The Wrath of Fu Manchu

The Wrath of Fu Manchu

"By your leave, sir."

Thurston stepped quickly to the side of the carpeted alleyway, as a steward, pushing a trolley stocked with baggage, went past. His traveller's eye noted Dutch Airlines labels on some of the pieces. But he was more interested in a man who followed the trolley.

He was of thickset, shortish figure and wore a chauffeur's uniform. His yellow, pock-pitted face and sunken eyes were vaguely menacing and his walk more nearly resembled a lope, catlike and agile.

"What a dangerous looking brute," was the thought which crossed Thurston's mind. He asked himself by which of the passengers now joining the Lauretania at Cherbourg this forbidding servant could be employed.

He hadn't long to wait for an answer.

A Chinese cook (or Thurston thought he was Chinese) hurried along just ahead of him in the direction of the square before the purser's office. He carried something on a tray, wrapped in a white napkin. There was no one else in the alleyway until a woman turned into it and began to saunter in Thurston's direction.

The cook, seeing her, behaved in so incredible a manner that Thurston felt tempted to close his eyes, count ten and then look again. He set the tray down, dropped to his knees and touched the carpet with his forehead!

The woman showed no surprise, never even glanced at the crouching white figure, but continued calmly on her way. As she passed by, the man gathered up his tray, and without once looking back, hurried on. The mysterious passenger had now drawn near enough for Thurston to get a clear impression. She carried a small handbag to which was tied another of the KLM tags.

It was alligator leather, similar to several piled on the trolley.

Thurston tried not to stare, tried to pretend that he hadn't noticed the singular behaviour of the Chinese cook. But this chivalrous effort was wasted.

Apparently, the woman remained unaware of his presence as she had been unaware of the prostrate Chinese. Her gait was leisurely, almost languid. She wore a cream shantung suit which displayed her graceful figure to perfection. A green scarf wound turban fashion (perhaps because of the high wind in the harbour) lent her features some of the quality of a delicate ivory mask. Except for superciliously curved lips, her face could not be said to bear any expression whatever.

She was beautiful, but unapproachable.

Like a vision she appeared, and was gone. He was left with a picture of half-closed, jade-green eyes, of slender white hands, hands nurtured in indolence.

Thurston was too experienced a voyager to bother his friend. Burns, the purser, until the Lauretania had cleared Cherbourg. But he meant to find out all that Burns knew about this imperious beauty attended by an Oriental manservant and whom a Chinese member of the crew treated as a goddess.

Having time on his hands, for he travelled light and had already unpacked, he roamed the ship, drawing room, smoking room, lounges, decks, but never had a glimpse of the jade-eyed woman of mystery.

When he took his seat at the purser's table for dinner, Thurston read a signal from Burns and lingered until the others had gone; "Come along to my room," the purser invited. "Haven't had a moment to spare until now."

When they were in Burns' room, the door closed and drinks set out. Burns unburdened himself.

"Glad to have someone like you to talk to. I mean someone not officially concerned. We often have difficult passengers, but this time we've got a woman who is a number one headache. Good looker, too. Jenkins, the chief steward, is raising hell. She won't have a steward or stewardess in her room. She's got a yellow faced man-servant on board, and he's to take care of everything. Bit irregular?"

Thurston put his glass down.

"Woman with green eyes? Ivory skin? Wonderful figure?"

Bums' eyes, which were not green, but blue, twinkled.

"Powers of observation good! That's the dame. Her papers show that she's from the Dutch East Indies."

"Ah! That may explain it. A yellow streak?"

"Could be. She's Mrs van Roorden, widow of a Javanese planter. But her pock-marked attendant, who's in the servant's quarters, of course, is Burmese! Add that up."

"I can't," Thurston confessed. "Is she travelling alone — I mean, except for the manservant?"

Burns nodded and began to light his pipe.

"More or less, yes. She came on board with a Mr Fordwich, whom I don't know anything about, except that I'm told he's a member of a big Chicago concern with overseas interests. He came from Java to England and then flew over to France. That is, according to his passport."

Thurston, accepting a nod from Burns, passed his glass for a refill and smiled.

"I can add to your information about the mysterious Mrs van Roorden. Listen to this."

He told the purser what he had seen in the alleyway. Bums' eyes opened even more widely than usual.

"Damn funny! I'll get Jenkins to check on the cook's staff. We have some Chinese boys down there, I know. Sure he was Chinese?" ' Thurston considered. He was not well up on Far Eastern types.

"Almost sure," he said at last. "You see, I had only a glimpse of the man. But I'm certain he was an Asiatic."

Bums nodded thoughtfully.

"Now, on our last run, we had a mutual friend on board who could have settled the point out of hand! Sir Denis Nay-land Smith."

"What! He may be in New York when I get there. I'll look him up. Amazing man, isn't he? I knew him very well when he was head of the CID at Scotland Yard. Member of my club. Smith's a fellow who has crowded more adventure into his life than any ten ordinary men. He must be out on a job. Wonder what it is?"

"Communists, I expect," Bums murmured.

But Bums happened to be wrong, as Thurston was to find out.

