these two strong personalities, and—he was thinking solely of Moon Flower—if it broke. God help all of them!

“As I am still employed by the British government,” he heard Nayland Smith answer calmly, “your question is one difficult for me to answer.”

“The British government!” Fu Manchu hissed the words. “Why do they soil their hands by contact with the offal who pose as lords of China? Can you conceivably believe, knowing the history of my people, that these unclean creatures can retain their hold upon China, my China? Do you believe that the proud Poles, the hot-blooded Hungarians, the stiff-necked Germans, will bend the knee to the childish nonsense of Marx and Lenin? You asked me what I proposed to do with you. Here is my answer: Work with me, for we labor in a common cause, not against me.”

There was an interruption; a faint bell note. Dr. Fu Manchu stooped to a cabinet beside him. A muffled voice spoke. The voice ceased. Fu Manchu pressed a switch and lay back in his chair; impassive again.

“Well, Sir Denis?” he prompted softly.

“Unofficially—” Nayland Smith spoke slowly, as if weighing every word—”there might be certain advantages. I should be glad to see China rid of the Communist yoke—”

“For which reason,perhaps—and unofficially—you had Andre Skobolov intercepted in Niu-fo-Tu?”

Tony suppressed a gulp. Fu Manchu knew, as Nayland Smith suspected, that he had been seen in Niu-fo-Tu!

“Andre Skobolov?” Nayland Smith murmured. “The name is familiar. A Kremlin agent? But I never met him, nor even saw him.”

Fu Manchu bent forward. The hypnotic eyes were turned upon Tony.

“But you met him. Captain McKay, in Niu-fo-Tu!”

Tony thought hard, and quickly; tried to act on Nayland Smith’s lead. “I was in Niu-fo-Tu for less than half an hour—on the run from jail. I certainly never saw the man you speak of there, and shouldn’t have known him if I had.”

“Then, for what other purpose were you in Szechuan?”

“For my purpose, Dr. Fu Manchu!” Nayland Smith rapped out fiercely. “His mission was to confirm my belief that the man known as The Master was yourself!”

The overpowering gaze of green eyes was transferred to Sir Denis. “Then your trusted agent, Sir Denis, who seems to have acquired what he would call ‘a girl friend’ on his way, safely reached the house of Lao Tse-Mung to report to you?”

“Lao Tse-Mung is an old and honored acquaintance who has offered me hospitality on any occasion when my affairs brought me to this part of China.”

“You mean he is an agent of British Intelligence?”

“I mean that he is a patriot, and a gentleman.”

There was a brief silence.

“I, also, am a patriot, Sir Denis. What is more, I hope to save not only the Chinese but the peoples of every nation from obliteration. This will be their fate if the insane plans of the Soviet should ever be put into execution. Their latest instrument of destruction is so secret, and so dangerous, that research on it is being conducted in this remote area of China.”

“We are aware of this.”

“Indeed?” Fu Manchu’s tones slightly changed. “We are on common ground again. You regard it with deep concern?”

“We do. If—accidentally—this research plant could be destroyed, its loss would be welcome. Germ warfare is too horrible to be permitted, and Dr. von Wehmer, their chief scientist, is the greatest living expert on the subject.”

Fu Manchu’s masklike features melted in a smile. But it was a chilling smile.

“You see, Sir Denis, we must work together. I was informed a few minutes ago that Dr. von Wehmer had been recalled to Moscow.”

Nayland Smith started, then shook his head. “Collaboration, I fear, is impossible. So I ask you again—what do you propose to do with us?”

Fu Manchu lay back in the chair, so that his strange powerful features became half-masked in shadow. The long hands rested on the desk and a large emerald seal which he wore gleamed and seemed to shoot out sparks of green fire as pointed nails tapped the surface of the desk. He spoke in a low, sibilant voice.

“I anticipated your reply. Yet I never despair of convincing you one day that your government, and others, must accept me—as they have accepted the puppet regime at Peking. But my power in China hangs upon a silken thread. The Kremlin distrusts me. In spite of my acknowledged eminence in science, I have never been invited to inspect the Soviet research station. And I have not sought an invitation—for I intend to destroy it!”

“In that,” snapped Nayland Smith, “you have my sympathy. But you have not answered my question.”

The long fingers resting on the desk became intertwined in a serpentine fashion; and Tony experienced a sort of spiritual chill.

“I shall answer it, Sir Denis,” the sibilant whisper went on, almost dreamily. “Your death could avail me nothing, and might one day be laid at my door with disastrous consequences; for you are no longer a mere Burmese police officer but an esteemed official of the British Secret Service.”

“Therefore?” Nayland Smith prompted.

“Therefore, I shall see to it that you disappear for a time. Dr. Cameron-Gordon will resume his work in my laboratory here, or perhaps in another, elsewhere. His charming daughter I shall keep usefully employed. Concerning Captain McKay, I am undecided.”

Tony had been struggling hard to bottle his rising anger, but as Fu Manchu’s voice ceased the cork came out.

“Then I’ll decide for you!” he shouted, and sprang to his feet.

Nayland Smith grabbed him and threw him back in his chair. “For the last time,” he snapped, “shut up!”

“I am obliged to you, Sir Denis,” Fu Manchu murmured. “I recall that you were one of the first Englishmen to master judo. With advancing years, and increasing perils, it is a desirable accomplishment.”

“There is one objection to your plans. Dr. Fu Manchu,” Nayland Smith said grimly.

“From your point of view, no doubt?”

“No. From yours.”

“And what is this objection?”

Fu Manchu bent forward, fixing his strange gaze on Sir Denis’s face.

“I will explain it only if you give me your word—which I respect—that should you decline to accept what I propose, no coercion of any kind be used upon any of us to force compliance and that I am not asked to identify others concerned. We should remain, as we are now, your prisoners.”

Fu Manchu watched him in silence for some time, his fingers pressed together; then:

“I give you my word. Sir Denis,” he said quietly.

Tony, fists clenched tightly, glanced at Nayland Smith. What was he going to say? What plan had flashed through that resourceful brain? And what was the word of this archcriminal worth?

“Good,” Sir Denis said calmly. “I accept it. You suggested recently that I had attempted to intercept the man Skobolov. On the contrary, I was unaware that he was in China, nor did I know what I should have had to gain by such an attempt. But your evident interest in his movements suggest that it was something of great importance.”

Dr. Fu Manchu did not stir; his face remained expressionless. Tony almost held his breath. He knew, now, what Nayland Smith was going to propose.

“By mere chance,” Sir Denis went on, speaking calmly and unusually slowly, “a man unknown appealed to McKay to help him. He was very ill and apparently in danger. McKay took him on board his boat, and during that night the man died. His body was consigned to the canal. His sole baggage—a large briefcase—McKay brought with him to the meeting place I had appointed.”

Fu Manchu’s expression remained impassive. But his long fingers became intertwined again. He said nothing.

“From the correspondence in the briefcase, when translated, we learned that the man was Andre Skobolov. We also learned that he had something in his possession which was of vital interest to the Kremlin. This could only be a bound manuscript, written in Chinese.”

