Re-enter Dr Fu Manchu

“That makes me think, Lola. The first time I saw him in Cairo was under very peculiar circumstances. It’s quite a story.”

And he outlined the incident which had led him to take refuge on the roof of a house overlooking that of Shertf Mohammed, and told her what he had seen from there. . . .

“There was no mistake about it, dear. The way he gripped his pipe, the trick of twitching the lobe of his ear. I knew I was looking at Nayland Smith.

“How excited you must have been! And after that?”

Now well in his stride, and delighted to have Lola for an audience, Brian related how he had demanded an interview with the Sherif and what had happened there.

“So you didn’t see him,” Lola murmured. “When did you see him again?”

Brian gave her an account of Sir Denis’s secret entrance to his hotel apartment, and equally secret exit.

“Was it then, Brian, when you actually talked to him, that you began to wonder if he had outlived what you call ‘his old form’?”

“Not exactly right then, Lola——”

Brian paused, finished his cocktail. He had thought of something; and the thing, though perhaps trivial, had staggered him, chiefly because he had never thought of it before.

“Then when, dear?”

“Later, I guess. But—when Sir Denis came to see me he had a strip of surgical plaster on the bridge of his nose.”

“Had he been in a fight?”

Lola asked the question jokingly. But her grey eyes weren’t smiling.

“He’d had one hell of a time getting out of the hands of the Reds. But that’s not the point. Something which he didn’t tell me must have happened right there in Cairo. Because, when I saw him pacing around that room, and I saw him clearly, there was no plaster on his nose!”

* * *

One of the hourly reports ordered by Dr. Fu Manchu was just coming in. That solitary spark of green light glowed in the darkness. . . .

“Brian Merrick’s complete ignorance of Operation Zero confirmed.”

“He has served his purpose, and could be dispensed with. Henceforward he becomes a possible source of danger. . . . Where is he now?”

“In the Sunset Room.”

“He is covered?”

“Closely, Excellency”

“What Federal operatives are on duty there?”

“Two F.B.I, agents.”

The green light disappeared. And, invisible in the darkness, Dr. Fu Manchu laughed. . . .

* * *

In the popular but expensive Sunset Room high up in the Babylon-Lido, with its celebrated dance band and star-spangled floor show, Brian found himself transported to Paradise. With Lola in his arms, wearing an alluring dance frock, he was lost to the world, lifted above all its petty troubles—a man rapturously in love.

His frustrations, doubts and fears had dispersed like mist under the morning sun.

“Are you happy, dearest?” he whispered.

“Very happy, Brian.”

He was silent for a long time, living in a dream.

“I often wonder, Lola, in your wanderings about the world, if you ever met someone else who meant more to you than I do.”

“There’s no one who means more to me than you, Brian. But, like you, dear, I have a job to do. We’re both young enough to enjoy ourselves without spoiling it by getting serious, yet awhile.”

Brian drew a long breath, made fragrant by the perfume of her hair.

“You mean you’d rather stay with Michel than cut it out to marry me?”

Lola sighed. “I told you once before, Brian dear, that early marriages, so popular in our country, are often failures.”

“But not always.”

“Brian, we’re happy! Maybe we’ll never capture this wonderful thing again. Please don’t get serious—tonight!”

He swallowed, but found enough discretion to respect her wishes, to surrender himself to the spirit of the dance. As always, Lola was elusive—and all the more maddeningly desirable. He was silent for some time, until:

“There’s a man standing over by the door,” he said, “who

seems to be watching us. Do you know him?” “Which one do you mean, Brian?” “The tall, dark fellow just lighting a cigarette.” Lola laughed. “No, I don’t know him, Brian. But I’m willing to bet he’s the house detective!”

Chapter

12

Brian returned to the suite earlier than he had intended. Lola had been paged just before the star entertainer appeared, and returned, looking very wretched, to tell him that Madame Michel had taken up residence in the Babylon-Lido that night and would remain until her forthcoming dress show there took place. Madame insisted upon an immediate conference in her apartment. ...

He found Nayland Smith at the desk reading what looked like an official document, and smoking as usual, like a factory chimney. The suite was luxuriously furnished, in Babylon-Lido style, and a tall, painted Italian screen enclosed the desk, so that the limited space around it had the quality of a fog. Sir Denis looked up when Brian came in.

“Hullo, Merrick! A rumour reaches me that you were seen in the Sunset Room with a very pretty girl. Don’t apologize! You have had a dull time, I know. Glad you can find agreeable company.”

“Thanks, Dir Denis—though I can’t imagine who told you.”

Nayland Smith smiled. But, again, it wasn’t the happy smile which Brian remembered—a smile which had seemed to sweep the years aside and reveal an eager boy.

“One of the F.B.I, men detailed to keep an eye on you!”

“On me7 Why?”

Sir Denis tossed the typescript aside; stood up.

“Merrick, we’re marked men!” The smile vanished. His face became grim. “If Fu Manchu could trap either of us it would give him a lever with Washington—that he’d know how to use. I have warned you before. Trust nobody—not even a taxi driver you may pick up outside the hotel.”

“But——” A hot protest burned on Brian’s tongue, for he detected an implication that Lola was suspect; checked the words. “You suggest that this man would try to hold us?”

“And could succeed, Merrick. Remember how long I was held! He has not only the Si-Fan behind him, but the Reds as well!” He began to pace up and down. “Dr. Fu Manchu has little time left. Tomorrow night Dr. Hessian has agreed to give a demonstration!”

“Tomorrow night!”

“A committee formed by your father, and approved by the President, will be here. Not one word of this must leak out. Their visit is a top secret. . . . And Fu Manchu would stop at nothing to prevent it!”

* * *

Sleep didn’t come easily to Brian that night. Between uneasy dozes, he found himself trying to figure out if Lola really had been called to attend upon “Madame”, or if she was avoiding being left alone with him, and trying to convince himself that Dr. Hessian’s invention was not a mirage, the dream of a mad scientist, but all that Nayland Smith believed it to be. He drove himself near to a mental frenzy.

That Sir Denis deliberately kept him in the dark concerning certain vital facts of the business was beyond dispute. Why? Didn’t he trust him?

Crowning mystery—which he had never been able to fathom—for what possible reason had he been employed? Those qualifications stipulated in The Times advertisement, all of which he possessed, had never been called upon. For all that had happened to date, almost anybody, graduate or coal miner, athlete or cripple, would have done as well!

He switched on the bedside lamp, saw that the time was 2 a.m., and got up to get a drink. He didn’t want whisky; he was really thirsty; and there was beer in the icebox. He made his way to the kitchenette and opened a can.

As he poured out the cold beer, he wondered if Nayland Smith had gone to sleep, and, carrying the glass in his hand, walked bare-footed to Sir Denis’s door to find out.

His door was open—and even in the dim light Brian could see that the bed was unoccupied. There was no light in the living-room.

He stood for a moment, hesitating. Then went out to the lobby.

The door of the suite was unlocked!

In view of what Nayland Smith had told him earlier that night, and of Sir Denis’s insistence that the door must always be locked and bolted at night, this was more than puzzling. . ..

“We’re marked men! IfFu Manchu could trap either of us——”

He remembered the very words.

What was he to think?

Brian knew that he had dozed more than once, but if there had been any struggle it couldn’t have failed to arouse him.

And while he stood there in a state of hopeless indecision a sound came which confirmed all his fears. It came from the penthouse.

A pistol shot! ... A second ... a third! Then—a muffled explosion, which shook the apartment!

Brian ran back to the living-room, spilling beer as he went.

He switched the light on, set the glass down and crossed to the penthouse phone. . . . Before his hand touched it the instrument began to buzz!

As he took it up: “That you, Merrick?” came Nayland Smith’s snappy voice.

“Yes. What’s happened? Shall I come up?”

“No. Stay where you are. Dr. Hessian called me an hour ago. He had decided upon a test experiment. It was successful. Probably have most of the residents of the Babylon-Lido phoning like mad! Turn in. All’s well.”

And Sir Denis hung up.

Brian wondered if he should obey orders and lock the outer door; decided against it, and went back to bed. . . .

* * *

He woke early in the morning, vaguely aware of disturbed dreams in which Nayland Smith had become transformed into a sort of prehistoric monster about to devour him and had then vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Wondering why he felt so jaded, he gave an order for coffee and went into the bathroom. If Sir Denis had returned or not he didn’t know, and for some reason didn’t care. There was no sound in the suite. He was finishing up with an ice-cold shower when the waiter came into the living-room.

Brian called out, “Leave my coffee in there, waiter.”

“All ready.” But the man lingered, drew nearer to the open bathroom door. . . . “Explosion upstairs last night, I hear. Did it wake you?”

Brian hesitated, towel in hand. He must be cautious.

“Yes, it did. Any damage?”

“Not that I’ve heard. One of those pressure cookers blew up, I’m told. But nobody hurt.”

“Lucky. I wondered what had happened. . . .”

He was drinking coffee and glancing over the morning newspapers which the man had brought up when Sir Denis burst in. He was dressed in one of his well-cut and well-worn tweed suits, so that evidently he, too, had been an early riser.

“Good morning, Merrick. Sorry about last night. Started a lot of rumours. Not good for us. One thing certain. Hessian is a genius compared with whom Einstein was a beginner! I want you with me up there tonight—and you’re going to see a miracle. . . .”

When, soon afterwards, Nayland Smith dashed out again, saying that he had an important conference at police headquarters, Brian was left as much in the dark as he had been before Sir Denis dashed in. Mingled with the promised excitement of what the night had in store was a growing resentment at being treated like a figure of no consequence where the big issues at stake were concerned.

Irritably, Brian looked at his watch, and decided that it wasn’t too early to call Lola. He asked to be put through to her apartment. She answered almost at once.

“Did I wake you, dear?”

“No, Brian. I’m all ready to go out. A long day ahead at Michel’s, and I was up so late last night. Heaven only knows when I’ll be through. This was the job I was brought here to do. I have to pass all the models who’ll display Michel’s creations at the show!”

“Poor darling! Any hope for lunch?”

“Not a shadow. It will be sandwiches and coffee on Fifth Avenue. If I can make it between seven and eight for a quick drink I’ll call you.”

Brian’s spirits sank to zero. The Washington committee, headed by his father, was due at eight o’clock.

“I’m afraid I may be tied up by then, Lola. But call all the same. We might fix something later. . . .”

It was a seemingly interminable morning. Around one o’clock Sir Denis called to say that Brian could leave the suite for his lunch provided he didn’t leave the building. . .. “Acting on your advice, I have made other arrangements to safeguard the penthouse. But in case I’m delayed, stand by to receive your father’s party from seven on.”

Brian lingered over his lunch and then wandered about the huge hotel hoping to find somebody he knew; but, as happens on such occasions, without success. Merely to kill time, he dropped into a lounge in one of the public rooms and ordered coffee.

A strange-looking man sauntered by. He was young, dark-complexioned and handsome in a sinister way, with large, black and brilliant eyes. Otherwise conventionally dressed in European fashion, he wore a blue turban. He seemed to take an unwholesome interest in the younger women present.

Just then, the waiter brought Brian’s coffee, and:

“Is the character in the blue turban staying here, waiter?” Brian asked.

The waiter nodded. “Sure he is, sir. They tell me he’s an Indian prince. All I know is he has a servant with him that looks like a gorilla. I’ve taken orders to their apartment.”

Finally, Brian bought a bundle of newspapers and magazines and went upstairs to try to amuse himself until the committee arrived. It was important that he should distract his thoughts from hazy doubts and misgivings that crowded upon him. . . .

Almost on the stroke of seven, his father arrived—alone.

“This is a very wonderful occasion, my boy,” he declared;

“and you’re entitled to be proud that you’ve been chosen to take part in it. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs is coming, General Jenner, General Dowson of the Air Force, and Admiral Druce, representing the Navy. Last, but not least, Dr. Jurgonsen, the physicist and the President’s personal adviser on development of atomic projects. Where is Sir Denis? With Dr. Hessian, I suppose?”

“I don’t know, Father,” Brian confessed. “But he warned me that he might be detained.”

Brian Merrick Senior nodded. “A man carrying a heavy load of responsibility on his shoulders.”

The party assembled in ones and twos, Nayland Smith last except for Dr. Jurgonsen. Sir Denis looked physically exhausted—or so Brian thought. The three Service officers (all of them in mufti) were so typical of their services as to be without individual characteristics. They showed one trait in common; a reserved but unmistakable hostility for each other.

At three minutes after eight the physicist arrived, a spare grey man in powerful spectacles and a bad temper. He looked around irritably.

“To the devil with New York taxi drivers,” he remarked. “The one I hired didn’t know the way to the Babylon-Lido!”