In fact, at about the time that he sat talking to the purser of the Lauretania, the centre of a storm cloud the existence of which had brought Nayland Smith to New York was actually located in Cairo.

In an old Arab house not far from the Mosque of El Ash-raf, a house still undisturbed by Western "improvements," a tall, gaunt man paced slowly up and down a room which once had been the Na'ah or saloon of the harem.

Lofty, and lighted by a lantern in the painted roof, it was tastefully paved in the Arabian manner, had elaborate panelled walls and two mushrabiyeh windows. Before one of these recessed windows a screen had been placed.

The man pacing the tiled floor wore a loose yellow robe, a black cap on his massive skull. Although unmistakably Chinese, his finely lined features were those of a scholar who had never spared himself in his quest of knowledge. It was a wonderful face. It might have belonged to a saint — or to the Fallen Angel in person.

His walk was feline, silent. He seemed to be listening for some expected sound. Suddenly he paused, turned.

A door opened at the end of the saloon and a man entered quietly, an old white-bearded man who wore Arab dress. He was met and challenged by a glance from emerald green eyes. Momentarily, an expression of eagerness crept across the impassive Chinese face.

"You have it, hakim?"

The words were spoken in Arabic, sibilantly. They were answered by a deep bow.

"I have it. Excellency."

From under his black robe, the old physician took out a small phial, half filled with a nearly colourless liquid.

"You guarantee its absolute purity?"

"I swear to it. Am I a fool to dream of deceiving Dr Fu Manchu?"

Dr Fu Manchu's nearly unendurable gaze remained fo-cussed on the bearded face a while longer, and then:

"Follow," he directed.

He walked under a decorated arch into a neighbouring room equipped as a laboratory. Much of the apparatus in this singular apartment would have puzzled any living man of science to define its purpose or application. On a long, glass-topped table a number of test tubes was ranged in a rack.

Dr Fu Manchu seated himself at the table and held out his hand for the phial. Watched by the Arab physician, he removed the stopper and inserted a glass dipper. The unerring delicacy of touch displayed by those long-nailed fingers was miraculous. He replaced the stopper and smeared a spot from the dipper on to a slide, putting the slide into place in a large microscope. Stooping, he stared through the lens, which he slightly adjusted. Without looking up:

"You are sure of hormone B?" he challenged harshly.

"Positive, Excellency. I extracted it myself."

Then Fu Manchu raised his head and pressed one of several studs on a switchboard. A door opened and a young Japanese came in. He wore a chemist's white tunic. Fu Manchu indicated the phial.

"The missing elements, at last, Matsukata. Use sparingly." He spoke in Japanese. "Above all, watch the temperature. Innoculate a rat, a guinea pig and two rabbits. Report to me at ten minute intervals. Proceed."

Matsukata took the phial, three of the test tubes, bowed, and went out. Dr. Fu Manchu turned to the Arab physician.

"How long have you known me, hakim?"

He spoke softly.

The old Arab stroked his beard as if in meditation.

"Since I was twenty years of age. Excellency."

"And what age was I then?"

"I could not say."

"What age did I appear to be?"

"As you appear now. Excellency."

Fu Manchu stood up.

"Follow."

They returned to the long saloon. Fu Manchu crossed to the screen set before a mushrabiyeh window and moved it aside.

In the recess, motionless in a silk-padded basket, lay a tiny grey marmoset!

"My little friend, Peko." Dr Fu Manchu spoke in a sibilant whisper. "The companion of my wanderings."

The old physician conquered his astonishment. Unmistakably, Dr Fu Manchu was deeply moved.

"He is asleep?"

"No. He is dying."

"Of tuberculosis? These creatures are subject to it."

"No. Of senility."

"What, then, is his age, Excellency?"

"The same as my own."

"What do you say?… Pardon me. Excellency. I was startled. Such a thing seems impossible."

Dr Fu Manchu replaced the screen. They stepped down again into the saloon; and the Arab physician found himself called upon to sustain the fixed regard of those hypnotic eyes.

"Peko had already reached his normal, alloted span of years at the time that I completed my long experiments so vainly attempted by the old alchemists. Yes — I had discovered what they termed the Elixir Vitae: The Elixir of Life! Upon Peko I made the first injection; upon myself, the second."

"And now?" It was a hushed murmur.

"Failure threatens my science. Peko was not due for treatment until next spring. Yet — you see? I found myself unprovided with the materials. I searched Cairo. I laboured in the laboratory day and night. Can you understand?"

His voice rose harshly on a note of frenzy. His eyes blazed.

"Yes, Excellency… I do understand."

"If death claims him, I am defeated. A plan upon which may rest the peace of the world, even the survival of man, demands my presence in America. But, if I fail to fan that tiny spark which still smoulders within Peko into a flame of life, this means that I too — I, Fu Manchu — may die at any hour!"

Weather remained fresh, but clear and fine throughout the Lauretania's run. Thurston, that unimaginative man of business, had no suspicion as yet of the role for which Fate had cast him. But he found a magnetic attraction in the personality of Mrs van Roordon.

This beautiful enigma, always correctly but exquisitely dressed, engrossed his attention to the exclusion of everybody else on board. Nor was he alone in this. Mrs van Roorden would have become a focus of interest in any community.