And at last Fu Manchu spoke. “Which was also translated?”

“It could not be deciphered. May I suggest that this manuscript is the reason for your interest in Andre Skobolov?”

There was a brief silence. Cameron-Gordon had raised his bowed head and was watching Nayland Smith.

“If it were so,” Fu Manchu said smoothly, “in what way could this be an objection to my plans?”

“At the moment, it could be none. In the event of my disappearance it might prove a source of annoyance. The manuscript is in safe keeping, but should I fail to reclaim it in the next few days, it will be dispatched to the British Foreign Office to be decoded . . .”

Chapter XXI

In his memories of his mission to Szechuan, memories both bitter and sweet. Tony found the electric silence which followed Nayland Smith’s words one of the most poignant. That clash of mental swords, recognition of the fact that the fate of all of them rested upon the combat, had penetrated even Cameron-Gordon’s lethargy of despair. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead as he watched Dr. Fu Manchu.

To Tony it appeared that they held all the cards—but only if Fu Manchu’s word was worth a dime. No man—even Nayland Smith—could stand up to Chinese tortures. He was almost afraid to think about the copy of the cipher manuscript which was in the keeping of Lao Tse-Mung, for he believed that Fu Manchu could read men’s minds. And he knew that Sir Denis, although a master of evasion, would never tell an outright lie. He knew that the original was safe with the lama at Niu-fo-Tu.

It was a masterly bluff. Clearly enough Nayland Smith had been right when he said, “The most powerful weapon against Fu Manchu which I ever held in my hands.”

For Dr. Fu Manchu, eyes closed, sat deep in meditation for several agonizing minutes considering the matter.

What was the manuscript for which Andre Skobolov had given his life?

Tony, in his agitation, found himself grasping Nayland Smith’s arm—when Dr. Fu Manchu spoke:

“Where is this cipher document” came in guttural tones.

“T have your word. Dr. Fu Manchu, that I am not to be asked to reveal the names of others concerned,” Nayland Smith answered coldly.

Fu Manchu leaned forward, his green eyes staring venomously at Sir Denis.

“You have rejected my offer. You force me to accept yours.”

His voice was lowered to the sibilant hiss. “Very well. My word is my bond. What are your conditions?”

“That we are all four free to leave, and will not be intercepted; that Jean Cameron-Gordon be released from the control you have laid upon her and returned to her father’s care; that I be given an official travel permit to recover the document you want; that no attempt is made to trace my journey or destination.”

Dr. Fu Manchu closed his eyes again. “These conditions I accept.”

“Then I can start at once?”

“Directly your travel permit is ready. Sir Denis. Two must remain until the manuscript is in my hands. Whom do you wish to go with you.”

Nayland Smith hesitated only a moment, then: “Captain McKay,” he said. “But before we leave. Miss Cameron-Gordon must join her father.”

“She shall do so. As my guests they shall be safe and comfortable until your return.”

“I accept your terms. But you must allow me an hour to confer with my friends before I leave—in a room which is not wired.”

“To this also I agree . . .”

“For mercy’s sake, mix me a drink, McKay! Dr. Fu Manchu and I have struck a strange bargain. You may talk freely. We have his word for it there’ll be no eavesdropping—and as I told you recently, I never knew him to lie. He’s the blackest villain unhung, but his word is sacred.”

“Okay,” Tony said, and crossed to the buffet.

Cameron-Gordon growled something under his breath.

Although they were unaware of the fact, they had been conducted to the luxurious suite formerly occupied by Andre Skobolov.

“How I miss my pipe!” Nayland Smith muttered. “I see there are cigarettes. Toss a packet over. Here’s the situation—Fu Manchu has his own plans for ruling China. He doesn’t want those plans disturbed by a sudden, crazy use of germ weapons. As you know, McKay, I found the name of von Wehmer in the Russian correspondence.”

He lighted a cigarette, took a sip from the glass which Tony handed to him.

“This was news for which Military Intelligence would have paid a foreign agent anything he asked. You see, von Wehrner was employed by the Nazis on similar research during the war. M.I. located the germ plant in occupied France. There was a Commando raid—German plant completely destroyed. Somehow or another they dragged von Wehmer out of the blazing building and brought him back with them. He was interned; And I had several long interviews with him. I found him to be a brilliantly clever man; and when he got to know me better he confided that although he had devoted his skill day and night to the secret researches, he abhorred the idea of germ warfare.”

“He would have no choice,” Cameron-Gordon declared. “I know the method!”

“Later on,” Sir Denis added, “he confessed that he had repeatedly delayed results. And I think it’s a logical deduction that he’s doing the same again. Hence his recall!”

“But the situation is different,” Cameron-Gordon objected. “Maybe he was never a Nazi. But now he’s clearly a Communist.”

“No more a Communist than you are!” Nayland Smith snapped. “I have great respect for von Wehrner. At the end of the war I secured his release and he went back to Germany. I heard from him from time to time; then his letters ceased. I had an inquiry started, and after a month or more got a report of the facts. Von Wehmer had been kidnapped one night and rushed over to East Berlin! Never a word since.”

“You mean he’s a prisoner of the Communists, just as I am?”

“The situation is almost identical—but I haven’t been idle. In addition to making the plans which led to our present position, I got in touch with von Wehmer. I foresaw the possibility of things going wrong—heaven knows they did!—and realized that my cordial relations with von Wehmer might be useful.”

“But how the devil did you get in touch with him?” Cameron-Gordon demanded.

“Through our talented friend the lama. He has a contact in the Russian camp, by whom one of the phantom radios was smuggled in to von Wehmer.”

“And what is von Wehmer prepared to do?”

“This: If I can guarantee his escape from the Soviets, he will guarantee to destroy the plant!”

“But Fu Manchu intends to destroy it!”

“And to make a slave of von Wehmer! I mean to move first . . .”

Dr. Fu Manchu remained in his place behind the lacquer desk. Old General Huan faced him from his cushioned seat.

“The ancient gods of China are with us, Tsung-Chao.” General Huan seemed to be pondering.

“You agree with me?” Fu Manchu said softly.

“That the Si-Fan Register should be returned to us by the hand of Nayland Smith certainly savors of a miracle. Master. It is a sword of Damocles removed. In possession of the men at the Kremlin, or the British Foreign Office, it would spell disaster.”

Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff from his silver box. “Its recovery sets me free to move against the Soviet research plant—a plague-spot in Szechuan.”

General Huan fanned himself, for the night was warm.

“It is this project which alarms me,” he stated placidly.

Fu Manchu’s voice changed, became harsh. “I recall, when I communicated with you from England, that you advised against it, pointing out that it would result in a flock of Soviet investigators descending upon Szechuan and possibly finding evidence of your part in the disaster.”

“I recall the correspondence very well. As a former officer of the old regime, I am not above suspicion. And having escaped one grave danger, it seems to me to be tempting Fate to plunge into another.”

Fu Manchu hissed contemptuously. “Always we live on the edge of a volcano. We are accustomed to such conditions. Very well. Here is an opportunity to achieve one of my minor objectives without exposing you or myself to charges of complicity.”