The three officers transferred their mutual hostility to the civilian. But Senator Merrick tried to pour oil on troubled waters, as Nayland Smith said:

“If you will be good enough to follow me, gentleman, we will now proceed to the demonstration.”

They filed out and long the corridor to the penthouse door, which proved to be open. Brian’s curiosity rose to fever pitch. This was his first visit to Dr. Hessian’s hideaway. There was another door at the top of the stair which was opened by an expressionless Japanese who wore a white tunic.

He led them through a lobby crowded with oversized trunks and cases and into what was evidently the main room of the penthouse. Although french windows were opened, so that the light-studded panorama of Manhattan could be seen stretched out below the terrace, the air was heavy with some pungent chemical odour.

The Japanese, apparently Dr. Hessian’s assistant, closed the door as the last of the party came in.

“Here, gentlemen, as you see, we shall witness a demonstration of Dr. Hessian’s supreme achievement.”

All eyes became focussed on a long, narrow table in the middle of the room. It was entirely covered by a large-scale plan of Manhattan from the Battery to the Bronx. Roughly midway on the plan a miniature radio mast stood.

Three large metal balls of some dull metal that looked like lead were suspended above the table from the lofty ceiling. Hanging down lower than these was a small box.

Ten chairs were placed around, four on either side and one at each end.

“Your places are marked, gentlemen,” the Japanese receptionist told them in perfect English. “Writing materials are provided.”

They sorted themselves out, and Brian found himself beside Nayland Smith. Senator Merrick had been placed at one end of the long table.

“Stand by to make notes of anything worth remembering, Merrick,” Sir Denis rapped in his staccato fashion.

He seemed to be highly strung, or so Brian thought. Nor was he the only one. When everybody was seated, only two chairs remained vacant. That to the left of Dr. Jurgonsen and that facing Senator Merrick at the other end of the table. A hum of conversation arose, and Brian detected a theme of incredulity running through it.

“Looks like a new gambling game,” Admiral Druce growled. “Where do we put our chips?”

But silence fell suddenly when a strange figure appeared in an inner doorway. A tall man, stooping slightly, he, also, wore a white tunic, as well as tinted glasses, a small skull cap, and gloves which appeared to be made of black rubber.

“Gentlemen,” the Japanese assistant announced in his toneless English: “Dr. Otto Hessian.” Dr. Hessian rested one hand on the back of his chair and nodded. “Allow me, Doctor, to introduce your visitors.”

And beginning with Senator Merrick, as chairman of the committee, he named them one by one, finishing with “Mr. Brian Merrick Junior.”

Dr. Hessian nodded to all and then sat down. He put some typed pages before him, so that they partly hid the Bronx.

“If you please,” he began in a guttural voice and a very marked German accent, “of English I have not enough properly to explain myself. So these notes I have had translated from German more clear to make it—what I have to say.”

There was a faint murmur of sympathy. Evidently Dr. Hessian could see quite well through his dark glasses, for he now consulted his notes and went on, speaking better English but with no better accent:

“Sound vibrations, like all others of which we have knowledge, move neither straight up nor straight along, but, so—” One black-gloved hand described an arc. “They conform to the shape of the envelope in which the earth is enclosed: our atmosphere. Very well. There are sound vibrations, many of them inaudible to our ears, which can shatter a glass goblet. There are others, fortunately rare under normal conditions, which are even more destructive. Such a vibration I have succeeded in producing.”

He raised his head, looked around. But although one or two of his audience stirred restlessly, no one spoke.

“It is not only inaudible, but no receiver yet invented (except mine) can transmit it. So. It is as simple as this. Very well. Above my target area, in this case”—he laid a hand on the plan—”Manhattan, a plane flies at a given elevation. The antenna projecting above this plane carries a special receiver from which this vibration inaudible to human ears is cast upon the atmosphere. The plane, although in fact below the denser sound-belt, is immunized.”

Another voice broke in. “Dr. Hessian! Your words, so far, leave me more completely mystified than ever. What do you mean by ‘the denser sound-belt’?”

Dr. Hessian looked up from his notes, and stared at the questioner.

“It is Dr. Jurgonsen who speaks? I thought this. No doubt you speak also German? Be so good, Doctor, as you question to repeat in German.”

And then began a heated exchange in that language, which rose to a pitch of violence. At this point Senator Merrick banged his hand on the table.

“Gentlemen! In the first place, many of the committee don’t know what you’re talking about. In the second place, you are delaying the demonstration which we are here to see.”

Dr. Hessian nodded and looked down again at his notes.

“I am far from being satisfied,” Dr. Jurgonsen muttered.

“The demonstration will explain my words,” Hessian’s guttural voice continued. “My assistant will now lower the objects which you see suspended there.”

These “objects”, which had excited so much interest, were attached to hooks in the ceiling by slender metallic cords, the ends of which had small rings. These hung down over the table. The Japanese assistant lowered the one suspended above the Battery.

“Open please the container,” Dr. Hessian directed.

The halves of the dull metal ball opened on a hinge.

And the ball contained a large coconut!

Everybody laughed, except Dr. Jurgonsen. “Preposterous!”

he choked. But Dr. Hessian, quite unmoved, went on to explain:

“This nut, although out of proportion to the scale of the plan, represents an enemy dive bomber which has penetrated the air defences and will presently swoop down upon lower Manhattan to discharge its load of destruction. These containers are immunized against any sound vibration. Close and return, please.”

The metal ball was re-closed and hoisted back to its place.

“Each of these has a trigger on the top which releases the contents when a ball is raised to touch the ceiling,” the guttural voice explained. “And now, the guided missile which could destroy the whole city.”

A second metal ball, hanging over mid-town New York, was lowered. It was evidently very heavy. The Japanese, leaning over between Admiral Druce and General Rawlins, opened the container. In it, point downward, and carefully held in place by the Japanese, lay what looked like a miniature torpedo.

“Here is a scale model of the latest guided missile, with an atomic warhead—as it would reach our atmosphere with what I may term its outer garments discarded.”

Those further removed from the centre of the table stood up and eagerly grouped behind Admiral Druce and General Rawlins for a close view of the model.

“I completed it in Cairo,” Dr. Hessian told them. “Only externally is it true to type. It weighs nearly eight pounds and has a small charge of high explosive for the purpose of this demonstration. It is so weighted that it will fall nose downward. Close and return, please.”

Looking puzzled and excited, everybody went back to his place as the metal ball was swung up again to the ceiling. Dr. Jurgonsen shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“Exhibits A and B I have shown you,” Dr. Hessian carried on his guttural monotone—due, perhaps to the fact that he was reading his English transcription. “Exhibit C, just above me, represents a sneak raid” (he had difficulty with the words) “on the Bronx.”

The metal ball nearly above his head was lowered. He opened it himself, and displayed a Service revolver!

“I shall detach the weapon from its container.” He did so. “Because, in this case, it remains there throughout the experiment. It is set at safety. But, before I return it, the revolver will be ready to fire. I shall request General Rawlins to confirm the fact that the cartridges are live.”

It was passed to that officer, who took out several shells and nodded, replaced them and handed the weapon back to the doctor. He adjusted it and the metal ball was raised to its place.

“This exhibit is so adjusted,” Dr. Hessian explained, “that whenever the trigger of the receiver is brought in contact with the ceiling the revolver fires a shot at the Bronx. And now, my final exhibit: the small box which you see suspended roughly above the centre of Manhattan. Time prohibited the preparation of a model of an aeroplane resembling the one I have described. Therefore, if you please, imagine that this is such a plane. Its height above the city is out of proportion with the scale. An altitude of three miles would be enough. But I have set it much higher purely in the interest of your safety. I beg, from the moment contact is made—watch for the red light— that you will all remain seated. On no account stand up.”

Brian experienced a wave of almost uncontrollable excitement. He noted that Nayland Smith’s hands were clenched below the table. Every face he looked at registered high nervous tension.

The Japanese moved to a small side table and opened a cabinet which stood there.

“A very ordinary transmitter, gentlemen,” came the guttural tones. “Such as any amateur can make. But a mechanism is attached which no one but myself could make. It transmits the lethal note which can throw a protective umbrella over the whole of the New York City! Proceed . . .”

Brian held his breath, and looking upward saw a speck of red light glow in the suspended “receiver”. There was no sound.

“Contact is established,” Dr. Hessian declared. “The enemy approaches.”

The unemotional Japanese returned to the centre table.

“Hold out your hands, Senator Merrick,” the new commanding voice ordered. “Prepare to catch the debris of the dive bomber.”

Brian saw his father’s colour change slightly; but he stretched out his hands, looking up.

The metal ball opened. The big coconut fell. . .

But well above the heads of the seated committee it was shattered to bits!

Fragments of shell and pulp shot miraculously across space to be piled against the walls!

An almost hysterical, concerted gasp told of the reactions of the committee.

“And now, if you please, the guided missile.” Dr. Hessian looked up from his notes. “You will note, Dr. Jurgonsen, that any hollow object it is burst instantly on contact with my sound belt. Had you so indiscreet been as to stand up, imagine what happens to your head!”

Before Dr. Jurgonsen could think of a suitable reply, the second metal ball was opened.

The miniature projectile fell swiftly. Several heads were ducked, protective arms raised.

There was a shattering explosion. Fragments of metal spurted across the room as the shell of the coconut had done. Plaster fell from walls as they became spattered with this shrapnel. But not one particle fell on the table or on the surrounding carpet:

“The guided missile is dispersed.” Dr. Hessian spoke calmly. “In practice the inaudible sound would be greatly amplified. There would be a thunderstorm far above New York of a violence which no man has ever heard. But nothing more. The protective belt would also be relayed to outlying points. I could throw up a ceiling of sound over the whole of New York City at a cost below that of maintaining a fighter squadron for a month. And now, gentlemen, the sneak raid on the Bronx.”

As Dr. Hessian laid his hand on that section of the plan, the Japanese, standing beside him, head carefully lowered, stretched forward and grasped the suspended ring.

“Proceed.”

The ring was jerked sharply. A spurt of flame spat down out of the opening in the container. A dull impact ... a cloud of grey matter spread like smoke across the air, and a flattened bullet rebounded nearly to the ceiling in a ricochet and finally came to rest against a gap in the wall made by shrapnel from the “guided missile.”

Two more shots were fired, with similar results. The spectacle was bewildering, for the effect, looking upward, was as though a sheet of miraculously impenetrable glass extended across the room.

But there was nothing—nothing visible . . .

“Let no one stir,” Dr. Hessian warned. “Cover everything up.”

The Japanese went out and returned with several large sheets. One he spread over the table. Others were laid on the surrounding carpet.

“Disconnect.”

A switch was moved in the near-by cabinet . . . and as if a palpable obstacle had been drawn aside, down showered debris of all the experiments!

Chapter

13

At the conclusion of that amazing demonstration in the penthouse, Dr. Hessian had excused himself and retired. He had been at work day and night, he explained, ever since his arrival, and was far too weary for debate. He referred members of the committee to his assistant, Dr. Yukio Yono, who was qualified to answer all their questions.

Dr. Jurgonsen had tried to detain him, but Hessian had merely nodded and gone out.

Then the imperturbable Japanese scientist had been made the target of a verbal bombardment. But he had never faltered, never changed the tone of his voice, even when others were shouting. Nayland Smith had tapped Brian on the shoulder and nodded towards the door. Back again in their own quarters:

“We’re out of our depth, Merrick,” he told Brian, “up there. But words can’t alter facts.” He poured out two liberal shots of whisky. “Otto Hessian had solved the problem of protection from all form of aerial attack. You agree?”

“I can’t doubt it. The thing’s a miracle. It’s magic.”

“There’s no difficulty whatever in throwing up this sound ceiling over a wide area. Strong feature is the low cost. Everybody’s convinced, of course. But old Jurgonsen is boiling with professional jealousy. Your father has tried to persuade the Japanese to get Hessian to set up his apparatus in Washington for the President’s okay. But Hessian blankly declines. Genius has its privileges. It’s a case of Mohammed and the mountain. The President will come.”

“Here?” Brian jerked, startled by such a proposal.

“Here, Merrick, and soon. You saw the vacant chair at the table? That’s for your father. The place occupied by Senator Merrick tonight will be reserved for the President.”

When presently the members of the committee re-assembled it was clear that their opinion was unanimous. Even Dr. Jurgonsen was forced to admit that Otto Hessian had broken new ground in the aerial defence problem, opening up a prospect of entire immunity on a remarkably low budget.

“Secrecy and speed are vital,” he declared. “Dr. Hessian, whom I knew only by name, had vilely bad manners but clearly knows his subject.”