She was much in the company of Mr Fordwich. He was a man of middle height and spare build, his skin yellowed as if by long residence in the tropics. A heavy stick with a rubber ferule was never far from his hand, for he was afflicted by a slight limp. His keen, dark eyes lighted up at times, as if a laughing dare-devil lay hidden under the cool facade which he showed to the world. Without being handsome in the Hollywood sense, Thurston could well believe that Fordwich might be attractive to women. They were an intriguing pair.

Mrs van Roorden rarely permitted her graceful languor to become disturbed. She possessed an aura of sublime self-confidence, as if some invulnerable power protected her from any intrusion upon her queenly serenity. Sometimes, when in Ford-wich's company, she smiled. It was a strange smile, secretly voluptuous. But it promised little and revealed nothing.

There was acid comment amongst the passengers and ship's officers concerning the strange arrangement whereby no one was permitted to enter Mrs van Roorden's cabin except her dangerous looking Burmese manservant. Whenever she took one of her leisurely constitutional strolls, a barrage of glances fell upon her from the massed batteries of deckchairs.

The Sphinx could not have shown more perfect indifference.

Thurston, in his quest of information, seized every opportunity to talk to Mr Fordwich, with whom he sometimes had a drink in the smoking room. But Mr Fordwich proved himself a master of reticence.

Arid so it was not until their last night at sea that Thurston met Mrs van Roorden. She was one of the guests at a cocktail party in the purser's quarters. Somewhat to his surprise, Mr Fordwich was not present. Mrs van Roorden wore a green backless frock entirely justified by her faultless ivory arms and shoulders. A band of emeralds was clasped around her throat.

Bums presented his friend, at the same time treating him to a sly wink.

"I'm very glad to meet you at last, Mrs van Roorden," Thurston declared. "It would be annoying to have to leave the ship without making the acquaintance of the most beautiful woman on board."

That vague smile curved disdainful lips as she glanced at him when he sat down beside her. Her eyes slanted very slightly.

"A compliment from an Englishman is as unexpected as an Ave Maria from a tabby."

What a lovely voice she had, Thurston thought! A wall-lamp just behind her touched bronze highlights in her hair, which he had believed to be quite black.

"A compliment may sometimes be a fact. Are you staying in New York, Mrs van Roorden?"

She shrugged slightly.

"Perhaps for a little while. This journey is not of my choosing. But there are some duties which must override personal inclination."

"Then what does personal inclination suggest?"

She turned and looked at him directly. He started, rebuked himself. He was an experienced man of the world…. But he had the utmost difficulty in meeting that penetrating gaze. Then Mrs van Roorden seemed to be satisfied. She turned her head aside again, languidly.

"I belong to the old world. The new world has little to offer me."

Thurston recovered himself.

"You are too young to be cynical."

"I am too old to embrace shadows. Truth is dying today. We are all so smug, although we dance on the edge of a precipice. Where are the men who can see — the great adventurers who put self last?"

"Not all dead, I assure you! I should like you to meet my friend, Nayland Smith, for instance."

Mrs van Roorden seemed to become quite still, statuesque. At last, she stirred, turned her head, and again he found himself claimed by those jade-green eyes.

"Sir Denis Nayland Smith?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

Her lips curved in that provocative, voluptuous yet impersonal smile. She glanced aside as a steward offered a selection of cocktails. Taking one:

"I used to know him," she replied, a deep, caressing note in her musical voice. "Were you ever in Java, Mr Thurston?"

Her wish to change the subject was so unmistakable that Thurston had no choice but that of following her lead. So that when (he party broke up, although he knew that the Communists in the Dutch Indies were worse than the Japanese, he knew no more about Mrs van Roorden than he had ever known.

But he wondered very much why she had steered him off the subject of Nayland Smith…

During belated dinner, an urgent message came for the purser. He excused himself and hurried out.

Thurston, later, passing his door and finding it open, rapped and went in.

Burns was sitting in an armchair, smoking his pipe.

"Sit down, old man. There's something very queer going on aboard this ship."

"Why — what's happened?"

Thurston sat down.

"Well, the steward who generally looks after the room occupied by Mrs van Roorden nearly ran into her as she rushed out into the alleyway. She said that a thief had been in there!"

"What!"

"Fact. The man reported to Jenkins, and Jenkins sent for me. I went along. Mrs van Roorden opened the door when I knocked. She was as cool as an icicle, but those eyes of hers were just blazing. She stuck to the story, but said that she didn't intend to make an official complaint. Insisted, in fact."

"This is all very strange."

"There's more to come. This man of hers, who I believe acts as her bodyguard as much as anything else, was found in his cabin — insensible!"

"You mean — he'd been assaulted?"

"Rubber truncheon, the doctor thinks! This is all off the record. Not a word. The cops would hold us up for hours if they got on to it."

"But, what—"

"Yes." Burns stood up. "That's what I'm wondering. Let's have a drink."

Landing was delayed the next day by unexpected mist which blanketed East River. Thurston, taking a final look into closets and drawers, heard a rap on the door, and supposed his steward had come for the baggage.

"All ready!"

Mr Fordwich entered, leaning on his stick.