General Huan folded his fan. “Your plan, as I recall it. Master, involved the employment of a number of Cold Men?”

“It did.”

“As it is well known that these ghastly creatures come from the clinic which you established and which I constructed, surely this fact would expose us both to a charge of complicity?”

Fu Manchu smiled his icy smile. “By whom will such a charge be made? At night the circumference of the plant is patrolled by a squad of Russian guards. They are easily disposed of. Members of the staff live in the neighboring village. There is a Russian camp about a mile distant. The guard on the plant is relieved at regular intervals. The wire fence enclosing it is electrified.”

“I have made it my business. Master, to acquaint myself with the Russian arrangements. I did so on receipt of your letter from London. It is true that only six men and a sergeant guard the place. The sergeant holds the key of the gate. There are telephone connections between a box at the gate and the Russian headquarters inside the camp. Reinforcements could be on hand very quickly.”

“We should, first, cut this connection—then, overpower the sergeant.”

General Huan bowed slightly. “Professionally, I should have planned the defense otherwise, although I admit that an attempt to seize the research station is not a likely contingency. It is believed, throughout the area, to be devoted to the study of leprosy.”

Fu Manchu laughed. It was harsh, mocking laughter. “The affair will be over long before an alarm reaches the Russian camp. “

“And who will direct these Cold Men?”

“Matsukata. Or I may go, myself.”

“Master! You would be running your head into a noose!”

“Why? The supply truck from the clinic will be standing by. The necropolites have rioted and escaped. This will be our story if our presence is detected. I am there to recapture them. I had anticipated a possible occasion when a number of these might be used, and so had instructed Matsukata to turn one at large from time to time in order to create popular terror of the creatures . . .”

“You believe that the operation can be carried through without sound of it reaching the Russian camp?”

“Certainly, if no one blunders. Long ladders will be taken, such as those we have used before, in case we fail to find the key of the gate. Dr. von Wehmer, who lives in the enclosure, will be seized first. He will have keys of the buildings, or know where to find them . . .”

* * *

And in their own luxurious quarters, Nayland Smith was outlining his own plans. “You see, the loss of our mystery radio sets ties me badly. I’m glad we left them behind of course. If found on us, I don’t doubt that Fu Manchu would have put the system controlling them out of order.”

“Tell me something,” Tony interrupted: “How long have we been here?”

Nayland Smith smiled grimly. “I know how you feel. That filthy, sweet-smelling gas in the insect room! It might have happened a week ago. But it’s my guess that it happened at approximately ten o’clock on Wednesday night. That would make the time, now, at about three a.m. on Thursday morning. Events have moved quickly, McKay”

“And now tell me just one thing,” Cameron-Gordon broke in:

“Where is Jeanie?”

But before Nayland Smith could reply, the door opened—and Moon Flower came in!

She wore the dress of a working girl with which Tony was familiar. Her father sprang up at a bound and had her in his arms.

“Jeanie, my Jeanie! I didn’t think I should ever see you again!”

When at last, wet-eyed, she turned, “Chi Foh!” she whispered—”Sir Denis! I know what a fool I have been. I spoiled all your plans. Try to forgive me.”

Nayland Smith grasped both her hands. “Jeanie, my dear, your devotion to your father and your courage outran discretion: But you have nothing to be ashamed about. Just sit down and tell us all that happened.”

It was a simple story. She had followed them, as Sir Denis had suspected, had climbed the bamboo ladder and had tried to keep in sight when they crossed the garden. When she had a glimpse of her father opening the laboratory door, she hid in a clump of bushes to wait for them all to come out again,

A long time seemed to pass, and still the door remained closed. At which point:

“God forgive me, Jeanie! It was my fault,” Cameron-Gordon moaned.

“Forget it!” Nayland Smith snapped. “I was equally to blame.”

“Suddenly,” Moon Flower went on, “I heard footsteps. I crouched down in the shrubbery. And I saw Dr. Fu Manchu walking towards the laboratory! I nearly screamed, but not quite. There was that huge African following behind him. And this horrible man—although honestly I don’t think I made a sound—like a bloodhound, seemed to scent me. He sprang to the spot where I was hiding and swept me up into his arms, one big, black hand over my mouth—,,

“If ever I have half a chance!” Tony whispered.

“Shut up!” Nayland Smith snapped.

“Then,” Moon Flower said, “those awful green eyes of The Master were looking at me. I tried not to see them, but they compelled me to keep my own eyes open.” She stopped, sighed, and clutched her father’s arm. “I don’t remember a thing that happened after that until I woke up in a room somewhere quite near this one. A kind old Chinese woman was telling me that I was all right and that my friends were waiting for me. She brought me to the door.”

“Give Jeanie a drink, McKay,” Nayland Smith said crisply. “She needs one. Here’s our problem. Deprived of radio, I can get nothing through to the lama and nothing to Lao Tse-Mung. I don’t know when von Wehrner is leaving. It’s essential that he should have all his plans laid before I can help. This means that I have to get back to Chia-Ting.”

“When do we start?” Tony asked.

“Directly transport and our travel permits are available. But Jeanie doesn’t know what it’s all about. I’m leaving it to you, McKay, to explain to her . . .

Chapter XXII

It was not long after dawn when, Nayland Smith driving, the Buick—which Tony had seen before—entered the outskirts of Chia-Ting.

“Everybody will be asleep,” he said. “How do we get in?”

For the hundredth time he glanced back. He couldn’t believe that they weren’t followed.

“We shall have to wake poor Mrs. Wu. I think that’s her name. You do the talking, McKay. Your Chinese is better than mine. And don’t waste your energy looking for a tail. Fu Manchu has at least one virtue. He keeps his word.”

Nayland Smith parked near the house of the hospitable physician who had given them shelter. The normally busy street was deserted. They walked to the door; relentlessly pressed the bell. At last they heard movements, and the doctor’s old housekeeper opened the door.

“We are very sorry to disturb you,” Tony began. “But—”

The Chinese woman’s expressionless features melted in a smile. “I am so glad to see you, Mr. Chi Foh! The doctor has been very anxious. Where is the dear young Miss?”

Tony assured her that the young Miss was very well, and they went in and up to their old quarters. Nayland Smith made a dash to the writing-desk in the living-room, took out the two radio equipments which they had left there. He strapped one to his wrist, adjusting the tiny dial.

“Calling the lama,” he said; and a moment later, “Nayland Smith here. Regret disturbing you so early . . . Good . . .Yes, back at your cousin’s house. Just one thing. It’s urgent. What is the call number of the instrument you got through to von Wehmer?” He grabbed a pencil from the desk; listened and scribbled. “Good! Now I can move. See you later.”

Tony had listened breathlessly. “These things are magic. Sir Denis!”

“Yes!” Nayland Smith smiled grimly. “We pinched the secret from Fu Manchu—and now it’s working in his own interests! For mercy’s sake get me a drink. There’s still something in the locker.

He found his pipe and pouch where he had left them, filled and lighted his old briar. Tony opened the closet which they used as a wine cellar.

“Beer or whiskey Sir Denis? Beer a trifle warm.”