“I’ll see the President tonight,” Senator Merrick promised. “It was arranged I should do so, however late I got back. Dr. Hessian is certainly a most irascible character, and I must persuade the President to come here, incognito, without delay, not later than tomorrow or Friday. Not a word of this must leak out. There will be no press conferences, gentlemen!”

“Every conceivable precaution has been taken,” Nayland Smith assured him. “You all entered the hotel by a door not normally in use and came up in a reserved elevator.”

“I thought the man on duty looked hard at me,” Dr. Jurgonsen complained.

“Quite likely He’s an F.B.I, operative!”

* * *

In a hotel bedroom a stockily-built Asiatic, with thick, sensual features and fierce eyes, was listening to a voice which came out of an open suit-case standing on a trestle. It was a sinister, sibilant voice, its curious quality enhanced by the language in which it spoke—Hindustani.

“You understand that this is the emergency called Project Zero?”

“I understand, Master.”

“Is Nogai with you?”

“He is downstairs, Master.”

“Order him to avoid the public rooms. He has attracted attention. Because he is registered as a Rajah’s son he must not act like one. Both remain in your apartment until further orders. Take your meals there. Now, repeat your emergency instructions.”

“Yes, Master. At the signal——”

“Repeat the signal.”

“Three raps on the door . . . .”

“Continue.”

“The door will be unlocked on the other side and I unlock it on this side. I put all lights out. I open the door enough to see in, and wait for the man to come. The first time he has his back to me, I act.”

“You must make no mistake.”

“I never make mistakes, Master. Nogai and I open the big box and drag him in. We close the door; and wait for further orders.”

“And if he is not alone?”

“Nogai goes to the front door and rings. Whichever one answers I deal with the other. Nogai deals with the man at the door.”

“Silently!”

“Nogai’s method is as silent as mine, Master . . .”

A few minutes later, a woman seated manicuring her fingernails was addressed by the same strange voice, speaking in French, from a cream leather toilet case on the table beside her. She started nervously, staring across the empty room with a haunted look in her eyes.

“I am here, Excellency,” she replied, also in French—apparently her native tongue.

“A general emergency has arisen. You have maintained your contact with personnel at the airport?”

“I have.”

“Make your own plans, provided I have no occasion to direct otherwise. You know already the information I must have. It is vital that this reaches me at once. When you notify me of the expected arrival you will be directed how to proceed. You understand?”

“I understand, Excellency.”

“No orders, other than those preceded by the code-word Si-Fan, are to be accepted. You understand?”

“I understand perfectly.”

“I count upon unremitting vigilance. Keep in constant touch wherever you are. Report hourly from the time you set out... .”

Dr. Fu Manchu leaned back in his chair, his ascetic face lined with anxiety. For more than an hour he had been assembling his forces for some secret purpose which might mean world chaos. He stood up wearily and crossed the small room without a window which he seemed to use as a remote control base. Even now it was only dimly lighted by a lamp on a buffet where there were no homely decanters but only an array of chemical equipment and a large medicine chest containing many bottles and phials.

He took a measuring glass and prepared a draught composed of one part of a greenish liquid, two of amber and one of red. This he emptied carefully into a larger glass and filled it with distilled water. The contents bubbled slightly, became cloudy and then still. Dr. Fu Manchu began to drink, when a faint ring sounded. He turned. A speck of blue light had sprung up in the radio cabinet.

Returning to his chair, he moved a switch and spoke:

“What have you to report?”

A woman’s voice answered. “Earlier information of the disaster in Cairo is confirmed, Doctor. The person responsible for it I have been unable to trace, for all have left.”

“The absence of any publicity, of any official reaction, is disturbing.”

“But understandable. The President is expected tonight.”

“I am aware of this, and have spread my net; for the hour of danger is earlier. I am staking everything upon my knowledge of the man. He never does the obvious.”

“You judge wisely, Doctor. I have information from a reliable source that ‘the obvious’ was proposed, but rejected. What you have foreseen will happen.”

“If I could be as sure of one other thing I would trust to Routine 5 and cancel all other orders.”

“What is this one other thing, Doctor?” The woman’s voice remained soft but revealed tension.

Dr. Fu Manchu clenched his hands; his features became convulsed, and then calm again.

“His being alone at the crucial moment.”

“If I undertake to arrange this one thing, Doctor, will you give me carte blanche to deal with it?”

“You never yet failed me, once. And no one ever failed me twice. It is a gambler’s choice—but I have always been a gambler. . . .”

* * *

Brian had great difficulty getting to sleep that night. The astounding experiment in the penthouse had left him in a state of high excitement. He would seriously have doubted the evidence of his senses if the wonders he had seen hadn’t been confirmed by other competent witnesses.

Then, at some remote hour, just as he was dozing off at last, the phone in the living-room buzzed and he heard Nayland Smith’s voice. The conversation was a brief one and a moment later Sir Denis burst in.

“Your father, Merrick! We’re to expect the President at ten o’clock tonight!”

This made sleep a hundred per cent more difficult. He simply could not stop thinking. For some reason which his mental powers were incapable of grasping he had been dragged into the heart of a top secret which might very well involve the survival of civilization.

Why? He kept asking himself—Why?

But he could find no answer.

Nature conquered at last, and he forgot his problems. It was after nine o’clock when he woke, and he went into the living-room to see if Nayland Smith was there. He found a note on the desk—which, enclosed in the painted screen, sometimes reminded him of a pulpit—pencilled in block letters (presumably because Sir Denis’s handwriting was illegible).

It said: “Don’t go out until I come back. D.N.S.”

Brian took up the phone and asked to be put through to Lola’s apartment.

She answered at once.

“Listen, Lola honey—did you call me last night? I had to go out.”

“No, Brian. I couldn’t make it.”

“How are you fixed today? I’m uncertain about lunch, but——”

“I’m quite certain about it, Brian. I don’t get any! There’s only one possible spot, maybe an hour, about four o’clock. Will you be free, if I am?”

“I’ll see that I’m free! I’ll wait in the Paris Bar. We can’t miss each other there.”

When presently he hung up, Brian had become uneasily aware of the fact that Lola was preoccupied, tensed up in a new way. He wondered if Madame Michel had been overtaxing her and he wondered, not for the first time, if Lola was changing, slipping away from him . . .

When Nayland Smith came in, around noon, he showed such signs of agitation that Brian felt alarmed. The state of nerves in which Sir Denis had been on his first, clandestine, visit was mild compared to his present condition.

“Sir Denis! Something has upset you. Whatever has happened?”

Nayland Smith turned aside irritably, crossed to the buffet and mixed himself a stiff drink. He dropped down in a chair, took a long draught, and then raised haggard eyes.

“The worst that could happen, in the circumstances. Dr. Fu Manchu is here!”

“Here!. You mean in New York?”

“Right here in Manhattan.” He emptied his glass. “In just a few hours the President will leave Washington. I shall find myself up against the master mind—and Fu Manchu will stick at nothing——”

He stood up and refilled his glass.

This was so unlike the abstemious, cool-brained Nayland Smith Brian had known that he was gripped by a swift and dismal foreboding. Sir Denis was afraidi

The idea chilled him. It was unthinkable—like something blasphemous. But many incidents passed in lightning parade across his mind, incidents which, individually, had shaken his faith at the time, but which collectively threatened to shatter it.

Suffering had broken this man of iron. It was a tragedy.

“You don’t suggest, Sir Denis, that the President may be in personal danger?”

“Now that Fu Manchu is here we are all in personal danger. Look, Merrick—I’m going up to see Dr. Hessian. It’s vital he should know. Go out and get some lunch. When you come back—and don’t hurry—I may be asleep. I had no sleep last night, so don’t disturb me. . . .”

* * *

Lingering over his lunch, feeling miserable and about as useful as a stray dog, Brian tried to muster his wandering ideas, to form some sort of positive picture.

Fu Manchu was in New York. And Nayland Smith had gone to pieces.

These two facts he must accept, for they stood for cause and effect. For the first he had been prepared; for the second he had not. As aide to Sir Denis (hitherto unemployed), the duty clearly fell upon him of taking over if his chief failed!

The responsibility thrilled, and at the same time chilled. He lacked almost every essential facility. Sir Denis hadn’t troubled to put him in touch with the F.B.I, operatives associated with them. He didn’t know one by sight. He had no more than a nodding acquaintance with Dr. Hessian; and, for all that scientist’s undoubted genius, found his personality strangely repellent.

Brian seriously considered calling his father, laying all the circumstances before that man of wide experience, and abiding by his advice. But the difficulty of doing so on a long-distance call, and an implied betrayal of the trust imposed upon him by Sir Denis, ruled this plan out.

The decision—what to do—rested squarely on himself. It was close on three o’clock when he went up to the suite. He found a “Do Not Disturb” card outside, but opened quietly and went in. A similar card hung on Nayland Smith’s bedroom door. There was a note, in block letters, on the desk. It said:

Do what you like until seven o’clock. But stay out of the Babylon-Lido until that hour. Don’t enter on any account. Then wait in the Paris Bar until I page you. Please regard this as an unavoidable order. D.N.S.

Chapter

14

When Brian went into the Paris Bar he found it empty, as he might have expected it to be at that hour. Conscientious by nature, he wasn’t sure that his being there didn’t amount to disobeying the orders of a senior officer.

He was still studying the problem when Lola came in.

“Lola!” There was no one in the place, not even a bartender, and he took her in his arms. “How very glad I am to see you!”

It was an impulse quite irresistible. He held her close and gave her a lingering kiss. Then he recovered himself as she drew back and looked up at him with that quizzical smile.

“So it seems, dear!” But her grey eyes didn’t register resentment; they invited. So did the tempting lips.

Their second kiss was so like one of mutual passion that Brian’s heart leapt. Lingering doubts were dispelled. Lola loved him!

“Let’s get out of here, dearest.” He spoke hoarsely. “I want to talk to you, quietly. Queer things are happening.” His arm was around Lola’s waist. “Where can we be alone—if only for half an hour?”

“Wel!”— Lola hesitated—”I have one of the tiniest apartments in the Babylon-Lido. Madame doesn’t squander dollars. We could go there, but—”

She glanced up at him.

“I promise to behave. I admit I’m mad about you, but I won’t break out again.”

The apartment was on the eighth floor; its windows commanded an excellent view of a brick wall. The living-room wasn’t much larger than either of the bathrooms in the lordly suite reserved for Sir Denis. Lola boiled water in an electric kettle to make tea, which she prepared with the manner of an experienced traveller. . . . “You can imagine you’re back at Oxford, Brian.”

It was all delightfully intimate, and Brian’s mood of depression magically dispersed. When, seated in an easy chair nursing a cup of tea, Lola offered him a cigarette, he felt that this was a foretaste of bliss.

He sparked his lighter; glanced at the cigarette—and paused.

“Please light mine,” Lola said sweetly. “They arrived this morning—enough to last me for two months! Your extravagant tastes need watching, Brian.”

The cigarettes were “Azizas”—those he had ordered in Cairo!

“Did you get my letter, Lola?”

“Yes. I got your letter. Thank you for everything, Brian. And now, what is it you want to talk about? I warned you, dear. I hadn’t much time. On the stroke of five I have to be off.”

“Then I’d better begin. What I want to say is strictly confidential. But I just have to say it to somebody—and there’s nobody else but you I can say it to. I’m worried about Sir Denis.”

“Why, Brian?” Lola drew her brows together in a frown of concentration. “Is he ill?”

“Yes.” Brian nodded, “Mentally ill, I’m afraid. His sufferings have shaken him badly. I think he’s losing his nerve.”

“From your account of Sir Denis, I supposed he had no nerves.”

“So did I. But today he seemed to fold up.”

“Why, Brian? Has something happened?”

Brian began to remember that it was his duty to keep his mouth shut. He must put a curb on his confidences. But he believed in Lola’s worldly wisdom, and desperately needed her advice.

He glanced at her. It had occurred to him almost from the moment of their meeting that she kept up her usual air of easy self-possession only by means of a sustained effort. Perhaps his passionate greeting had shaken her. But certainly, although she masked the fact, she was queerly keyed up;

kept glancing at her watch.

“Sir Denis seems to think some new danger has developed,” he told her.

“Danger? To whom?”

“To all of us, I guess.” He began to grope for words. “My father’s expected tonight, and some other important visitors. If this danger is real, I’m wondering if I should stop them.”

“Surely Sir Denis would have done so, if he couldn’t guarantee their safety.”

“You don’t know,” Brian assured her, “how completely he’s gone to pieces.”

“As your father is involved, surely you could at least discuss it with him.”

Brian shook his head wearily. “He’s asleep up there! And I have his written order. Look at this.” From his pocket he took out the note he had found on the desk. “They’ll be on their way before seven o’clock!”

Lola read the note, but made no comment; passed it back;

glanced at her wrist-watch.