"Thought I might catch you," he said, smiling. "The fact is, I owe you a drink, and I don't know a better time to balance the account than when the bars are sealed on a foggy morning!"

From his pockets he produced a large flask and a bottle of soda water.

"That's a pleasant sight," Thurston confessed. "I admit my own reserve is exhausted. Thought we'd be ashore by now."

Fordwich mixed two tepid drinks and glanced around. His eyes rested on a well-filled golf bag.

"I see you're a golfer? Expect to get much play?"

"Well, I'm spending a week with a friend in Connecticut who lives near a good course. I'm no plus man. Never got below eighteen!"

They talked about golf and other things. Thurston gave Fordwich the name of his New York hotel and Fordwich promised to call him later. He wondered if Fordwich knew what had happened to Mrs van Roorden and her Burmese servant, but, although burning with curiosity, he was bound to silence.

Another rap on the door interrupted them. A page came in.

"Mr Thurston?"

"I am Mr Thurston."

"Note for you, sir."

Thurston glanced at the scribbled chit. It said, "Please call at Purser's office immediately."

"Excuse me." He turned to Fordwich. "Make yourself comfortable. Shan't be a minute."

He went out and along the alleyway to the office. Pandemonium reigned in that area, but Thurston managed to catch the eye of an assistant whom he knew.

"Want to see me?" he asked.

He handed in the note.

The assistant purser stared at it, with a puzzled frown, then went away. He wasn't gone long.

"There must be some mistake, Mr Thurston. I can find no one who sent you this thing."

Deeply mystified, Thurston returned to his room, when he had a second surprise.

The silver flask and the soda water remained on the table, but Mr Fordwich had disappeared. Thurston concluded that he had been called away and would return, but as the steward came at that moment to collect his things, he put the flask in his pocket and left the room.

Up to the time that the Lauretania docked, he never had a glimpse of Mr Fordwich, nor, which disappointed him more, of Mrs van Roorden. As he waited under the letter T for his steward with the baggage, he watched all the passengers in sight, but failed to find either of those he was looking for.

He was quietly clear of the Customs, for he carried only a suitcase, a valise and his golf bag. These he gave to a porter and headed for the exit. This route took him past the letter F, and here he pulled up.

Fordwich, leaning on his heavy stick, was explaining something to two Customs officers bending over an open handbag.

Thurston's insatiable curiosity prompted him to draw nearer. Across the shoulder of an interested bystander he saw what lay in the bag.

It was a grotesque green mask of Eastern workmanship. He had a hazy idea that it should be described as a devil mask. He could hear Fordwich's voice:

"I picked it up in Java. It's of small intrinsic value. Merely a curiosity… "

Thurston moved on. He didn't want to appear to be eavesdropping. But his glimpse of the green mask had given him an uncomfortable, and indescribable sensation. Who was this man, Fordwich? He had felt all along there was something mysterious about him. And what lay behind the raid on Mrs van Roorden's cabin and the assault on her servant? Above all, why had she declined an official inquiry?

If, at about the time the Lauretania had reached mid-ocean, Thurston could have been transported to that old Arab mansion near the Mosque of El Ashraf, he might now have held a clue to some of these riddles.

It was midnight, and the lofty saloon was dimly lighted by a number of hanging lamps of perforated brass. The screen had been moved from the mushrabiyeh window. Dr Fu Manchu, seated in a chair of native inlay workmanship, bent over the padded basket in which the tiny monkey lay.

He had been seated there for four hours.

It was literally true that vast issues hung upon the life or death of a marmoset.

Native Cairo slumbered. No sound came from the narrow street upon which the gate of a tree-shaded courtyard opened. Inside the house there was unbroken silence. And Dr Fu Man-chu never stirred.

His elbows resting on the chair arms, his long fingers pressed together, he watched, tirelessly. An emerald signet ring which he wore glittered in the light of a shaded lamp. He was so still that a marked resemblance which his gaunt features bore to those of the mummy of Seti I in the Cairo Museum became uncannily increased. It was as if the dead Pharoah had awakened from his age-long sleep.

Sometimes the strange green eyes filmed over queerly, as if from great weariness. Then at the appearance of some symptom so slight as to be visible only to the inspired physician, they glowed again like living gems.

But when the great change came, it was unmistakable.

Peko moved his tiny arms, almost exactly like a human baby waking up, yawned, stretched and opened beady eyes.

Fu Manchu's lips moved, but no sound issued from them. A spot of perspiration trickled from under the black cap and crept down his high forehead. Peko looked up at him, chattered furiously, and then sprung in one bound onto the bowed shoulders.

There the little creature perched, slapping the yellow face of his master in an ecstasy either of rage or of happiness. Only Dr Fu Manchu could know.

Rising and stepping down into (he saloon, Fu Manchu struck a silver gong. Peko responded with a sound like a shrill whistle and leapt onto a brass lamp hanging directly overhead. Here he swung, looking down and chattering volubly.

Matsukata came in from the laboratory.

"Triumph!"

Dr Fu Manchu pointed to the swinging marmoset.

Matsukata bowed deeply.

"I salute the genius of the master scientist."

"Advise General Huan Tsung that we leave in an hour. It is still possible to be there in time. Proceed."