“Beer. I’m thirsty.” He drank a glass of frothy, imported beer, then: “Now for von Wehmer,” he muttered.

Tony watched anxiously while Sir Denis twirled the tiny dial, the figures on which only a keen eye could distinguish. There was a nerve-racking interval . . . but no reply.

Nayland Smith’s lean face assumed an expression Tony had never seen there before. “He can’t surely have left already! “ Sir Denis muttered.

Even as he spoke, came a faint voice.

“Von Wehmer?” Tony whispered.

Nayland Smith nodded, signaled him to come nearer to listen.

“Nayland Smith here! Your delay worried me.”

“I keep my radio hidden.” Von Wehrner spoke English with a German accent. “I was engaged, and so—”

“Everything is ready, von Wehmer. When do you leave?”

“My Russian successor is due tomorrow.”

“Then we must act tonight!”

“I fear so. Is it possible?”

“Yes!” Nayland Smith rapped. “It has to be. How long will it take to make your arrangements?”

“I have already installed the necessary equipment in each of the buildings. No one can detect it. I have only to connect them with the power house and make contact and all will be over.”

“From the time you make contact, how long will you have to get clear?”

“It is a simple device which controls the contact. I can set it for no longer than thirty minutes. But this should be enough.”

“What time would suit you best? Give me as long as you can.” “Between fifteen minutes after midnight and one a.m. would be best.”

“Good enough. Have your radio handy. We must keep in constant touch. . . “

Tony stared at Nayland Smith. “Does this mean that after getting the manuscript from the Lama we are not going to rush it to Fu Manchu?”

Nayland Smith relighted his pipe, which had gone out.

“It seems unavoidable to me, if I’m to carry out my promise to von Wehmer.”

“But, Sir Denis!” Tony blazed, “what will become of Moon Flower and her father if things happen to go wrong?”

Nayland Smith smoked furiously. “That problem has been bothering me, McKay. But there’s a way out. We must drop off here tonight when we return from Niu-fo-Tu and leave the thing in your charge. I’ll go on to the research station and—”

“Stop! That’s plain nonsense. Sir Denis. I won’t do it!”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t,” Nayland Smith remarked dryly “There is another way: To leave the manuscript, packed and sealed, with our good friend the doctor. If we don’t claim it before daylight tomorrow, he must undertake to have it delivered at once to General Huan.”

Tony began to walk up and down in agitated thought, then: “I have another idea,” he said. “If you think it’s crazy, say so. We shall have to leave the Buick in some place well away from the germ plant. That’s clear. Neither of us knows the route there. The doctor has a car, and a driver who possibly does know the way—”

“I rather warm to your idea,” Nayland Smith rapped. “We take the manuscript with us? Having parked the car, we leave our driver with instructions to wait for us for an agreed time, and then to hurry back to the General’s house and deliver the package. This means delaying here until our host is awake and his chauffeur reports for duty.”

“I think it’s worth it. Sir Denis, on both counts.”

And, almost as he spoke, their host the doctor, whom they saw rarely, knocked on the door and came in. He wore a brown dressing robe over his pajamas, an attire which increased his resemblance to his cousin the Lama. Like his cousin, he spoke perfect English.

“How glad I am to see you. Sir Denis—and you. Captain McKay! Your absence began to disturb me.”

Nayland Smith apologized for arousing him so early, and then broached the subject of the driver for their midnight journey . . . “We should, of course, pay him handsomely for his services. He would be in no danger, and this will see the last of us; you can sleep in peace!”

“You may rest assured that Tung will be waiting for you. Sir Denis. He knows the road to Hua-Tzu perfectly. It is a difficult road at night. I formerly had a patient in that village . . .”

Half an hour later they were on their way to Niu-fo-Tu . . .

* * *

Nayland Smith knew this route well; so did Tony. They had traveled it recently with the Lama. They were stopped once only, at Jung. But their papers, issued by the governor of the province, produced polite bows and instant permission to proceed. Sir Denis drove the Buick as though competing in an overland race, and they reached Niu-fo-Tu in just under three hours.

He pulled up in sight of the gate.

“I have been thinking, McKay. Openly to visit the Lama might be dangerous—for the Lama. We still wear Chinese dress. But our visit, coming in an automobile, might reach the ears of Fu Manchu and result in inquiries. You know the way from here to the back entrance. Off you go! I’ll call him to expect you.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Tinker with the engine until you come back!”

Tony grinned and set out at a steady trot for the path he remembered so well, the path on which he had found the abandoned Ford and been attacked in the dark by Nayland Smith who mistook him for an enemy. He found it easily enough and turned in

off the road.

The Ford had disappeared, as he had expected. He passed the spot, and a run of a few hundred yards brought him out in sight of that stretch of wasteland upon which the rear windows of the Lama’s house looked out. Although no one was in sight, he dropped to a walk as he crossed to the door. It was wide open, and he entered without hesitation and went on to the door of the Lama’s study. That also was open.

“Come in. Captain McKay.” Dr. Li Wu Chang, the Lama, stood up to greet him. “You are indeed welcome!”

“It’s good to see you again. Sir Denis has told you what I’ve come for?”

The Lama held up a sealed package. “Here is the cipher manuscript. And here”—he indicated a long envelope which lay before him—”is the result of many hours of labor I have held it deliberately until it was complete.”

“What is it?” Tony wanted to know.

“I have broken the cipher, my son, and this is its translation in plain English!”

“Gosh!” Tony whispered. “That’s genius!”

“Merely acquired knowledge and perseverance. There is no merit in a special talent unless its exercise is of use to others.”

Tony dropped down on a stool and faced the Lama who had resumed his seat behind the low table. A faint smell of incense which pervaded the air carried him back to his first interview with Dr. Li Wong Chang.

“Certain perfumes stimulate the subconscious,” the Lama said, as if reading his thoughts. “What troubles your mind?”

“Tell me, first. Doctor, what is this manuscript?”

“It is a Register of the Order of the Si-Fan—one of the most powerful secret societies in the world. It contains the names of every lodge-master in China, some of them men of great influence. It includes the name of the Grand Master . . . General Huan Tsung-Chao, governor of the province!”

Tony’s brain was in a whirl.

“Confide your problem to me. Captain McKay,” the gentle voice urged. “For I see you have one. It may be I can help you to solve it.”

And Tony, without hesitation, told him of Nayland Smith’s bargain with Dr. Fu Manchu . . . “Sir Denis has such a nice sense of honor,” he explained finally, “that if he knows the cipher has been broken, having told Fu Manchu that it was undecipherable, I’m uncertain of his reaction.”

The Lama closed his eyes for a few moments and evidently reflected deeply. Then, he spoke again.

“Sir Denis is a throwback to the age of chivalry. Your course is clear. Forget what I have told you. Take this decoding of the manuscript, but produce it only when you are all in safety. I set the overthrow of the archcriminal called Dr. Fu Manchu, obviously not his real name, above all subtleties of conscience. If I err, the error is mine. Go, Captain McKay, for I know time is of vital importance to you . . .”