“What would you advise me to do, Lola?”

She stood up. “In the first place, get a move on. I have to go. As for Sir Denis’s order, I advise you to do nothing—except obey it to the letter. . . .”

* * *

Brian watched Lola’s taxi weaving its way into the traffic torrent and finally becoming lost to view, with a sense of desolation. She had her troubles, too, he knew, although they didn’t involve millions of human destinies but only the vanity of a few wealthy women who bought their dresses at Michel’s.

He started away at a brisk pace towards Central Park. An hour’s walk in fresh air might help him to shake off that appalling sense of gloom, which Huckleberry Finn called then fantods.

From the moment that he entered the Park he hardly noticed where he was going, but evening was drawing in when he found himself passing behind the Museum and pulled up to check the time. He decided to turn back, swung around, and saw that the only other pedestrian in sight, a man walking twenty yards behind him, had done the same.

He thought nothing of this at the moment. Returning along the same path, he saw the man ahead turn to the left for a gate on Fifth Avenue. Brian passed on, nervously considering the night’s programme, wondering why the mere approach of Dr. Fu Manchu had so shattered Nayland Smith’s courage and what it could be that Sir Denis feared. . . . Did he seriously believe the President’s life to be in danger? And did he doubt his own ability to protect him?

Something—perhaps a subconscious urge—prompted Brian to pause and look behind. . . .

The man he supposed to have left the Park was following him again!

Anger came first; then, an unpleasant chill.

His follower might be an agent of Dr. Fu Manchu, or he might be one of the F.B.I, men detailed, according to Sir Denis, to keep him under observation. In any case, it was getting dark, the Park seemed deserted, and Brian went out by the 72nd Street gate and hailed a taxi.

In the main entrance to the Babylon-Lido he looked at his watch.

Twenty minutes to seven.

He turned away and walked around the corner. He had noticed a little bar almost directly facing the trade entrance to the hotel and decided that he could pass the time there over a drink and a smoke. It was better than walking about; he was tired of walking, now, and feeling thirsty.

Taking a corner stool just inside the door, he ordered a drink, lighted a cigarette; settled down to wait for seven o’clock.

For what possible reason had Nayland Smith banished him from the Babylon-Lido until that hour? It was incomprehensible. Unless, which seemed probable, he was followed by a Federal agent wherever he went, why was Sir Denis’s warning “never to go out alone” apparently forgotten?

Either he had become a mere cipher in the game, or Nayland Smith had thrown his hand in and didn’t care what happened.

Brian started a fresh cigarette, looked at his watch. Ten minutes to wait.

With some unknown menace, embodied in the name Dr. Fu Manchu, hanging over the party assembling—a party to include the President tonight—this enforced inertia was almost unendurable. Brian found it nearly impossible to remain still. Although he did his best to retain control, he saw the bartender glancing in his direction suspiciously.

Brian stared out of the window—and became very still indeed; so still that he might have been suddenly frozen to his seat. . ..

Lola was standing in the trade entrance to the Babylon-Lido talking to Nayland Smith!

Her face was in shadow, but she was dressed as he had left her at five o’clock. This time there could be no room for doubt. Nor could he be wrong about the man. It was Sir Denis. The coat, the soft-brimmed hat, his poise—all were unmistakable. He saw them go in.

In half a minute he had paid for his drink, and dashed recklessly across the street, ignoring traffic lights.

He had never been in this warren of stores-cellars and kitchens before, but somehow made his way through and at last penetrated to the vast but now familiar lobby. His heart was beating fast; for his world had turned topsy-turvy. What had Lola to do with Nayland Smith? She had told him only that afternoon that she had never met Sir Denis!

The clock over the reception desk recorded five minutes to seven.

People buzzed about in a state of perpetual motion. They all appeared to be in a hurry. Smart women in gay evening gowns who couldn’t find their men. Eager-eyed young men rushing around looking for their girl friends. Pages carrying flowers. The scene seemed to swim before Brian like a colour film out of focus. It was a ballet inspired by a mad director.

But the two figures he was looking for were not to be seen.

He debated with himself, looking again at the clock. He could endure this suspense no longer. He must know the truth, orders or no orders. To wait to be paged in his present frame of mind was out of the question. He turned and hurried off to the corridor where the express elevators were situated. The man on duty knew him and smiled a greeting as Brian stepped in.

“Sir Denis has just gone up, sir,” he reported.

Brian experienced a fluttering sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“Was he alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

The elevator began its dizzy ascent. Nayland Smith, Brian reflected, must have gone out to meet Lola. They had evidently parted on entering the hotel. But why had they come in by the trade entrance? He could only conclude that the meeting had been a clandestine one.

When he arrived at the top floor he stood for a moment to get a grip on himself.

Then, he walked along to the ‘door of Suite 420B. The “Do Not Disturb” card had gone; and he pulled up, trying further to compose his ruffled nerves.

At last he quietly slipped the key into the lock and opened the door.

Dusk had fallen now and he saw that lights were on in the living-room. There was no sound.

He walked in quietly. . . . Then gulped, and stood quite still.

Flat on his back on the floor, his knees drawn up, his fists clenched, Nayland Smith lay. His face was purple, his teeth were bare, and his eyes bulged from his head. . . .

He had been strangled!

Chapter

15

The horror of his discovery quite literally paralysed Brian. His senses were numbed. He stood speechless, incapable of movement, of thought; aghast.

A slight sound in the room roused him, bringing swift realization of his own danger. He turned to the big desk, for from there the sound had come, and . . . his brain reeled. He was gripped by the agonizing certainty that the murder of Nayland Smith had disturbed his reason—had driven him mad.

Standing beside the tall, painted screen, a finger on his lips, urgent command in his eyes, and beckoning Brian to join him, he saw Nay land Smith!

Brian clenched his fists, glancing from the dead man to this phantom of the living.

And the living Sir Denis was beside him in three strides; gripped his arm, speaking softly into his ear:

“Not a word! Behind the screen, Merrick—for your life— and for mine!”

There was nothing ghostly in the grip of those sinewy fingers, nothing but vital necessity in the whispered orders.

Brian found himself in shadow behind the screen. One spear of light shone through a hole in the parchment, and still half stupefied in this gruesome and almost incredible situation, he saw Nayland Smith jab his thumb through another panel in the screen and make a second hole.

“Look!” came a whisper in his ear. “Do nothing. Say nothing. . . .”

Silence.

Peering through the slot in the parchment, Brian’s gaze automatically became focussed on the dead man. For all that agonized expression, swollen features, protruding eyes, he was prepared to take oath and swear that it was Sir Denis who lay there.

But another Sir Denis—very much alive—stood beside him, and continued to grip his arm!

He felt suddenly sick, wondered if he was going to make a fool of himself—and then noticed something he hadn’t noticed before .... A door which communicated with the next suite, normally locked, stood partly open. The room beyond was in darkness.

Muttered words—and two men came in!

The first was a thick-set Oriental whose coarse, brutal features and abnormally long arms were simian rather than human. The second Brian recognized; a slender, elegant man wearing a blue turban—in fact the man whom a waiter had reported to be an Indian prince!

They lifted the body and carried it out. The communicating door was closed, and Brian heard the click of a lock.

“Don’t speak!” The words were hissed in his ear. “This room is wired!”

The new Sir Denis crossed to the recently closed door and locked it. He turned and beckoned Brian to follow him. In the lobby: “Say nothing,” he whispered, “but take your cue from me.” Brian nodded. Nayland Smith opened the outer door;

shut it again noisily. “Hullo, Merrick! Before your time.” He spoke, now, in a loud tone. “Anything wrong? You look under the weather. Go and lie down. I’ll bring a drink to your room.”

Brian crossed, rather unsteadily, to his own room and went in. Sir Denis’s extemporized “cue” wasn’t far from the truth. This experience had shaken him severely. Even now he couldn’t get the facts into focus.

Nayland Smith rejoined him, carrying two drinks on a tray. He quietly closed the bedroom door behind him.

“I need one, too, Merrick,” he confessed. “That premature entrance nearly resulted in a second murder—yoursi”

“But——”

“Wait a minute.” Sir Denis held up his hand. “Let’s get the important thing settled first, because there’s a lot to say and not much time to say it. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t wonder which of us is the real Nayland Smith. I had a fair chance to study my double—and I felt like a man looking in a mirror. Hark back to the time I stayed in Washington. Ask me something about your home life that nobody could know who hadn’t lived with you.”

Brian tried to force his bewildered brain to think clearly, and presently an idea came.

“Do you remember Father’s dog?” he asked.

“Do I remember Rufus!” Nayland Smith smiled—and it was the smile Brian had known, the boyish smile which lifted a curtain of years. “Good reason to remember him, Merrrick.” He pulled up his left trouser leg. “There’s the souvenir Rufus left me when I tried to break up a scrap he was having with a Boston terrier. Rufus thought my interference unsporting! It was you yourself who phoned the doctor, and damn it! He wanted to give me Pasteur injections!”

And, in that moment, all doubt was washed out. Brian knew that this was the real Nayland Smith, that the man he had been employed to work with was an impostor—and a miraculous double!

He held out his hand. “Thank God it’s you that’s alive!”

“I have done so already, Merrick, devoutly. I have passed through the unique experience of witnessing my own execution. I was desperately tempted to rush to the aid of my second self. But to do so could only have meant that the super-criminal, the most dangerous man in the world today, would have slipped again through my fingers. So I clenched my teeth when the thug sprang out on him and said to myself, ‘There, but for the grace of God, goes Nayland Smith’!”

“Who is—who was—the man impersonating you? It was a star performance. Even the British Embassy in Cairo fell for him! So did my father.”

Nayland Smith pulled out the familiar pipe and began to load it.

“So would my own mother, if she had been alive. . . . You’re staring at my pipe? Fortunately I had a spare one with me. The poor devil who was strangled probably has the other in his pocket. I don’t know who he was, Merrick. But he must have been a talented actor, with a nerve of iron.”

“His nerve began to fail.”

“I don’t wonder. They had news of my escape. There wasn’t room in New York for two Nayland Smiths!”

He rapped out the words like so many drum-taps, and at a speed which Brian realized that his impersonator had never acquired.

“He had every intonation of your voice, Sir Denis! All your gestures, every mannerism. Even that trick of twitching at the lobe of your ear! And I believe he smoked more than you do.”

Nayland Smith smiled. “Sounds like overacting! Poor devil. He probably played for big stakes. He had several weeks to study me, Merrick, while I was a prisoner in that damned house in Cairo.”

“In Cairo! Then it must have been you, yourself, I saw in a room with barred windows—the house of the Sherif Mohammed!”

Sir Denis stared for a moment, and then: “This is news,” he admitted, “but probably right. You can tell me later. We have little time, and you’re entitled to know the truth.”

He lighted his pipe, stood up and began to walk about.

“I had been on a mission behind the Bamboo Curtain. We had information that Dr. Fu Manchu was operating with the Red Chinese. Knowing the Doctor intimately, I doubted this. He controls a world-wide organization of his own, the Si-Fan. And if anyone succeeds in taking over China it won’t be the Communists!”

This was so like what the false Nayland Smith had told him, that Brian listened in growing wonder . . .

“On my way back, by sea (secretly, as I thought) I walked into a trap in Suez which I should have expected an intelligent schoolboy to avoid, and a few hours later found myself a prisoner in the house of the Sherif Mohammed. The Si-Fan had traced me. I was in the hands of Dr. Fu Manchu!”

“How long ago was that?”

“Roughly, two months. I had secured evidence that Fu Manchu had recently been in China, for his chief-of-staff, a brilliant old strategist, General Huan Tsung, was operating under cover right in Peiping. Some highly important scheme was brewing, and I scented that it would be carried out, not in the East, but in the West. I was right!

“It became clear from the beginning of my imprisonment that Fu Manchu hadn’t planned to kill me. For some reason, he wanted me alive! My ancient enemy was there in person, in the house of the Sherif Mohammed; and at first I had easy treatment. I was well fed and allowed to exercise in a walled courtyard. But for several hours every day I was brought to a room, two windows of which were barred, as you state, and put through a sort of brain-washing by Dr. Fu Manchu. He spoke to me from behind an iron grille high up in one wall——”

“I have seen it!”

“Remarkable. Details later. He argued on ideological grounds, tried to convert me to the theories of the Si-Fan. Sometimes, he taunted me. He worked over me, Merrick, like a skilled performer playing on a stringed instrument. And not for a long time did the fact dawn that every move I made, every word I spoke, some other person, hidden behind the grille, studied, watched, listened to!