Matsukata bowed again, and went out. Dr Fu Manchu dried his high forehead with a silk handkerchief which he drew from the sleeve of his robe, and crossing the saloon, his gait slow and catlike, he mounted a leewan at the further end and opened a cupboard From the cupboard he took a flat cedarwood box and raised the lid.

Inside lay a green mask — identical with that which, later, George Thurston was to see in a Manhattan Customs shed…

The phone buzzed in Thurston's hotel apartment.

He was unpacking his suitcase. He crossed and called:

"Hullo!"

"That you, Thurston?" came a vaguely familiar voice. "Fordwich here. Got my flask, haven't you?"

"Yes. I lost sight of you. What happened?"

"Called away. Hang on to the flask. Be seeing you around cocktail time. That all right?"

"Quite."

"Did you get your golf clubs through safely?"

"Golf clubs? Of course. Why not?"

A chuckle of laughter.

"Just asking! See you about six."

Fordwich hung up.

Thurston scratched his head reflectively, then returned to his unpacking. He took out a lounge suit, a Tuxedo and black trousers. He put them on hangers in the wardrobe, turned, and stared at his golf-bag.

Slowly, he went over and inspected it.

Amongst the club-heads he saw a rubber ferule sticking out!

He grabbed it, trying to pull the thing free. But he had to remove a niblick, a mid-iron and a mashie before he succeeded.

Then — he held Fordwich's walking stick in his hand!

"Phew!"

Thurston sat down on the side of the bed. The stick was unmistakable. It was of some dark, heavy wood, smooth, nearly black. The handle curved above a plain gold band. There was no inscription.

He couldn't doubt that the stick he held in his hands was the one upon which Fordwich had been leaning in the Customs shed!

"It isn't possible!"

Thurston spoke the words aloud. He was startled out of his normal self. This inexplicable incident crowned all the others. What on earth did it mean? Why should the mysterious Mr Pordwich assume that he was a suitable subject for conjuring tricks? And when had the trick been performed? He thought of the green devil mask. He recalled a conversation with an Anglo-Indian at his club. This man had assured him that, for all science might say to the contrary, the powers of magic were very real in the East.

Hurriedly completing his unpacking, he went down to the bar.

The delay in getting ashore had upset his plans. He didn't know what to do with himself, or how to spend the evening.

Six o'clock came; half past.

Still there was no word from Fordwich. Thurston sat down and stared at the black walking stick. He didn't touch it. He was aroused from amorous musings, in which the ivory arms of Mrs van Roorden figured prominently, by a disturbance in the corridor outside.

Someone seemed to be persistently banging on a door, and he could hear the dim ringing of a bell.

As the row continued, Thurston stood up, crossed the apartment and looked out.

The disturbance came from a door almost immediately opposite his own… and the man who rang and banged was Nayland Smith!

"Smith!"

Nayland Smith had turned, was staring at Thurston across the width of the corridor. His skin had been permanently darkened by years of tropical suns, so that it was impossible to detect pallor. But Thurston thought that some of the old, eager vitality was lacking tonight. The silver at his temples had become more marked.

"Hullo, Thurston!" he rapped (the quick-fire speech remained unimpaired). "Didn't expect to see you here. Come into your apartment and phone if I may."

"You're very welcome."

But, when the door was closed, Nayland Smith dropped wearily into an armchair, and Thurston saw that he looked al most haggard. Something had taxed this man of iron to the limit of his endurance.

"I'm up against one of my toughest problems, Thurston," he began in his abrupt, staccato way. "Can talk to you. Glad to. There's a gigantic plot about to mature — a plot to destroy Fort Knox, and the gold reserve upon which the financial power of the United States largely depends!"

"Destroy Fort Knoxl It's just impossible! Communists?"

Nayland Smith shook his head, smiled grimly, and taking out a charred briar pipe, began to charge it from a dilapidated pouch.

"No. What d'you think I'm doing here? If it had been the Communists I might have agreed with you. But it's something far more serious. Did you ever hear of the Si-Fan?"

Thurston stared blankly.

"Never."

"It's the most powerful secret society in the world today. It is directed by a man who is probably the supreme genius of all time. He has more scientific knowledge in that one phenomenal brain than any ten men alive. He is called Dr Pu Manchu. You have heard the name?"

"As a name, yes." Thurston was awed. "No more!"

Nayland Smith replaced his pouch and lighted his pipe.

"I sincerely hope you may never have occasion to learn more! We are uncertain of the details of the scheme. But we think some kind of guided missile is involved — probably with an atomic warhead, or something even more destructive!"

"But where could such a thing be assembled?"

"Several thousand men are engaged, at this very moment, trying to find out! One man, a brilliant FBI operative, has actually succeeded in becoming a member of the Si-PanI"

"Is he an Oriental?" Thurston gasped.

Nayland Smith smoked feverishly.

"Not a bit of it. Don't run away with the idea that the Si-Fan is a Far Eastern group. It's international. That's the danger. It's true that Selwyn Orson — the FBI man — Joined it somewhere in the East. He's a wonderful linguist. He's just back, with vital information."

"Where is he?"