Chapter XXIII

Tony was forever looking at his watch. The hours of waiting in the doctor’s house at Chia-Ting had been hours of torture. He was so near to Moon Flower, yet so far away; for not mileage but a touch-and-go midnight venture lay between them.

Nayland Smith had called von Wehrner on the secret radio soon after their arrival, but von Wehrner had explained, briefly, that while the technical staff remained he could not safely talk. Now, he was free to do so, and Sir Denis, notebook in hand, was riddling him with quick-fire questions and noting his replies.

They had met Tung, who had undertaken to drive them to their dangerous rendezvous. He was a competent-looking lad, not uneducated, although he had little English. He assured them that he knew the road to Hua-Tzu by day or night.

He was instructed to have the Buick in condition by ten o’clock.

Nayland Smith made a final note and turned to Tony.

“I have the essential facts, McKay. You’re all strung up. Take a drink while I make a rough sketch. Might as well finish the bottle. We shan’t be coming back!”

Tony mixed a drink, lighted a cigarette, and watched Sir Denis making a pencil sketch on a writing pad.

“I wonder what you’re doing,” he said, rather irritably.

Nayland Smith looked up, grinned. “You’ll be with Jeanie in a few hours, McKay. The symptoms stick out like brass knobs. Simmer down. Come here and let me explain.” Tony crossed and looked down at a crude plan. “This is the back of the enclosure you saw. Here is the bungalow where von Wehrner lives. Note that it’s a long way from the only gate, but quite near the wire fence. Here, and here”—he indicated two crosses—”are the spots at which sentries are posted at night. They operate on a circulatory system. A moves around to B’s post, B moves on, and so forth, every hour. So that they report one by one to the sergeant at the gate. All clear?”

Tony, now absorbed in the job before them, nodded. “It’s a routine we scrapped years ago.”

“Suits us!” Nayland Smith rapped. “Have you noticed the weather? It’s going to be a cloudy night. The fence, of course, is lethally electrified. But von Wehrner will switch the juice off. He’ll join us here.” He marked a point midway between the two crosses. “All clear?”

“Except the wire fence. Are we taking ladders?”

“Von Wehrner has made his own. He’s an active ten-stone man. Cord, with bamboo rungs. Easily tossed over the fence. Any questions?”

“No—except where do we park the Buick? Beyond the village there’s no road I know of. The Russian camp isn’t far up the hill and there’s a road from the camp to the research station. But even if we could reach it, we daren’t use it.”

“Too bad. We shall have to walk there and back!”

* * *

At ten o’clock they were on their way; Tung at the wheel, Sir Denis and Tony seated behind.

“We can’t use our radio until this man’s out of the way,” Tony whispered.

“I don’t intend to do so!” Nayland Smith rapped. “Have you noticed the weather?”

“Yes. There’s a hell of a thunderstorm brewing. We’ll probably be drenched.”

Nayland Smith was silent; began to charge his pipe.

Tony thought hard. There were many snags to be looked for. If the storm broke, a flash of lightning might reveal them to the sentries. There were other unpleasant possibilities . . .

As though a dam had burst in the sky, rain crashed down on to the roof of the car. In a white blaze of lightning he saw the road ahead. It led up into the hills, was little more than a goat track which no reasonably sane motorist would have fancied even in ideal weather. Now, it had become a raging cataract.

A crash of thunder came like that of a mighty bomb. Tony glanced at Nayland Smith. He was lighting his pipe. And the Chinese driver held steadily on his course, axle deep in water.

“I presume that this car belongs to General Huan, but I don’t want it to break down all the same,” Sir Denis remarked in his dry way.

The deluge ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The next roar of phantom artillery was farther away, the lightning less blinding. The storm was passing eastward. They had crossed the crest of the rocky hill, and Tony, in a moment of illumination, saw a densely wooded valley below, oak, aider, and other varieties he hadn’t time to identify.

They descended a road winding through trees, the driver picking

his way by the aid of powerful headlights. This road brought them at last to the bank of a sullenly running stream, and here the driver suddenly slowed down.

“This is Hua-Tzu, sir. Do you wish me to drive through?”

Tony and Nayland Smith stepped out on the muddy track. “I think,” Tony said, peering around in the gloom, “it might be wiser to park the car right here. The path to the Russian camp starts at the farther end of the village street, I remember.”

“Good,” Nayland Smith snapped, glanced at the illuminated dial of his wrist-watch and instructed Tony to switch off the headlights. “Park here somewhere”—he spoke Chinese—”near the roadside, and for your life don’t be seen. Here is the parcel you have to deliver to General Huan. Does your watch keep good time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you understand—you wait for us until three o’clock. If we’re not here by three, you start for the governor’s house. For God’s sake don’t fall asleep!”

“I understand. I shall not fall asleep.”

“Now let’s find a spot to hide the car.”

They explored back up the slope, and Tony presently found an opening in a plantation of alders wide enough to admit the Buick. Tung brought the car up and backed in.

“Smoke if you like,” Sir Denis told him. “But stamp your cigarette out if anybody comes near.”

“I understand.”

And so they left Tung and moved on.

* * *

Not a light showed in the one straggling street of the riverside village. They reached the path which Tony remembered without meeting anything human or animal and began to climb the hill toward the Russian camp. Through a rift in the racing clouds the moon peeped out for a few seconds and Tony saw the group of huts just ahead.

“Here we take to the rough!” he said.

They turned left into a tangle of scrub and made a detour around the camp, in which, as in the village, no light was visible. Above the camp. Tony led the way back to the rough road which connected the camp with the research plant. They stayed on the road during darkness, but ducked into cover whenever the moon broke through; and presently:

“We must be near the gate now,” Tony decided. “Better stick in the rough and work left.”

In this way, in sudden moonlight, they had their first view of the wired enclosure and of the hut beside the gate. There was a light in the window of the hut. Beyond, they could see the group of buildings.

“I went no farther than this,” Tony reported. “To get round to the other side we shall have to explore, keeping well out of sight.”

“Good enough,” Nayland Smith agreed. “Let’s hope there’s cover all the way.”

There proved to be up to the time that they sighted the first sentry. He was squatting on the ground, smoking. Just beyond came a patch of coarse grass which offered no cover at all. They had to creep farther away from the fence before they found bushes. Kept on their circular course only by rare bursts of moonlight, they passed the third sentry, who was asleep, and Nayland Smith looked at his watch.

“We’re there! And it’s just twelve o’clock. We have to wait for the sentries to change over.” He lay flat down.

“I welcome the rest!”

And, as they lay there, came the sound of a distant whistle from the direction of the gate. Soon they heard footsteps, voices. Then, one of the guards (presumably the one who had been asleep) tramped past and disappeared.

“I wonder if the sergeant ever does a round of inspection,” Nayland Smith murmured. “Better wait and make sure. “

They waited for some time, but heard and saw nothing. During a longish spell of moonlight Tony had a clear view of the upper part of a hut nestling amid bamboos. It stood less than fifty yards from the wire fence.

“I suppose that’s where von Wehmer lives. Sir Denis?”