“He betrayed himself once only, but from that moment I knew he was always there—and a hazy idea of the plot began to appear. Someone was being trained to impersonate me! The scheme wasn’t a new one. I believe Fu Manchu had had it in mind for several years; probably searched the world for my near-double. I suspect, but may be wrong, that tape recordings of these conversations were made on a hidden microphone, to help my understudy to perfect his impersonation at leisure.”

“It beats everything I ever heard! Of course you tried to make a getaway?”

Nayland Smith checked his restless steps and stared grimly at Brian.

“During the day relays of Fu Manchu’s professional stran-glers had me covered. You saw two of them just now. At night there was a hidden microphone in my room. It not only recorded my slightest movements, but could also be used to transmit a note inaudible to human ears. Its production is Fu Manchu’s secret, as he was good enough to tell me. Its effect would be to kill me instantly by inducing haemorrhage of the brain!”

“But that’s Dr. Hessian’s invention!” Brian broke in.

Nayland Smith relighted his pipe. It had gone out while he was talking.

“Unless my deductions are wide of the mark, Merrick, the man you know as Otto Hessian is Dr. Fu Manchu!”

A faint buzzing reached them from the living-room.

“That’s the penthouse!” Brian spoke breathlessly.

“Then I had better answer.”

“But what are you going to do?”

Nayland Smith turned in the act of opening the door. “Whatever the late Nayland Smith the Second was expected to do... .”

* * *

As the door was left open, Brian could overhear Nayland Smith when he spoke on the penthouse line. The conversation was a short one. He came back, his expression grim; reclosed the door.

“Tell me, Merrick—is there anything, any trifle, about my appearance which strikes you as different from—his?”

Brian studied the clean-cut features, thinking hard.

“His skin maybe was artificially sunburned. It didn’t look quite natural.”

“Nothing to be done about that. What else?”

“Well, something had happened to the bridge of his nose. He wore plaster the first time I saw him. There was no scar, except when he smiled. Then, there was a faint wrinkle where the plaster had been.”

“That may explain what was found in a sort of studio in the Sherif’s house: a wonderful clay model of my head! These people must have got out in a desperate hurry. The studio adjoined a small operating theatre. It seems likely that my double had undergone plastic surgery ... H’m! Avoid smiling!”

“What was the phone message, Sir Denis?”

“In thirty minutes, I’m bidden to a conference with Dr. Fu Manchu, and probably my life hangs on not arousing his suspicion. The odds are in my favour. But my opponent——”

“Where are you to meet?”

“Up in the penthouse.”

“You mean Fu Manchu really lives there?”

“It’s his base of operations. I don’t wonder it staggers you. But let me bring you up to date. One day, in Cairo, there was considerable disturbance in the Sherif’s household. I sensed that something unusual was going on. Of course, it was the departure of Fu Manchu and most of his unsavoury crew for the United States. Don’t ask me how he travels, unless he has a magic carpet, or avoids being identified, because I don’t know.”

“That time, Sir Denis, if I’m not wrong, he travelled with me (and your double), posing as Dr. Hessian, in a plane provided by the British government!”

Nayland Smith laughed out loud. “You’re not wrong, Merrick. Thanks for the information. You see, I know his impersonation of an eccentric German scientist. He has worked it before. He’s a master of numberless languages and dialects. To the Western idea, he isn’t typically Chinese. He’s at least as tall as I am, has fine, ascetic features and a splendid head. His eyes, alone, and his hands, betray the Asiatic.”

“But the real Dr. Hessian?”

“If he’s alive—which I doubt—Otto Hessian is probably in Siberia. He disappeared behind the Iron Curtain three years ago. Well, as I said, there was a disturbance in the household—and an unpleasant change for me. I was transferred to a room in the cellar. Unmistakably a dungeon, belonging to the days when the old house had been the palace of some wealthy pasha!

“Merrick! I all but lost hope! Two ofFu Manchu’s thugs had been left behind to guard me, and I expected from hour to hour they would get word to finish me off! My only exercise was walking about the cellar. And the nights were dreadful. I suspected, but couldn’t confirm the suspicion, that some kind of murder machine was installed in my cell.

“Then, one night a queer thing happened. I was roused by a faint noise outside my locked door. I thought my time had come! Alight shone through the grille, and I called out, ‘Who’s there?’ The light vanished. Complete silence. Nothing happened . . . until the next day.

“Neither of the assassins brought me my breakfast. There wasn’t a sound to be heard. Hours passed. No one came. I asked myself was I doomed to starve to death! But early next morning a party of Egyptian police, accompanied by Nigel Richardson of the British Embassy, and Lyman Bostock, his American opposite number, burst into the cellar.”

“How had they traced you?” Brian demanded excitedly.

“Top marks to your F.B.I., Merrick. My understudy (then arrived in New York), had excited the suspicion of one of their brightest under-cover agents. A code message reached Bostock. It asked for a secret examination to be made of the house of the Sherif—not neglecting the cellars! A tall order. How the devil they arranged it I don’t know; and they both laughed when I asked them. But I remembered the light through the grille of my cell. Anyway, they succeeded in getting a search warrant. And I can assure you that getting that warrant must have taken a lot of doing! . . . The place was deserted. Not a soul in the building . . . except myself! The Sherif had got wind of the thing and pushed off in a hurry with his entire household, including, I was told, several ladies and a fat eunuch. When I heard of the astonishing deception to which Richardson and Bostock had been made parties I knew that not another hour must be wasted. Both wanted the impostor arrested by the New York police at once. I disagreed.

“I made them see that the arch-conspirator would slip through our fingers. We must find out first the purpose of this amazing plot—which was what the F.B.I, wanted to know, too. Then, we’d have the whole gang in the bag.”

“What I don’t understand,” Brian declared, “is why they left you alive.”

Nayland Smith smiled grimly. “Because somebody blundered—or got cold feet. My cell (as I suspected) was fitted with the brain-blasting equipment, and for purposes of concealing evidence, there was a man-sized bath of curious construction in another room which was intended to contain acid:

something had thrown the gang into a panic, and these little arrangements, by the mercy of Providence, were overlooked at the last moment.”

“Tell me one thing, Sir Denis. By what accident did I get into the picture and why?”

“Not by accident, I assure you! Fu Manchu already had me in his hands, and no doubt his agents were combing likely spots for a young, unemployed American with an influential background, to make doubly sure of my understudy’s acceptance. You were the very man. The F.B.I, had operatives in London (I don’t know why), and they found out that you had been employed by a Communist group, but were ordered not to interfere. Washington had no idea what was brewing, but thought that you, as an innocent accomplice, might come up later with some useful information.”

“You mean”—Brian flushed indignantly—”that I was allowed to walk blindfolded into this thing?”

“I mean that, yes. And don’t glare at me! I had nothing to do with it. What’s more, it’s been done before. You see, Merrick, if you had known, you’d have betrayed yourself. Under-cover espionage isn’t your metier. How well it has worked out you can see for yourself. They are quite sure of you, and so we have the game in our hands.”

Brian lighted a cigarette, but said nothing.

“Well,” Nayland Smith went on, ‘I got my own way and was smuggled out of Cairo. I travelled as Major S. D. Smith, wore a toothbrush moustache and a monocle. Not a word was allowed to leak out about the raid on the Sherif’s house. All the same, the Si-Fan got the news. When I arrived at Idlewild, at five-thirty this afternoon, I was met by the F.B.I. Their star operative, already a member of the Communist party, had managed, by what I can only call a stroke of genius, to become a top executive of the Si-Fan! Every detail of my projected execution was known!

“First, you had to be kept away until it was all over. Second, as it was assumed that I should apply for a spare key and walk right up to the suite reserved in my name (exactly what I had planned to do), my double had orders to go out.”

“Yes?” Brian was getting excited. “What happened?”

“A tactical move by the F.B.I, worthy of Napoleon. My double’s orders were to slip around to a back entrance, go up in the service elevator and return to the suite. He had to unlock the communicating door and then take cover until I came in and had been liquidated. They managed to detain him long enough for me to come up first, open the door and lie low. When my wretched double appeared he got what was coming to me!”

“Do you mean to say the police and the F.B.I.suspected nothing right up to the time you were found in Cairo?”

“They accepted Nayland Smith the Second and Dr. Hessian as authentic. They still think Hessian is. They didn’t know where you fitted in. In other words, it was the discovery by their operative in London that you had been employed by a Red agent which sparked the inquiry!” Sir Denis glanced at his watch. “And now I must be off. . . . Don’t look so desperate, Merrick! I’m well briefed, and”—he tapped a coat pocket— “prepared for anything. Stand by. . . .”

Chapter

16

Dr. Fu Manchu sat at the long table in the room without windows when Nayland Smith came in. “Sit down,” he ordered. “I have much to say to you.”

Nayland Smith sat down in a chair on the other side of the table. He found that whilst Fu Manchu’s face remained in shadow, his own was brightly lighted. As of old, he experienced a tingling of the scalp whenever he came into contact with the force which seemed to proceed from this evil superman. He recalled the form of address which he had been told to use.

“At your service, Excellency.”

Fu Manchu watched him. A stray beam of light touched the green eyes. Their regard was hard to sustain.

“You had done well, William Hailsham,” the sibilant voice continued, “until I had to warn you that your prototype had escaped death and was on his way. Your behaviour in face of danger disappointed me. I asked myself if I had rescued a cur from a Soviet labour camp for this!” The strange voice hissed the last word. “Your political views terminated your career as an actor. Your arrogance offended even your Communist employers. I, alone, offered you a way to speedy fortune, security”

Nayland Smith remained silent. Dr. Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff.

“I am too closely tied to this project. I had hoped to bring with me what you would term a ‘stand-in’ for Dr. Hessian as you are ‘stand-in’ for Nayland Smith. Unfortunately, certain surgical treatment proved unsatisfactory at the last moment. Therefore, my personal presence, although necessary, is dangerous.”

He closed the lid of the silver snuff-box.

“The first crisis is over. Those responsible shall pay a heavy price. There is only one Nayland Smith—yourself. But, falter tonight . . . and there will be no Nayland Smith.” He passed his hand over his high brow. “I regret the necessity.

Physically, you might have been twins. But there the likeness ends. Had the real Nayland Smith been not my enemy but my ally, I should sit today on the throne of an empire greater than Rome ever knew. . . . Listen.”

And Nayland Smith listened intently.

“The entire routine for tonight is changed. You handled the premature appearance of that impetuous fool, Merrick, very well. You seemed to have recovered your nerve—for you had no more than locked the communicating door when he arrived. I have not lost hope that you may carry off the situation tonight.”

Dr. Fu Manchu paused, and his eyes seemed to film over;

but soon he went on:

“The plan of the Reds was to ensure that a certain order to the Chiefs of Staff should not be authorized. This you know. It was a desperate plan, and a bad one. I had never intended to carry it out. This also you know. My own plan would have served the same purpose—but gone further. For, with the acceptance of the so-called ‘Hessian Sound Zone’ I should have had access to every important air base, every military objective, from coast to coast. I should have made them invulnerable!” His voice quivered with the enthusiasm of the fanatic. “Then—at last—I could have challenged the power of Communism . . . and broken it!”

Fu Manchu raised clenched hands above his head, then lowered them; spoke softly.

“These are your new orders. ...”

* * *

Brian paced the living-room like a man possessed.

He had been allowed to become party to a conspiracy directed against the United States government by the very people sworn to defend it; used as a tool! He grew hot with indignation. The mystery which had puzzled him all along was a mystery no more. He had been employed solely as a link with his father, and, through his father, with the President.

But it was the part played by Lola which crowned his misery. Peter Wellingham, he knew now, was a Red agent. Beyond doubt he had been right when he thought it was Lola he had seen with Wellingham in Hyde Park. Lola had drawn his attention to The Times advertisement. If any room for doubt had remained, seeing her in the company of the false Nayland Smith would have swept it away. How little either of them could have suspected that their murder plot was known!

Brian groaned in his misery. From first to last he had been in the hands of creatures of Dr. Fu Manchu.

Zoe Montero—Ahmad—all had played him like a hooked fish!

He remembered, bitterly, Lola saying about The Times advertisement, “It read like a job created purposely for you.” It had been created purposely for him, and she knew it!

Fu Manchu or the Reds, whichever of them she worked for, had sent her off to New York to take him over as soon as he arrived. They were naturally anxious to know if he suspected anything. Many other questions about Nayland Smith recurred to him, and he could see their purpose, now. . . . Perhaps little Zoe—alone—had really weakened and tried to help him.

He would have loved to think so.

But Lola . . .

This mood of self-contempt so burned him up that he wanted to curse aloud. It called for a mighty effort to put his own petty troubles aside, to get back to the concrete inescapable fact that he was still involved in a giant conspiracy which might change world history.

He looked at the time. Surely Sir Denis should be back?