"That's his room over there. And, although he called me only half an hour ago, I can get no reply. Hasn't gone out. Checked that."

He grabbed up the 'phone. Thurston stared.

"Put me through to Mr Wylie. This is Sir Denis Nayland Smith."

He glanced aside at Thurston.

"When do you think this horror is. timed to happen?" Thurston asked in a hushed voice.

Nayland Smith shook his head, and then:

"Hullo — Mr Wylie?" he asked. "Nayland Smith here. I'm in Number 114, Mr Thurston's apartment. Be good enough to send a boy up with a key to Number 113. Yes, at once, please."

He hung up.

"I don't know the exact time, Thurston. But all my information suggests that it may happen at almost any hour nowl"

The speed with which the key was delivered by the management indicated the authority vested in Nayland Smith, and when the boy had gone away, they crossed the corridor, and Nayland Smith unlocked the door of Number 113.

On the threshold he stood still, barring Thurston's entrance.

"What is it. Smith?"

"You don't have to come in, Thurston." He spoke without turning. "If you do, prepare for a dreadful sight!"

Nayland Smith went in, and Thurston followed him. The warning had been timely; for even now Thurston pulled up, uttered a smothered cry.

Face downward in the lobby, and so near the door that it was only just possible to open it, lay a blue-clad stocky figure. The man's outstretched hands were still plunged into an open suitcase, from which a variety of articles had been thrown out on to the floor.

"Good God!" Thurston muttered. He felt deathly sick. "What does this mean?"

"Murder!" snapped Nayland Smith. "He's been shot through the head — from behind."

"There's blood — a trail of it — leading into the room."

Nayland Smith nodded and went in. Thurston, trying to avoid wet patches on the carpet, followed. Inside, he clutched Smith's arm.

"Smith! This is horrible! The place is a morgue\"

Another dead man was seated beside the table on which the *phone stood!

His arms were stretched out on either side of a Manhattan Directory, and he had slumped forward so that his head rested slantwise on the book. The effect was grotesque. He seemed to be leering up at the intruders.

"Merciful God! It's FordwichV The whisper came from Thurston's pale lips.

Nayland Smith hardly glanced at him. He sprang to the dead man's side, touched cold fingers, and stooping, peered into sightless eyes. He stood upright.

"Too late! And you're mistaken. This was Selwyn Orson — the finest investigator who ever worked with the FBI1"

Thurston said nothing. Words were failing him. He had been swept into a world of mystery, of horror, for which his orderly life had not equipped him.

The apartment bore every evidence of a frantic search. An automatic fitted with a silencer tube lay beside the table. Only one shell had been used. And then, half under the bed, came a discovery which completed Thurston's sick bewilderment. This was Fordwich's black walking stick — snapped in half… "Poor Orson was stabbed," Nayland Smith rapped out the words at top speed. "Almost certainly by that brute lying in the lobby. It was a surprise attack. How the man got in we are never likely to know, now. Orson collapsed. The killer went to work. Orson revived, dragged himself out, silently, to where the man was busy on another suitcase in the lobby, and shot him. Then, he dragged himself back to the phone — but died before he got his message through."

The languor had gone. Nayland Smith was revivified. His grey eyes shone like steel. His reconstruction of the crime had been a matter of minutes. He stood for a moment looking about him, pulling reflectively at the lobe of his ear, then went out to the lobby. Thurston followed, dizzily, trying to conquer his nausea.

Nayland Smith bent over the prone figure.

"We shall find the knife with which Orson was murdered, unless I'm greatly mistaken."

"But I thought," Thurston began — and said no more.

Vaguely, he was beginning to grasp the fact that those strict police regulations which prohibit the disturbing of the body of a homicide corpse did not apply to Sir Denis.

"In the other pocket, then." Smith turned the body over. "Ah! here it is!"

And, as he drew a bloodstained knife from the blue coat, Thurston had a glimpse of a distorted, pock-marked face.

"Smith!" His voice shook emotionally. "Smith! This is Mrs van Roorden's Burmese servant!"

"There's no doubt," said Nayland Smith, "that you have been chosen by Higher Powers to save the United States from disaster!"

Thurston helped himself to a third brandy. Some trace of colour was returning to his face.

They sat now in his apartment, already foggy with tobacco smoke from Smith's pipe. The handbag (its lock smashed) which contained the green mask, and the mask itself, intact, lay on the bed; Fordwich's black stick lay beside it — the one that had been in the golf bag.

"I have told you all I have to tell. Smith. But I haven't the very slightest idea what it adds up to!"

"This," Smith rapped. "In the first place, after the medical examiner has made his report, Number 113 must be sealed. No whisper of what lies there has to leak out. So much I have arranged with Raymond Harkness of the FBI, who is co-operating with me. In the second place, poor Selwyn Orson must have known he was spotted. He chose you to bring his stick ashore!"

"But…"

"He had a duplicate, which he had kept hidden during the crossing. The note you received, asking you to call at the purser's office, was sent, of course, by Orson — whom you knew as Fordwich. He wanted you out of the cabin long enough to slip the stick into your golf-bag. He must have noted that you carried one."

"But why? Why two sticks?"