“According to my notes, it is. He described it as roughly midway between two of the points where guards are posted. I’ll try to get him, now. When we know he’s starting, we must crawl over to the fence and lie in that tangle of long grass and weeds which borders the wire.” He paused. “Come nearer to shield me from the guard to the south of us. I must have light to see the dial.”

Tony did so, and Nayland Smith shone a momentary light from a flashlamp on to the dial of his wrist-radio, then switched it off. Tony crouched close beside him, listening intently.

And presently came the faint voice of Dr. von Wehmer. “I’m waiting in the power house. Sir Denis. If you’re ready, I’ll make the connection, run back to my bungalow and get what I want, then steal through the bamboos to join you.”

“Wait until clouds cover the moon,” Nayland Smith warned.

“Trust me to be careful!”

“Phew!” Nayland Smith breathed. “So far, all according to plan.”

Tony experienced a sensation not unlike that he had known when awaiting the signal for a raid into the enemy lines; exultation and tingling apprehension. Storm clouds were sweeping the sky. “Shall we move over. Sir Denis?”

“Yes—crawl. And lie flat if the moon breaks through.”

Their dingy-hued Chinese clothes were admirable camouflage, and they crept across into the tangle of undergrowth fringing the fence without difficulty.

They had no more than reached this cover when from the direction of the distant gate came the sound of a choking scream. It broke off suddenly, as if the one who screamed had been swiftly silenced.

“What the devil’s that!” Nayland Smith growled.

Whatever it was it had alerted the sentries to their right and left. Two shouts came simultaneously. Then one of the voices shouted alone—and silence fell.

“I wish I knew Russian,” Tony muttered.

“So do I,” Nayland Smith rapped back. “But it doesn’t matter.

The men aren’t moving. We daren’t use a light out here. So I can’t call von Wehmer. We can only wait and hope for the best.”

They lay there, waiting—and listening.

To Tony, strung up to a high pitch, it seemed that every passing minute was ten. And presently, to enhance the stress, he seemed to become conscious of a vague, muffled tumult somewhere inside the wired enclosure.

“You hear it?” Nayland Smith whispered. “God knows what’s going on—but it’s something we don’t want!”

Through a break in the clouds moon rays peeped out for a few fleeting seconds. Tony stared anxiously into the bamboo plantation masking von Wehrner’s bungalow; but saw nothing. The muted, indescribable disturbance continued.

Darkness again.

“Sir Denis!” It was a husky whisper.

“Von Wehmer!”

“Move a few yards to your left. I’m throwing a weighted line across. Be quick!”

Tony’s heart leapt with excitement as they scuffled at speed toward where, now, a shadowy figure showed on the other side of the fence. When they reached the spot:

“Here’s the line,” von Wehrner’s voice told them. “Catch it and pull!”

Some heavy object was thrown over the fence. It fell almost into Tony’s hands. He grabbed it—a bronze paperweight—and pulled on the line to which it was tied. He had the end of a rope ladder in his hands when it stuck!

“Stop pulling,” von Wehmer said hoarsely. He seemed to be in a state of panic. “You’ll break the ladder. Hold it fast. I’m coming over.”

“Hurry!” Nayland Smith rapped softly. “I think the moon’s breaking through!”

He and Tony hung on to the end of the ladder as von Wehmer mounted on the other side. Astride the top of the fence, he tossed a briefcase into the tangled grass near Tony, turned and groped for a rung of the ladder. Faint moonlight through the tail of a racing cloud began to dilute the darkness.

“Stand clear!”

And as they released their hold, von Wehrner dropped beside them.

“Flat down!” Nayland Smith whispered. “We must chance the ladder.”

They were none too soon, for the moon burst fully out from a patch of starry sky, and it seemed to Tony that the landscape was drenched in silvery light, that the ladder hanging from the fence must certainly be seen.

The next few minutes were amongst the most nerve-racking of the night. Von Wehrner was gasping. He began to speak in a low, breathless voice.

“I had made the connection in the power house . . . hurried back to the bungalow. I went in, using a flashlamp. On my desk I had left the ladder—carefully rolled, in a black canvas bag, and my briefcase . . . I heard padding footsteps behind me.”

He stopped, listening. They were all listening. That indefinable disturbance continued, but no sound came from the sentries. The moon was becoming veiled again. Nayland Smith passed his flask to von Wehrner, who accepted it gratefully. And when it was returned:

“I had a dreadful sense of chill—physical. Something cold was behind me . . . You will think I am mad . . . I picked up an old lancet which lay there. I use it as a pencil sharpener . . . I turned, and the light of my lamp showed me a grey thing, nearly naked . . . Its eyes were a dead man’s eyes . . .

“It sprang upon me. It was supernaturally cold. The mouth was open in a hideous grin. I was held in a grip of ice . . . I plunged the lancet into the grinning mouth and upward through the soft palate. . . The creature relaxed and fell at my feet. For heaven’s sake, what was it?”

“I know what it was!” Nayland Smith rapped grimly. “And it means we have to move—fast! Dark enough now. Crawl after me, Doctor.”

And as they crept across the open ground to the cover beyond, Tony knew, too, what it was . . . Fu Manchu had chosen that night to raid the research station. He understood, at last, the muffled disturbance which filled the night. The place had been taken over by Cold Men—necropolites!

And they had not long reached cover when there was evidence that they were outside as well as inside. A shriek, instantly stifled, came from the direction of the sentry on the south.

“Back the way we came!” Nayland Smith spoke between clenched teeth. “And God be with us!”

Then began the detour around the plant by which they had come. Von Wehrner had recovered from the horror of an encounter with a Cold Man and they made good going. Once Tony heard von Wehrner mutter, “There was no hemorrhage!” And he knew that he was still thinking about the necropolite.

But at last they reached the point where the road from the Russian camp ended before the gate of the enclosure.

“The gate’s open!” Nayland Smith muttered. “They must have overpowered the sergeant, and he must have had the key.”

Tony found it hard to credit what he saw. Just before a trailing cloud obscured the moon again, a company of grey phantoms became detached from the shadows like floating vapor or evil spirits materializing, and swept into the open gateway . . .

Chapter XXIV

“What’s this?”

Nayland Smith’s voice was grim. They had reached the foot of the path which came out at one end of the village street. The Russian camp lay behind them silent and evidently undisturbed. On a path of scrub near the river bank a truck was parked!

“It wasn’t here before,’ Tony muttered.

“There’s probably someone in the cab,” Sir Denis muttered. “We shall have to find a way behind the houses. The truck must be waiting for the Cold Men.”

There proved to be such a path, and they followed it to a point where a bend made it safe to return to the crooked street. They had just done so and were headed for the spot where they hoped Tung awaited them when something happened which brought them to a sudden halt.

A piercing scream came from the other end of the village:

“Mahmud ! . . . Master! . . . Help ! help!”

The cry was checked in a significant way.

“It was the Japanese—Matsukata!” Tony spoke in a hushed voice. “What the devil does it mean?”

“It means,” Nayland Smith explained savagely, “that hell’s let loose. Matsukata has lost control of the Cold Men. No time to talk. Listen!”