And, as he arrived at this conclusion, Sir Denis did come back. He entered quietly, put one finger to his lips, and pointed to the open door of Brian’s room.

They went in, and Nayland Smith closed the door.

“Lucky I was warned that our living-room is wired,” he remarked. “Well—I think I have passed, Merrick. At least, I’m still alive! But those X-ray eyes may have seen more than Fu Manchu thought it diplomatic to give away. He was employed by the Reds—rather reluctantly, I gather—to carry out a certain scheme.”

“He—your double—told me the same thing! That Fu Manchu had been employed to prevent Dr. Hessian’s invention falling into the hands of the United States!”

“That was the story my double sold to the authorities. Remember, he was accepted for myself. Hessian wasn’t doubted. The only dark horse in the stable was you! The F.B.I. rarely let you out of their sight!”

“You mean they suspected me of being a Red spy?” Brian blazed angrily.

“They didn’t know what or whom to suspect, Merrick, until I came on the scene. By the way, they’ll be expecting me to report. But I’m in rather a quandary.”

“IfFu Manchu already knows the secret of this sound cover, what on earth is he doing here?”

Nayland Smith laughed dryly. “What Fu Manchu, himself, described to me as the ‘so-called Hessian Sound Zone’ he really meant to place in the hands of the United States! He had no intention of following his Red instructions. These were designed simply to prevent the President signing an order to Chiefs of Staff which would have upset certain of their plans. It involved an urgent telephone call from the White House, a mouthpiece which ejected an odourless gas, and some other details which Fu Manchu could undoubtedly have provided.”

“But why such an elaborate set-up?”

Nayland Smith began to fill his pipe, glancing aside at Merrick.

“Have you ever thought how hard it would be to get the President of the United States alone? Had the Red plan been carried out, he would have been struck down by what any physician would have diagnosed as a heart attack, and been incapable of transacting any business for a long time!”

“Good God! What a villainous plot!”

“But child’s play for Dr. Fu Manchu. That’s why he was employed.”

“Then the Hessian Sound Zone is just an illusion—a hoax?”

Nayland Smith dropped his pouch back into his pocket;

struck a wooden match.

“Not a bit of it. The Sound Zone is Dr. Fu Manchu’s invention. He’s a scientific genius. The thing is an astounding reality!”

“Astounding’s an understatement.”

“It would give complete immunity from blast. No projectile could penetrate it. The nuclear fall-out would be dispersed over a wide area of the upper atmosphere. This, if such horrible weapons are ever used, is unavoidable. The consequences would depend upon the direction of the wind over which no man, not even Dr. Fu Manchu, has control.”

“Then why not let bygones be bygones, if Fu Manchu has really come clean?”

“Because, to mention one reason, its adoption, whilst making America, and I suppose the other Western allies, immune to direct air attack, would also give the Si-Fan absolute control of the Near and Far East.”

“But if it’s real——”

“Just so, Merrick.” Sir Denis lighted his pipe. “That’s why we have to hold the candle to the devil. That’s why we can’t arrest the two assassins next door, and produce the body which, I suppose, is hidden there. That’s why I don’t know what to report.”

Brian was dumbfounded. “You mean that, after what happened tonight, Fu Manchu will still go ahead with his project?”

Nayland Smith nodded; dropped the match-end in a tray.

“It’s his master-plot. He won’t resign it easily.”

The smell of tobacco-smoke spurred Brian to light a cigarette; to put himself in the background; concentrate on these vast issues at stake.

“This master-plot may be clear to you, Sir Denis, but I can’t get it. Why would the fact (and I accept your word it is a fact), that the West was safe from air attack, help this amazing man to take over the East?”

“Because the Reds, helpless to retaliate, could be blasted into submission, or unconditional surrender. And the vast underground movement throughout the East, which he has developed, would seize power. There’d be no holding him! I assure you, Merrick, that Hitler and Stalin were babes and sucklings compared to Dr. Fu Manchu!”

Nayland Smith continued his usual promenade. Brian was deep in thought.

“His cutting-in with a double for yourself,” he admitted, “wasn’t far short of criminal genius. His preparations to handle the thing if you happened to be alive were masterly.”

“Dragging the son of a prominent Senator and friend of the President into his programme also had elements of talent,” Sir Denis remarked dryly. “Never underestimate Dr. Fu Manchu. If he hadn’t been bitten by the bug called Power he would be honoured today as one of the world’s greatest intellects. Fortunately (in this case) like many men of genius, he’s more than slightly mad.”

“But what are you going to do?” Brian demanded. “The F.B.I, know, now, that Dr. Hessian isn’t the real man——”

“They don’t!” Nayland Smith rapped. “I haven’t told them. They accepted my double and Hessian as authentic. They began to worry about Nayland Smith the Second. Thought I had been brain-washed or something; but, all through, never doubted Hessian. They know now that my understudy wasn’t Nayland Smith; but they believe that Hessian is Hessian and that the purpose of the plot is to steal his invention.”

“Then why keep them in the dark?”

“Because, as he believes that I am his own man (I hope), Fu Manchu still plans to meet the President tonight and to hand over his system to the United States! The late Nayland Smith the Second was an actor called William Hailsham, an active member of the Communist Party. My orders are to tell the committee that the impostor attempted to kill me and that in self-defence I strangled him!”

“But are you really going to do it?”

Nayland Smith twitched the lobe of his ear. “I don’t know. I’m thinking hard. . . .”

* * *

This remarkable conversation was still going on in Brian’s room in Suite 420B when a tall, spare figure wearing a long black coat and a wide-brimmed black hat rapped in a peculiar manner on the door of Suite 420C.

The door was opened immediately by the slender man who wore a blue turban.

He salaamed deeply. “Master!”

Dr. Fu Manchu walked in with his majestic yet curiously feline step, and in the main room, which, although richly furnished, was smaller than that in the adjoining suite, faced the second occupier—whose apelike ugliness had so appalled Brian when he had seen him through a hole in the screen.

He, too, saluted the doctor as one doing reverence to a pagan god.

“Everything found in his possession,” Fu Manchu demanded, speaking Hindustani. “Quickly. Show me.”

The thickset man ran to an open suit-case, took out a parcel and spread all it contained on a table. “Here is everything, Master.”

Fu Manchu examined the exhibits found on the person of the dead man, one by one. A silver disk stamped with a number and a curious design seemed to excite him strangely. His eyes, when he raised them, gleamed with a light of madness.

He turned, pointed to an outsize wardrobe trunk standing against the wall. On it was painted “Prince Ranji Bhutan!.”

“Unlock it!” he commanded.

His voice, which ranged at times from the guttural to a sort of menacing hiss, was no more than audible.

The younger man, his handsome but sinister features registering intense alarm, produced a bunch of keys and, not without difficulty, unlocked the big trunk.

Upright inside, and secured with leather straps, the double of Nayland Smith stood, his head drooping so that the swollen features were in shadow. Dr. Hu Manchu stepped forward and tilted the head upward—no easy matter, for the neck muscles were already stiff.

From a pocket of his black coat he took out a lens and, peering closely, examined the nose of the victim.

He replaced the lens, turned, and struck the long-armed thug a flat-handed blow across his face. The younger killer fell to his knees, clasping his hands.

“Master!”

“Fools!” Fu Manchu’s features were contorted; his expression was that of a dangerous maniac. “You have killed the wrong man!” . . . By a stupendous effort of will, he recovered his usual calm. “Relock the trunk. Remain here until further orders reach you.”

With his silent, catlike walk, Dr. Fu Manchu turned away, opened the door, and went out. He passed the suite occupied by Nayland Smith, and went up to the penthouse. In the dark room which adjoined that equipped for the demonstration he seated himself at the radio switchboard and made an adjustment.

A point of blue light appeared. A woman spoke. “Yes, Doctor?”

“Tonight’s plans changed. Report to me—immediately. . . .”

At about this time, Brian, chain-smoking in his agitation, was watching Nayland Smith pacing the floor of the room like an English Guardsman on sentry duty. At last, Sir Denis broke his long silence.

“I have chosen my course, Merrick. Heaven grant it’s the right one. Bearing in mind what I mean to do tonight—must do—I doubt if Fu Manchu’ s secret device would be handed over. He has the cunning of the serpent. He takes fantastic risks; but always assures himself of a way out. My explanation to the committee, which I am supposed to give verbatim (the deceased actor was evidently a quick study), would certainly break up the conference.”

“Sure! Just what I was thinking! The meeting tonight——”

“I can’t believe that a man so astute as Dr. Fu Manchu ever intended it to take place. He has changed his plans. He may be laying another trap—he may be preparing to make a getaway! This could only mean that the cunning devil recognized me!”

“Then why didn’t he bump you off when he had you up there in the penthouse?”

“Think again, Merrick,” Sir Denis rapped. “Consider two dead Nayland Smiths on his hands in the Babylon-Lido! No. There hasn’t been time to move the other one. We may lose the secret of the Sound Zone, but, at last, we have Dr. Fu Manchu!”

“What are we going to do?”

Nayland Smith knocked ash from the hot bowl of his pipe.

“I can’t stop the others. That doesn’t matter. But I shall signal the plane bringing your father and the President, and their course will be changed. We don’t know what new devilry may be brewing, and I daren’t risk it. Our best defence is attack.”

He headed for the door.

“What’s my job?” Brian wanted to know.

“We’ll slip down and talk to Ray Harkness. He’s in charge of the F.B.I, engaged on this job. We have worked together before. This double business has shaken him badly. Before I went up tonight we arranged a password—in case the wrong man had survived!”

Chapter

17

Brian saw a smallish, dapper man who might have been an accountant or a bank manager, but couldn’t possibly be a detective, except that it happened he was.

He jumped up as they came in.

“Bamboo!” Nayland Smith greeted (presumably the arranged password). “Virtue triumphed for once in a while, Harkness!”

Raymond Harkness sat down again. “Thank God I see you alive! It was a crazy, and, in my opinion, an unnecessary risk.”

Nayland Smith rested his head on Harkness’s shoulder.

“Your staff work was excellent. Merrick, here, threatened to disturb the plan at a critical moment. But our luck held, and I held on to Merrick. By the way, you haven’t met.”

“No.” Harkness shook hands with Brian, smiling. “But we have wasted a lot of time covering you, Mr. Merrick! For heaven’s sake what happened? Where’s . . . the other one? We knew all the details of the trap, but not what it was planned to do when you walked into it.”

“An expert job of strangling! He never uttered a sound.”

“Good God! They have murdered their own man?” Sir Denis nodded. “What have they done with his body?”

“Still in the room next to ours, I suppose. But if we’re to get the whole gang in the bag I want quick action. You have the list of tenants occupying apartments on our floor?”

Harkness held up a typed sheet. “It’s been impossible, at short notice, to check all of them. But speaking of the room next to yours——”

“No time, now. Look—I’ll tell you what we must do. Hold the elevators on this floor. Instruct operators to tell upcoming passengers to use stairs. There are two elevators but only one stair. Post a good man at the foot of the stair. Order him to direct such passengers to this room. Keep your door open. Tell ‘em what you like, but hold ‘em.”

Harkness raised his eyebrows, but took up the phone and gave these unwelcome instructions to the hotel office, adding, “To go into force as from now.” He hung up, glanced at Nayland Smith. “Well—what about anyone coming down7”

“They must be told to go up again until further notified. Police Department orders. An experienced patrolman in uniform best for stair job.”

Harkness nodded and spoke again on the phone. Then:

‘You’re in charge tonight, Sir Denis,” he acknowledged, “but we’ve worked together before and I like to know what to expect. Do you think it’s a plot against the President?”

“Not against his life, Harkness,” Nayland Smith rapped. “At least, I don’t think so. But in any event he won’t be here. I gave orders a few minutes ago to have his course diverted.”

Raymond Harkness watched Sir Denis with steady eyes.

“Then you believe Fu Manchu is still in Manhattan?”

“I know it.”

“Where?”

“In the penthouse!”

“What!” Harkness sprang up. “Then he’s holding Dr. Hessian! He’s in our hands! What are we waiting for?”

“Go easy!” Nayland Smith smiled his grim smile. “And don’t worry about Dr. Hessian. I’m looking after him!”

Harkness sat down again. “You know, now that I hear you, and see you, I wonder I ever fell for your double! But at the time I was completely sold.”

“So was everybody else. Who but Dr. Fu Manchu could have pulled off such a thing?”

There was a rap on the room door, and a smart-looking police sergeant came in and saluted. Harkness looked up.

“Ah! It’s Sergeant Ruppert. I knew you were detailed for duty here tonight. I want you to mount guard at the foot of the stair to the floor above. Stand on the other side of the door. No need to alarm residents on this floor. Anyone wanting to go up to be directed to this apartment. Make sure they come here, but don’t lose sight of the staircase exit. Anyone coming down to be sent back—anyone. All clear?”