Nayland Smith began to knock ashes from his fuming pipe. "That I hope to find out. The smashed duplicate across in his room suggests that his killer — who, by the way was a professional thug, a Burmese dacoit — had special instructions on this point."

"And the green mask?"

Nayland Smith shook his head.

"One mystery at a time, Thurston! Suppose we start with the stick."

He took it up and examined it closely. He tapped it, and endeavoured to unscrew the crooked handle. It appeared to be solid. Smith clicked his teeth together irritably.

"Of course, it's a smuggler's stick. But how does it open?… Ah\"

He begun to detach the rubber ferule. It was not easy, but at last he had it off. Under the rubber was a brass ferule. Attempts to remove it defied all his efforts, until, with the ferule wedged in the hinge of the bathroom door and while he turned the shank firmly, it began to unscrew.

There was a cavity in the base of the big stick, from which protruded a roll of paper. Nayland Smith pulled it out. It proved to consist of a number of closely typed and very thin pages, wound around a sort of slender jade baton most curiously carved.

At this he stared with deep curiosity. He examined the delicate carving.

"What the devil have we here?"

Then, with care, he turned the baton in his fingers. It opened without difficulty. It unscrewed in the middle. And Smith tapped out into the palm of his left hand a single sheet of parchment on which appeared some lines of writing in heavy, black letters.

At the foot of the parchment was,a small seal.

He glanced at the seal, rapidly scanned the typescript, and then shot a steely glance at Thurston.

"I believe you told me that you found Mrs van Roorden dangerously alluring?"

"I did."

"She is! She's Dr Fu Manchu's daughter!"

Thurston stared almost stupidly.

"But, Smith — she is quite young."

"She has always appeared so," Nayland Smith snapped, "from the first time I met her up to her last attempt to seduce mel"

At about which time, Dr Fu Manchu, wrapped in a fur-lined coat and having an astrakhan cap pulled well down over his massive skull, glanced back at old Huan Tsung, his chief-of-staff, who sat behind him in the plane. Matsukata was the pilot.

"I seem to hear your teeth chattering, Huan Tsung?" "Your hearing does not mislead you. Excellency." "Yet Peko, here in my arms, sleeps peacefully." "Even if men derive from apes, some small differences distinguish us from our remote ancestors. Monkeys may be immune. But at our present height, without aid of oxygen, I confess that my old heart falters."

"We could touch the outer atmosphere, encased as we are in the new amalgam. Imagination, Huan Tsung, is a two-edged sword." Fu Manchu glanced at the instrument board. "We are far above the commercial air lanes, but we continue to receive absurd signals from military bases. I anticipate that we shall be reported once more as a 'flying saucer'."

"Excellency, surely life is a flying saucer, a saucer in which we are whirled out of eternity into eternity… "

"Its now quite evident," Nayland Smith was saying, "that Orson must have been responsible for searching the stateroom of the woman you knew as Mrs van Roorden while she was at the purser's cocktail party. No doubt it was Orson, too, who put her Burmese bodyguard to sleep. These typed notes wrapped around the jade baton make it clear that he had risen high in the Si-Fan organisation."

"What an amazing man!" Thurston exclaimed.

"Amazing indeed. It's to Selwyn Orson that we owed the first news of the Fort Knox conspiracy. At that time he was in Egypt, where he had been called to a personal interview with the president of the Si-Fan. Steps were taken here. And an attempt was made to find the Cairo headquarters of the society." Nayland Smith snapped his fingers irritably. "Next to impossible to get action under the present Egyptian government."

He was pacing up and down the room liked a caged tiger, smoking almost ceaselessly.

"Do you mean," Thurston asked, "that these people have agents in Egypt?"

"All over the worldl The Si-Fan has expanded enormously since I first came in touch with it. Orson seems to have posed as a Frenchman, which he could do very easily, as he had lived for many years in Paris. He was one of the deputies selected by the Si-Fan to attend a secret conference here in New York!"

"But how do you suppose he discovered the real identity of Mrs van Roorden?"

"I don't think he had discovered it, until the night he burgled her cabin. He makes it quite plain in these notes, and in his earlier despatch from Cairo (which I have seen), that no officer of the Si-Fan knows another by sight. But he knows all the lesser members under his immediate control. He was evidently sent from Egypt to Java. The Si-Fan has been very busy there, rubbing out some of the leading Communists!"

"What! The Si-Fan is anti-Communist?"

"Somewhat!" snapped Nayland Smith grimly. "Orson, I believe, met Mrs van Roorden in Java, and then, later, on the Lauretania. He doesn't state, here, what aroused his suspicion, but he does say that he was waiting for a chance to search her cabin." He pointed to the jade baton. "This is what he found."

Thurston picked up and stared again at the sheet of thin parchment which the baton had contained. It was half covered with heavy, square writing.

The message, in English, was in cramped script resembling old Black Letter. It authorised the bearer, referred to as "my daughter," to preside at the conference in the unavoidable absence of "the President."

"I don't understand," Thurston said, "how such a conference could take place, if it's true that no officer of this society knows another by sight."

Nayland Smith paused in his restless promenade, picked up the green mask and dropped it back in the bag.