They heard the grating roar of a heavy engine starting.

“It is the big truck,” von Wehmer said hoarsely.

“Back into cover!” Sir Denis rapped. “There’s just time

They ran back to the opening between two small houses from which they had just come out, as the heavy vehicle appeared along the street. Tony tried to see the man in the cab, but failed to identify him. And as the truck passed, from its interior came a sort of muffled chant: “Looma! Looma . . .”

Shocked into silence, they saw the vehicle, with its load of living-dead demons, speeding up the winding road!

All three were listening in tense suspense. But when the sound of the motor died away in the distance their tension relaxed.

“They have passed Tung.” Sir Denis sighed with relief. “Come on! This place isn’t healthy . . .”

* * *

Tung was waiting in the plantation of alders, and Tony felt so relieved that he wanted to cheer.

“A big truck,” the man reported, “passed here soon after you left. It has just passed again. Soon after the first time, a small car also went by. It has not returned.”

Tung drove the Buick on to the road, and in a minimum of time they were on their way. Their driver did his best on the gradient, for Tony had urged him to hurry. Nayland Smith consulted his watch.

“We made a record coming down, von Wehrner. Just twenty-seven minutes since we picked you up!”

“I was delayed joining you. I set the clock for thirty minutes. But those creatures who entered the plant may have . . .”

His words were drowned in a shattering explosion which shook the solid earth . . . All four wheels momentarily left the surface, then dropped back with a sickening thud. Storm clouds, still moving overhead, became ruddy as though a setting sun burned under them. And fiery fragments began to fall in the road and on the roof of the car.

“First-class show, von Wehmer.” Nayland Smith grinned. “One big good deed to your credit!”

“Two things are worrying me,” Tony broke in, staring back at the raging inferno which had been the Soviet research center “Why did Matsukata yell for Mahmud and The Master? Was Mahmud the driver of the car Tung saw? In that case. Dr. Fu Manchu was at the plant when we left! The other thing—who’s driving the truck and where are they going?”

Sir Denis began to fill his pipe before replying. “That Fu Manchu may have followed on I think probable. These unhappy creatures he has created are very near to jungle beasts. And the jungle becomes strangely disturbed during an electric storm.”

“You think,” von Wehrner suggested, “that these living-dead have gone berserk and overcome their controllers?”

“I do. I think that Dr. Fu Manchu, tonight, has overreached himself. Hitherto, I judge, he has used these ghastly zombies for solo performances, such as the affair at Lao Tse-Mung’s house, when it has been possible for Matsukata to maintain control. But a party of necropolites poses a different problem—particularly in a thunderstorm.”

“Then you do believe,” Tony asked eagerly, “that Fu Manchu was there tonight in person?”

“I have said that I think it probable. What is certain is that a party of Cold Men—we don’t know how many—has taken charge of the truck and taken Matsukata along with them. I’m worried.”

“Where are they going?” Tony asked, blankly.

“That’s just what worries me . . .”

The drive back was all too long for Tony. Already he was living in the future, and paid little attention to a conversation, in low tones, between Sir Denis and von Wehmer. They had carried out their part of the bargain, for they had the cipher manuscript, and if Dr. Fu Manchu was the man of his word which Nayland Smith believed him to be—they were free!

They could all return to Hong Kong for his wedding to Moon Flower . . .

His pleasant musing had lasted a long time. Von Wehrner had become silent. Nayland Smith’s pipe was smoked out. The storm clouds had quite disappeared, and in bright moonlight he saw that they had nearly reached the main gate of General Huan’s house.

“I was afraid of this!” Sir Denis rapped. “Look!”

The long, grey truck stood before the gate . . .

* * *

“God’s mercy!” Nayland Smith whispered. “Truly, hell’s loose tonight!”

The truck driver lay slumped in his cab. He was dead.

“What’s happened?” Tony cried out. “We must get into the house!”

“I fear the gate is locked.” Von Wehrner spoke on a note of despair.

“Wait!”

Nayland Smith was opening the rear door of the truck.

Matsukata lay prone on the floor inside!

“Get him out!” Sir Denis called. “Lend a hand, McKay” And together they got the limp body out. “Dr. von Wehrner, this is your job. Tell me—is he alive?”

The German biologist who was also a physician bent over the Japanese, examined him briefly, and nodded.

“Tough they are, these Japanese. It is extreme nervous exhaustion. Is your flask empty. Sir Denis?”

It wasn’t. And the doctor went to work to revive Matsukata.

“McKay!” Nayland Smith said, supporting the inert body. “There must be some kind of bell, or something, to arouse the gate porter. Tung may know!”

But Tung knew of no bell, so he began to rattle the bars and shout.

“Open the gate! Open the gate!”

He was still shouting when a light sprang up in the lodge, a door was unlocked. An old man looked out, cautiously.

“Quick! Let us in!”

“It is Dr. Matsukata!” Tony called in Chinese. “We have business with his Excellency!”

The ancient porter came to the gate. “Gladly—for the place is taken over by demons! “ He peered about, fearfully. “I saw them—leaping over the wall!”

He opened the heavy gate almost at the moment that Matsukata revived enough to speak.

“They meant to kill me,” he whispered. “They forced the driver to take the truck to the clinic. I was helpless. They can communicate with one another in some way. I knew this. They acted together. I was forced to open the store of Looma. They drank it all. Then they forced the driver to come here. I do not know why they compelled me to come. Perhaps to torture me. From the roof of the truck they sprang over into the governor’s garden—all of them; like apes. I know no more, except that the Master—”

Matsukata passed out again.

McKay and Tung carried him into the gate lodge. Then Tung drove the car in and the gate was relocked. Dr. von Wehmer volunteered to look after Matsukata, and Tony and Nayland Smith started off towards the house.

Tony saw that every window in the large building was lighted!

“What’s this?” he muttered.

“My guess is that the Cold Men are inside—looting!” Nay land Smith told him rapidly. “By the way, hide your radio.”

He began to run. So did Tony.

A gong hung on the flower-draped terrace before the main door. Nayland Smith struck it a blow with the butt of his revolver.

Before its vibration had died away, the big, heavy door was thrown open, and a terrifying figure stood before them, a lean, muscular figure of a man wearing a shirt of chain mail, baggy trousers and some kind of metal helmet. He held a heavy sword having a curved blade from which certain stains had been imperfectly removed!

“You are welcome, gentlemen.”

It was General Huan Tsung-Chao!

As the door was reclosed. Tony glanced around the lighted lobby, its exquisite tapestries and trophies of arms—from one of which he guessed that General Huan had taken his queer equipment. Nayland Smith was staring at the general in an odd way.

“I can assure you. Sir Denis,” the old soldier said in his excellent English, “that I have not taken leave of my senses. But my house was invaded some time ago by creatures not of this world. My steward, an excellent and faithful servant, detecting one of them entering through a window, shot him. The Thing ignored the wound, sprang on my steward and strangled him!”

“The Cold Men!” Nayland Smith rapped. “What did you do?”

“I ordered the resident staff to lock themselves in their quarters, and took the same precautions with my guests. Dr. Cameron-Gordon and his daughter. I locked the door of their apartment.”