“All ready, sir. But what about the elevators?”

“They’ve been stopped from this floor upward.” Harkness glanced at Nayland Smith. “Anything else?”

“One thing,” Sir Denis rapped. “Jump to it, Sergeant! Every minute counts!” Sergeant Ruppert saluted and ran out. “Any news from Number One, Harkness?”

Raymond Harkness shook his head. “No. Can’t figure it out. She expected to have something to report on the latest move. It could be useful. But not a word. And I can’t locate her. I hope——”

“So do I.” There was a deep sincerity in Nayland Smith’s voice. “She takes risks few men would take—and Fu Manchu is merciless . . . . “

* * *

“How many have you on duty tonight, Harkness?” Nayland Smith asked. “Without Merrick and myself?”

“Eleven. Four F.B.I.s and, on the present occasion, nine police. Four in uniform, including the sergeant, and five plain-clothes men. If I can count Number One, twelve.”

“Assemble them all here. There are seven apartments upstairs, including mine. I want them all searched. You have keys from the management?”

“Here.”

“I’ll take the key of the stair door to the penthouse and the key of the inside door.”

Harkness passed over three keys. “There are two doors to the penthouse,” he explained. “The second I believe opens into a kitchen.”

“And now, can you lend Merrick a gun?”

“Sure.” Harkness pulled a drawer open and took out a regulation police revolver. “It isn’t easy to carry, Mr. Merrick, but it’s practical.”

“Thanks.”

Brian put the heavy weapon in a coat pocket. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but the more exciting it turned out to be the better he would like it. He needed an antidote to his mood of angry self-contempt.

“Let the whole party stand by, Harkness,” Sir Denis went on in his quick-fire way, “until I give the word. Merrick and I are going to do a spot of reconnaissance. If a trap is being laid we don’t want to walk into it.”

They met no one in the long corridor as they headed towards the elevators. The door to the stair, with a red light above it, was in a side passage a few paces beyond. It was that hour which comes in every big hotel when nearly all the guests are out for the evening.

Suddenly, Nayland Smith said something which brought Brian to a stop as though he had hit a wall.

“I pray no harm has come to Lola Erskine,” he rapped.

Brian made a gasping sound; stood stock still. Sir Denis paused, looked back, and then stared, amazed, at the suddenly pale face he saw behind him.

“Merrick! What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

Brian tried hard to recover poise. It wasn’t easy.

“I’m sorry—behaving like a fool. But you did say Lola Erskine?”

“I did. What about it?”

“Is she the woman you called Number One, who was expected to report to Mr. Harkness?”

“She is.” Nayland Smith stared hard. “She’s the star operative I mentioned to you, who had worked her way into the Reds’ confidence, and from there (an even more astonishing undercover feat) into the Secret Order of the Si-Fan. Have you met her?”

“Yes.” Brian spoke hoarsely, but had himself in hand again. “In London.”

“In London? Then it was she who sent the information that you had been employed by Red agents. Wonderful girl! She was the first person to suspect my double. You see, Merrick she was working close to Dr. Fu Manchu! Just think of that! A mere girl—and a very pretty one; she met me at Idlewild— getting away with such a thing!”

“I am thinking, Sir Denis, and I’m frightened stiff. Because, you see, I’m very fond of Lola.”

Nayland Smith smiled—the smile Brian remembered.

“Ho, ho! That’s how the wind blows! I’m frightened, too. First, I owe my freedom to her. She was responsible for the search of the house in Cairo. Second, I owe her my life. She learned all about the trap set for me here, briefing me (I knew all the routine), and was instrumental in getting my double’s instructions mixed up.”

Brian clenched his fists. “If Dr. Fu Manchu knows the truth. Sir Denis, he must know——”

“That Lola Erskine has double-crossed him? .. . That’s why I’m frightened.”

They had been standing still in the long passage, talking in hushed voices; and now:

“Come on!” Nayland Smith rapped. “We must act.”

He set off at a run. As they passed the elevators and turned into the passage where a red light shone above the stair door, Brian found himself wondering if a girl like Lola could possibly give a damn for such a despicable, distrustful creature as himself. . . .

Nayland Smith pulled the heavy door open.

“Hullo! What’s this?”

There was no one there!

“Where’s Sergeant Ruppert?” Brian cried out.

Sir Denis raised his hand. “Ssh! We don’t know who may be listening. But I don’t like it. Come on—and be ready for anything.”

He started up the stair, walking softly, one hand in a pocket of his tweed jacket. At the top he peered out cautiously along the corridor. It was empty from end to end. He banged his fist into the palm of his left hand.

“I should have known better than to rely on one man in dealing with Fu Manchu!”

“What do you figure happened? He didn’t call out. We’d have heard him!”

“When it happened is what worries me. How long has this stair been open? Stand by, Merrick. Have your gun handy. If anyone comes near you, cover him and make him stand still, hands up, until I return.”

And Nayland Smith darted back down the stairs. . .

“When it had happened” was fully twenty minutes earlier. Apartment 421 was across the passage and not far from Nayland Smith’s suite. A smartly-dressed woman, her beauty hall-marked with the stamp of sophistication which some men (particularly young ones) find irresistible, had just come in. She had not long returned from Idlewild where Dr. Fu Manchu had ordered her to go to report the instant of Sir Denis’s arrival. She had means of learning such things, for beauty is a key which opens many doors.

Wearily she tossed an expensive hat on to the bed and sat down in front of her mirror. She opened a cream leather jewel case, unstrapped a conspicuous, diamond-studded wrist-watch and was about to put it away when a voice spoke— apparently coming from the watch.

“Where are you now?”

She started, stooped forward, and answered, “Back in my room, Doctor.”

“No one obstructed you?”

“No one.”

“You have done well. You were only just in time. But there is more to do. Put the amethyst ring on your finger. It is live. Be careful not to turn the bezel until needed. Remember the volume is low. Direct contact is necessary. Wear the diamond watch also. You understand?”

“I understand.”

“Your freedom is in your hands tonight.”

The woman’s eyes opened widely. They were of the colour of the ring which Dr. Fu Manchu had ordered her to wear— amethyst—and, with her auburn hair, gave her an exotic beauty. Her delicate colour paled as she spoke:

“You mean—my complete freedom?”

“Your absolute freedom. The task I am giving you shall be your last. So you cannot afford to fail. These are your orders.. . .”

As an immediate result of those orders, Sergeant Mike Ruppert, taking up his station at the foot of the stairs, a post which he expected to find very dull, had just ventured to start a cigarette when he heard light footsteps descending.

He dropped he cigarette and put his foot on it, turned—and saw a vision.

A disturbingly attractive woman was coming down. From her slender foot, her arched instep, to the flaming crown of her wonderful hair, Sergeant Ruppert found no flaw in her beauty. He began to rack his memory, convinced that she must be a film star. For he suffered from a fixed idea that Hollywood had a corner in such feminine perfection.

She smiled alluringly, and made to pass him.

Sergeant Ruppert intruded his bulk. “Sorry, lady. No one allowed down this way.”

“What do you mean, Sergeant?” She had an enchanting accent. “I live here. You can’t keep a guest a prisoner!”

The sergeant wasn’t enjoying his job. “Department orders, miss. There’s—er—some inquiry going on. It’ll be all clear soon.”

“Soon! But my friend is waiting.”

“He’ll wait!” Sergeant Ruppert grinned.

A ghost of the smile stole back to the lovely face.

“He is a she, my sergeant! But please let me go. It is bad enough that the elevators are out of order, that I have to walk up and down. But this!”

“That’s right.” The sergeant was sympathetic. “But it’s not my fault, miss. All I can do is obey orders,”

“It is so stupid!” she pouted. “Never again do I stay at the Babylon-Lido! I shall go up and call the manager. Come with me. You shall hear that I am to be allowed to go out.”

“Sorry, miss. I’d like nothing better——”

“I can give you a nice cool drink while I phone.”

Sergeant Ruppert had never heard of St. Anthony, but he was going through similar fires. Years of discipline won. Dizzy but unconquered:

“I can’t leave my post, miss,” he told her.

“Ah, parbleu!” she sighed. (“French,” the sergeant decided!) “So I am imprisoned—yes?”

“It’s not as bad as that, lady. I’ll tell you what you do. I don’t think it’s meant for a young lady like you to be inconvenienced. So go back to your apartment and call the manager like you said. Ask him to speak to the officer in charge, and——”

She turned away impulsively. “It is preposterous! All this trouble! . . . Ah! mon Dieu!” She stumbled, turned back, clutched Sergeant Ruppert. “I twist my ankle!”

Her slender hands—he noted a great violet ring (the colour of her eyes!) on one white finger—slipped around his neck. Her touch made him tremble. And this moment of emotion was the last thing he remembered. . . . She had turned the bezel.

He experienced a sensation as though he had been clubbed on the back of his head—and knew no more.

She had carried out her last task—for she couldn’t afford to fail. In a fractional moment she reversed the bezel—a miniature receiver, tuned to pick up the lethal note from the transmitter in the penthouse. But as the big, good-looking policeman pitched forward and fell on his face, tears dimmed her eyes. She raised the jewelled wrist-watch. Her hands trembled when she adjusted the cunning radio mechanism.

“It is done!” she whispered.

“Good. Do not return to your apartment. Whatever you leave behind there shall be recovered or replaced. Walk down one more floor. Then use the elevator. You have money with you?”

“As you ordered, Doctor.”

“Avoid observation going out. Use a side entrance. Take a taxi to East 74th Street at Park Avenue. A man will be standing outside the drug store on the corner. He will wear evening dress and a red rose in his buttonhole. Say ‘Si-Fan’ and he will make all arrangements. Your life is your own. . . .”

Chapter

18

Brian’s vigil at the stair-head proved something of a tax on his nerves.

If the strange and oddly sinister figure who had dominated the meeting in the penthouse was none other than Dr. Fu Manchu then his uneasy feeling in the presence of the man he had accepted as Otto Hessian called for no further explanation. During the journey from Egypt he had had a strong inclination to avoid him, and, as he now recalled clearly, the bogus Nayland Smith had encouraged him to do so, saying, “He has the brains of a genius but the manners of a gorilla. . . .”

And now, the fabulous Dr. Fu Manchu was near, on the defensive, at bay!

Already he had spirited away a physically powerful police officer, armed and keenly alert to danger. . . .

In the long, lighted corridor there was unbroken silence. Guests occupying the several apartments were probably away for the evening, he assumed—unless (a disturbing thought) there were other apartments as well as that adjoining their own which harboured servants of the Chinese doctor. He saw again, mentally, the two Asiatic assassins dragging away the body of the unfortunate double.

Perhaps they had strangled Sergeant Ruppert!

He changed his position slightly, so that he had his back to a wall; tried to blot out a ghastly memory of the dead man’s face, and to call up the image of Lola.

What had happened to her? He seemed to have lived through another life since that wonderful hour in her room. In fact, during this one day he had experienced every emotion of which humanity is capable. Love, when he held Lola in his arms; horror, and a great fear, when he saw Nayland Smith lying dead on the floor. And fear had come again—fear that he was insane—when another Nayland Smith had appeared.

The belief, the conviction, that Lola was nothing more than a decoy of Dr. Fu Manchu’s had brought a sorrow such as he had never known. . . . And now when he knew the truth—she had gone!

A faint sound broke the silence of the corridor.

Brian stood, tense, almost holding his breath, listening.

The sound came from the stair.

He pulled out the big revolver, readied it for action, and slightly turned his head, looking down. Soft footsteps were mounting the stair. He raised the barrel, sighting it on the bend at which the person coming up would appear.

No one appeared. But a snappy voice came:

“Don’t shoot, Merrick!”

It was Nayland Smith. A moment later he stood beside Brian. “Phew!” Brian felt hot all over. “Glad you spoke!”

“So I see,” Sir Denis commented dryly. “But don’t relax your vigilance. We have the situation in hand, if——”

“If what?”

“If we’re not too late.” Nayland Smith spoke in a low tone. “First, we go to our own apartment. Don’t open your mouth while I try to call the penthouse. Remember, the room has been wired.”

Brian nodded, and they walked along to 420B. Nayland Smith unlocked the door, stood for a moment listening, and then went in. He crossed straight to the penthouse phone, lifted the receiver, held it to his ear awhile and then put it back. He frowned grimly; beckoned Brian to follow and went out of the apartment.

“Step as nearly like a cat as you can,” he whispered. “I’m going up to listen at the door. If I hear anything we won’t go in alone. We’ll wait for reinforcements.”

Fighting down a growing excitement (for Lola might be a prisoner there!), Brian watched while Sir Denis quietly unlocked the door to the penthouse stair.