“Thank God for that!” Tony murmured.

“Some of the creatures,” General Huan went on in unruffled calm, “had obtained knives. Hence this.” He tapped the shirt of mail. “It was worn by an ancestor many centuries ago. I called for aid from Chia-Ting and was interrupted by one of the grey horrors, who attacked me with a dagger. Although apparently immune to bullets, I am a saber expert, and I struck the things heads off without difficulty.”

Tony gasped. He had seen such a feat performed by the executioner in the prison yard at Chia-Ting. But General Huan he judged to be all of seventy years old!

“Listen!” Nayland Smith snapped.

A faint sound of maniacal laughter sent an icy chill down Tony’s spine.

“Some of them are upstairs,” General Huan declared. “They move like shadows. I beheaded another in the wine cellar. The creature was pouring a rare Chateau Yquem down his throat. But there are more to be accounted for. This imbecile laughter—”

A stifled shriek checked him.

“Moon Flower!” Tony shouted. “Lead the way, sir! Where is she?”

But that strange figure of a medieval Chinese warrior already led the way. Before a door carved in fanciful geometrical designs he halted and took a key from a pocket in his baggy trousers; threw the door open. It was their former apartment.

The effect resembled that caused by opening a refrigerator. Through a window having a balcony outside Tony saw the starry sky, and knew immediately how the Cold Man had got in. The room showed a scene of crazy disorder. Dr. Cameron-Gordon lay face-down by the window. But he had no time to observe details . . .

A necropolite, a grey, corpselike figure, was forcing Moon Flower back on to a divan; his lean left arm locked around her. She was past speech, but her feeble moans stung Tony to fighting madness. With his right hand the Cold Man stripped the clothing from her shoulders, pressing his loathsome lips to the soft curves he found.

Tony leapt forward and pumped three bullets into the Cold Man’s sinewy grey shoulder. The creature uttered no cry of pain; but its left arm relaxed and then fell limply. Moon Flower staggered back, collapsing on the cushioned divan.

As Nayland Smith sprang forward, the Cold Man turned, a murderous grin on his face.

“Oblige me by stepping aside, gentlemen,” General Huan cried in a tone of command.

Both twisted around, astounded by the words and the manner.

General Huan thrust himself before them. The necropolite plucked a knife from his loincloth. And at that same moment the long, curved blade of the great sword whistled through the air—and the grinning head rolled on the rug-covered floor. The trunk collapsed slowly, then slumped.

“See!” General Huan held up the blade. “No more blood than if one carved a fish! The creatures are not human . . .”

* * *

Cameron-Gordon had been stunned by a blow on his skull, received as the Cold Man silently entered through the window. Or so Nayland Smith deduced when his old friend came to his senses and stared dazedly across the room to where Tony knelt beside the divan whispering soothing words to Moon Flower. Her experience with a necropolite had brought her to the verge of hysteria, a feminine weakness which she despised.

The icy remains of her attacker, in two parts, had been removed before she recovered from the swoon; and General Huan had gone to call those male members of his staff who slept in the servants’ annexe to assist in the search for the Cold Men still at large.

Assured by Cameron-Gordon that he had suffered no physical injury, Nayland Smith jumped up and glanced quizzically at Tony.

“Come on, McKay!” he rapped. “Jeanie will be all right now with her father to look after her. We’re wanted downstairs.”

“Close those shutters,” Tony called to Cameron-Gordon as he started, “and lock the door after us!”

Their assistance proved to be unnecessary, however. Matsukata, fully restored, and Dr. von Wehmer, on their way to the house, had almost stumbled over several Cold Men lying in a state of coma induced by a surfeit of looted food and wine. Another, making his exit in the same way, from an upstairs window, had fallen on his head and lay unconscious on a tiled path.

Matsukata’s manner was furtive. From the way in which he glanced at von Wehrner, Tony knew that there were questions he wanted to ask, and from the way he avoided meeting Nayland Smith’s eyes that there were inquiries he didn’t want to answer. In fact, he seemed to be half-dazed.

In the light of early morning Nayland Smith and Tony sat in Huan Tsung-Chao’s study, the room with the large lacquered desk. General Huan was seated behind the desk.

“Isn’t it remarkable. General,” Sir Denis asked, “that Dr. Fu Manchu should have chosen last night for an attempt on the Soviet station? I had supposed the return of the manuscript before you to be of paramount interest.”

General Huan rested his hand on the parchment bound Si-Fan Register.

“It is of great interest to me, also. Sir Denis. But The Master accepted your word that it would be restored as you accepted his that you and your friends should be free to leave. His reason for moving last night was that he feared the replacement of Dr. von Wehmer might result in more stringent precautions being taken.”

“You tell me you have no news of him. This I don’t understand.”

The lined, remarkable old face relaxed in a smile

“There are many things. Sir Denis, concerning your own part in the affair which I do not understand! The Cold Men, in three parties, were instructed, hypnotically, to obey Mahmud—a former sergeant-major of French-Algerian infantry. Contrary to my advice, The Master—aware that these awful creatures are strangely affected by electric storms—set out shortly after Dr. Matsukata and Mahmud to take personal charge.”

He paused, and very deliberately took a pinch of snuff.

“Dr. Matsukata tells me that the third party, whom he held in reserve, revolted. You are aware of what occurred later. You have scrupulously carried out your undertaking. Sir Denis, and I have arranged suitable transport for all of you, as The Master authorized me to do. I have included Dr. von Wehmer, whose presence in your party is one of the things I do not understand.” He smiled again, a sly smile. “If you should call at Lung Chang, please give my best wishes to a mutual friend there. You will be provided with papers ensuring your free passage . . .”

* * *

Many hours later, in Lao Tse-Mung’s library, a setting sun gleamed on the many bound volumes, cabinets and rare porcelain. Moon Flower was curled up on a cushioned settee; Tony’s glance lingered on her adoringly. Their courteous host had personally conducted his old friend, Cameron-Gordon, and the unexpected guest, von Wehmer, to their apartments, and Nayland Smith lay back in a big rest-chair, relighting his pipe and looking gloriously at ease.

“Is it possible. Sir Denis, that Dr. Fu Manchu is dead?” Tony asked suddenly.

Nayland Smith looked up at him, match in hand. “Judging from a long experience, highly improbable!”

“Because, it would be rather a pity, in view of something I have here.” He pulled out the long envelope containing the translation of the cipher manuscript.

“The Lama advised me not to show it to you until we were out of danger.”

“What the devil is it?” Sir Denis rapped, and took the envelope from Tony.

“It’s the Lama’s deciphering of the manuscript!”

“What!” Nayland Smith blew the match out in the nick of time, leapt to his feet. “This is incredible—”

“A list, the Lama told me, of every Si-Fan lodge master in China—some of them prominent persons—including General Huan!”

Nayland Smith dropped back in his chair.

“I said, McKay, when you recovered the thing from Andre Skobolov, that I believed it to be the most powerful weapon against Fu Manchu, which I ever held in my hands. An understatement. It could shatter his dream empire!”

The End