They stole up.

The stair opened on a landing, and the door was nearly opposite, as Brian remembered. To their right was the elevator which normally served the penthouse, and beyond, a second door.

Nayland Smith tiptoed forward, apparently with the intention of pressing his hear to a panel—then paused. Closer contact was unnecessary.

A voice was speaking, muffled by the intervening door, but still audible—a strident, sibilant voice: “Do you imagine,” it said scornfully, “that your puny interference can check the wheels of the Inevitable? The dusk of the West has fallen. The dawn of the East has come. . . .”

Nayland Smith turned, a triumphant grin on his lean face;

pointed to the stair. Brian followed him down. Sir Denis partly closed the door below.

“You heard him, Merrick—you heard him?” he whispered. “One of his favourite slogans. How often have I listened to it! That’s Dr. Fu Manchu!”

Brian’s heart jumped uncomfortably.

“Who is he talking to?”

“I fear—to Lola Erskine. . . .”

* * *

Brian went through hours of torture in the few minutes that it took to muster the party. Harkness had a search-warrant, and two of the plain-clothes men came from Homicide;

for there was evidence to show that a murder had been committed on the top floor of the towering wing of the Babylon-Lido.

When duties had been allotted, Harkness and another F.B.I, man joined Brian and Nayland Smith, and all four went up to the penthouse. Harkness and his assistant—his name was Dakin—were to deal with the kitchen entrance; Brian and Sir Denis concentrated on the other door.

They stood for a moment, listening.

Complete silence.

“Get the door open!” Brian gasped, quivering with suspense. “For God’s sake, open it!”

Nayland Smith, very grim-faced, put the key in the lock— but never turned it.

“No, no!” A stifled scream came from inside. “Don’t open that door! It’s the end of all of us if you do! Break in at the other end. But don’t open that door!”

Lola!

Sir Denis grasped Brian’s arm in a grip that hurt. He withdrew the key.

“I don’t know what this means, Merrick, but we must do as she directs. Come on!” They ran to join Harkness. “In through the kitchen!”

Harkness unlocked the door. The door swung open.

Brian tried to hurl himself in. Nayland smith grabbed him.

“Go easy, Merrick! We can’t be sure. This is my pidgin.”

An automatic in his hand, Sir Denis stepped warily into a well-equipped kitchenette. Brian followed. There were traces of that peculiar chemical smell which he had noted before, on the night of the demonstration.

They pushed on into what was evidently a dining-room. But it didn’t appear to have been used for one. The only window was blacked out with heavy velvet drapes. On the buffet odd pieces of chemical apparatus stood, as well as a number of bottles and phials. There was very little furniture except a narrow table covered with green baize and a large chair. A green-shaded lamp stood on the table—the only light in the room.

Near the lamp was a cabinet the front of which consisted of a small switchboard.

“Some kind of radio control,” Nayland Smith commented.

“In here! Oh! Be quick!”

Brian, at that wild appeal, pushed past Sir Denis and burst in ahead of everybody.

He stopped so suddenly that he was nearly floored by the rush from behind.

The room in which he had witnessed the extraordinary experiment carried out by the man calling himself Dr. Hessian seemed to swim before his eye. A plan of Manhattan still covered the whole of the top of the long table; but the rows of chairs had been removed. The metal containers which had hung from the ceiling were there no longer. The radio set which produced the “inaudible note” remained in its place on a bureau. A small box, which might have been the one used at the demonstration to represent a specially-equipped plane, stood on one end of the table.

Near by, in a heavy armchair, Lola was seated, white and wild-eyed. Her ankles were lashed to the front legs. Both wrists had been tied to the arms of the chair, but she had managed to free her right hand and to tear off the adhesive tape strapped to her mouth.

It had been done in frantic haste, for her lip was red and swollen.

Brian sprang to her side and began to unfasten her other wrist, but: “Smash that thing!” she said, in a shrill, unnatural voice, pointing to the little box. “The Sound comes from there! Smash it!”

Brian stood upright, and ignoring Nayland Smith who had a hand on his shoulder, pulled out the police revolver and fired two shots into the flimsy framework.

There came a loud explosion, a crash of glass, splinters flew, and one bullet rebounded to be buried in the wall beyond. Then—the box burst into flames!

Dakin acted promptly. Dashing out to the kitchen, he was back in quick time carrying a big pitcher of water. With this, he dowsed the flaming fragments on the table.

When Brian turned—Lola had fainted. . . .

* * *

Brian carried Lola downstairs, using the kitchen entrance. Dakin came with him to unlock the door of the suite. All the other doors along the corridor were wide open, and sounds indicated that the search-parties were at work—apparently without success. As Brian laid Lola on the big couch:

“She’ll soon pull out of it,” Dakin assured him. “Number One has the heart of a lion. If you have any brandy, I think”— he smiled—”I can leave the patient in your hands. I’ll leave the key, too.”

Dakin retired, closing the outer door. Brian ran to the buffet and was looking for the brandy when he heard Lola’s voice:

“I don’t think I ever fainted in my life before——”

He turned, ran to her. She was sitting up.

“Lola, my dearest!”

“But I do believe a small glass of brandy would do me good!”

Brian ran back, found the brandy, and poured out a liberal shot.

He knelt beside her, his arm around her shoulders as she took the glass. Lola smiled, that fascinating, mocking smile.

“If I drank all this, Brian, I should faint a second time!”

She took a sip of the brandy, and he drew her to him.

“Lola!” he whispered.

“My lips are sticky from that beastly tape,” she protested.

Brian held her very close, but kissed her gently.

“I nearly went crazy when I heard you were missing.”

Lola took another sip and then set the glass down. “So you have found me out.” She spoke softly. “You know what a little liar I am!”

“I know you have more grit in your little finger than I have in all my hulking carcass!”

“You mean you forgive me for what I had to do?”

“Forgive you!” She raised her hand; checked him.

“Brian, dear, go back now, and let me lie here for five minutes. I shall be quite all right, when I have rested—and cleaned the gum off my face! Then I’ll join you.”

“Leave you here alone! And Fu Manchu——”

“Fu Manchu is too far away to harm me.”

“But we heard his voice!”

“I know you did. He intended you to hear it. But he isn’t there! Go up and see for yourself. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. ...”

And when Brian, torn between his desire to stay with Lola and a burning curiosity, returned to the penthouse, he found the proper entrance door open. Harkness was bending over the cabinet which looked like a radio set, the back of which had been removed. Nayland Smith was pacing the room and twitching the lobe of his ear.

“How is she?” he rapped.

“Fine. She’s coming up after a little rest. But where’s ... Dr. Fu Manchu?”

Sir Denis pointed to an open drawer of the bureau.

“There—all we have of him! A tape-recorder playing back our conversations in Cairo! If you and I had listened a while longer we should have heard my voice as well! Brought over for the benefit of my successor. The machine had played right through the records. The cunning devil!”

Brian stared about the room incredulously, still half expecting to see the dark spectacles of Dr. Hessian (the only picture he had of the dreaded Fu Manchu) peering out from some shadowy corner.

“But the door! What was the danger of opening the door?”

“The danger’s on the table there,” Harkness called out. “Three ordinary bell-pushes which were under the carpet where anybody coming in couldn’t miss stepping on one of them!”

“Wired to the receiver you shot to pieces!” Sir Denis added grimly. “If Lola hadn’t lost her head (although God knows I don’t blame her) we might have disconnected them, and so had the secret of the Sound Zone in our hands!”

“Then the other thing”—Brian nodded towards the cabinet—”was connected all the time?”

“It was. One step, and Lola, as well as everyone else and everything breakable in the penthouse, would have gone West! Which reminds me of something you may be able to tell me. ... The french windows. You saw the demonstration. Why weren’t the windows blown out?”

Brian thought hard; tried to picture this room as he had seen it then—and a memory came.

“I think I can tell you. I remember now that just before Dr. Hessian began to talk, the Japanese lowered what looked like metal shutters over the windows, and then drew those drapes over them.”

“Shutters still there,” Sir Denis told him. “Couldn’t make out if they were a hotel fixture. Now I know, they should be examined. Evidently made of some material non-conductive of the fatal sound.”

Harkness stood up from his examination of the cabinet, and lighted a cigarette.

“Fu Manchu planned to leave no evidence, Mr. Merrick,” he remarked. “We found a small, but I guess effective, time-bomb inside this thing! Dakin worked with a bomb-disposal squad in England in the war. He’s an expert. He’s out in the kitchen fixing it.”

“You see, Merrick?” Nayland Smith rapped. “I’m naturally proud of Scotland Yard, but your F.B.I, isn’t without merit. What d’you make of that set, Harkness?”

“This is by no means an ordinary radio set, Sir Denis. It’s some kind of transmitter. Though what it transmits and where it gets it from are mysteries. We haven’t tinkered with it. That’s a laboratory job. But Dakin thinks it can convert all sorts of sounds into that one, high, inaudible note on which we had a report from Number One. Evidently this note doesn’t become dangerous until it has passed through the special receiver——”

“It’s the receiver that converts the sound,” a clear voice explained.

All three turned in a flash. Lola stood there smiling at them. Sir Denis was first with a chair. Lola thanked him and sat down.

“If you feel up to it, Miss Erskine,” he said quietly, “perhaps you would explain in more detail.”

“I feel up to anything. Particularly, I feel like an idiot for getting hysterical and then passing out! You see, Sir Denis, he” (she seemed to avoid naming Dr. Fu Manchu, as Nayland Smith had known others to do), “was good enough to give me all particulars before leaving me to be shattered. The transmitter, he informed me, is really a sort of selector, or filter. It picks up only certain high notes, vocal or instrumental. On an ordinary receiving set this would come through as atmospheric interference. It was the thing that Brian blew up which converted the sound to what he called ‘the super-aural key’ which shatters everything within range.”

She glanced up as Dakin returned from the kitchen quarters.

“It’s harmless now, sir,” he reported to Nayland Smith. “We have saved some evidence.”

Another member of Harkness’s party appeared in the doorway.

“What now?” Harkness demanded.

“Doc Alex reports that he’s suffering from thundering concussion . . . but there isn’t a single bruise on his head!”

“Who’s this?” Brian asked excitedly.

“Sergeant Ruppert.”

“Sergeant Ruppert! Where did you find him?”

“In 420C, the apartment of our next-door neighbours,” Nayland Smith told him dryly, “while you were taking care of Miss Erskine.” He turned to the man at the door. “Does the doctor think he will recover?”

“He does, sir—and hopes there’ll be no complications.”

“They found a dead man in there, too, Mr. Merrick,” Harkness broke in. “You mightn’t recognize him, the way he looks now. But up till today we all mistook him for Sir Denis!”

“I know! But the man in a blue turban?”

“Prince Ranji Bhutani?” Harkness laughed. “He and his horrible-looking servant have vanished, of course. I don’t imagine the ‘prince’ was wearing his blue turban! They must have got away soon after strangling your double, Sir Denis. We had that pair under observation already and there’s a fifty-fifty chance we pick them up.”

“If Sergeant Ruppert was found there, they evidently got him, too!”

Ray Harkness shook his head. “Four guests on your floor, Mr. Merrick, checked out earlier today. We don’t know if any of them belonged to the gang. Only one, Mrs. Nadia Narovska, has disappeared like the ‘prince’ and left her luggage behind: Number 421. Said to be a very good-looker.”

“But she may be coming back,” Brian pointed out.

“The management report she came in only a few minutes before the elevator was stopped and the sergeant went on duty at the stair door. How did she get out?”

“But it would be impossible for her to have overpowered a big fellow like that!”

“If she belonged to Fu Manchu,” Nayland Smith said bitterly, “and she sounds like one of his women, nothing is impossible! I haven’t settled down yet to the fact that that cunning fiend has escaped me again. In my crazy over-confidence I missed my chance. It was my duty to the world when I stood before him to shoot him dead.”

He banged his fist into the palm of his left hand.

“They all slipped away in whatever time they had from the attack on Ruppert until Merrick and I came upstairs,” Sir Denis went on. “Once on street level, Manhattan was open to them. Our hush-hush policy has defeated its own ends.”

“It’s not so black as you paint it,” Harkness insisted. “We may have lost the secret of this wonderful air-cover, but if the price Uncle Sam had to pay for it was putting our defences in the hands of Dr. Fu Manchu, we gain more than we lose.”

Nayland Smith forced a smile.

“You may be right. Dr. Fu Manchu has still to get out of the country. . . . Oh, Merrick, Miss Erskine has passed through a frightful ordeal. I suggest you take her along for a champagne cocktail and a good dinner. Dine downstairs. I’ll page you when your father arrives. . . . We shall all have many things to talk about. . . . And I can see that you have a lot of things to say to Lola. . . .”