"Clearly, they all wear these things — not to frighten one another, but simply to conceal their identity. It's not a new trick. It was used, in the form of hoods, by Inquisitors of the Holy Office in Spain and is still popular with the Ku Klux Klan."

Thurston was studying a sort of crest which served as letterhead:

"What does this thing mean?" he asked. Nayland Smith glanced aside and then continued his pacing. "I have come across it only once before. Out of context, it really means nothing. But it could be construed to mean 'The higher' or "The one above.' It is evidently the sign of the Si-Fan."

The message bore no name; only the imprint of a seal on green wax:

"And this seal?"

"Is the seal of Dr Fu Manchu… "

The door-bell buzzed.

"That will be Harkness."

Smith crossed the lobby and threw the door open. Raymond Harkness, of the FBI, came in, a slight man with gentle, hazel eyes and the manner of a family doctor.

"Have you made all arrangements?" Smith rapped.

"Yes." Harkness spoke softly. "Poor old Orson. Our star man, Sir Denis."

"He didn't sacrifice himself for nothing," said Nayland Smith grimly. "Thanks to him, we hold most of the threads in our hands. We owe this to Mr Thurston here. He became unavoidably mixed up in the thing."

Harkness turned his quiet regard on Thurston. "Take my advice," he said. "Step out of this affair just as soon as you can — and stay out. Also keep your mouth shut as tightly as if the air was poisoned."

Thurston was not one of those "great adventurers who put self last" referred to by Mrs van Roorden. He was a plain man of business. Fate had made him an unconscious messenger, had plunged him into deep, dark mysteries. He sighed, for sometimes he had longed for such adventure. But he decided that Raymond Harkness' advice was good…

Mrs van Roorden stepped out of the shower and critically considered her gleaming ivory body in a long pier glass. She could detect no sign of age's encroachments. Her cool flesh was firm; the contours remained perfect.

She wrapped herself in a woolly robe and returned to the bedroom.

A contrast to other rooms in the apartment, this was equipped in the Parisian manner; a fragrant nest for loveliness. She lingered over creams and perfumes in crystal bottles ranged on a cedarwood dressing-table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, took up a hand mirror, the back delicately enamelled on gold, and studied her profile.

She was satisfied; she was still beautiful.

But she was ill at ease.

The frock which she had decided to wear lay draped over a chair, with appropriate shoes and stockings beside it. Mat Cha was perfect in her attentions, as should be expected from the daughter of a Chinese aristocrat. But Mrs van Roorden had never met this youngest child of the aged but prolific Mandarin Huan Tsung before. She had been received as a princess, but all the members of the household were strangers.

If only Huan Tsung had been there! Old Huan Tsung who used to smuggle sweetmeats to her in baby days, who had given her that pet name of Fah Lo Suee, because, he said, she was like a budding lily blossom.

She stood up restlessly and went out into an adjoining room equipped in purely Chinese fashion. There were panels of ivory and jade, rare and beautiful rugs, rose porcelain. The furniture might have, and possibly had, come from an Emperor's palace. There was a faint perfume, blended of musk and sandalwood, and the lamps were hidden in frames of painted silk.

Mrs van Roorden crossed to windows screened by ebony fretwork, and opened a screen. A warm breeze met her as she stepped out on to the balcony and stood there looking down at Fifth Avenue far below and then across the Park to where tall buildings on Central Park West loomed up, monstrous, against the evening sky.

What, she asked herself for the hundredth time, had become of Sha Mu? Had he failed altogether — been arrested? She was not prepared to believe this. His stealthy cunning had never failed before. It was barely possible that he might still be waiting for an opportunity. Even the uncanny skill with which he could make himself almost invisible would not have enabled him to hide in the hotel so long without being challenged.

Who was the man who called himself Fordwich? Only by a fleeting glance in a mirror had Sha Mu been able to identify his attacker. And it had proved hopeless to attempt anything on the ship. Something was seriously wrong. But she dare not call the hotel.

Mrs van Roorden returned to the softly lighted room. A Chinese girl stood there. She wore native dress, and her eyes were modestly downcast. She had a shy grace of movement which remained one of a gazelle.

"My lady lacks something?"

Mrs van Roorden smiled.

"Nothing that you can find for me. Mat Cha! Tell me, dear, when did you see your father last?"

"It was nearly a year ago."

"And where is he now?"

Mat Cha shook her glossy head.

"I cannot say. I never know."

"But this apartment is always kept open?"

"Always, my lady. He might return at any time."

"How I wish he would return tonight," Mrs van Roorden murmured; and then: "May I ask you something, Mai Cha?"

"Anything you wish."

"Has Sir Denis Nayland Smith ever been here?"

The dark eyes were raised to her in mild astonishment.

"But no. Of course not. He is my father's enemy. He has never known that we live here. The apartment was bought by someone else — on my father's behalf."

"But you know Nayland Smith?"

"I have seen him, my lady. But not for many, many months."

Mrs van Roorden moved towards the bedroom.

"Don't bother about me, Mai Cha," she smiled. "I shall not be going out for a long time yet… "

Centre Street that night resembled a wasp's nest.

An inoffensive businessman, purely because of deep interest in the fascinating Mrs van Roorden, which had impelled him to force his acquaintance upon Mr Fordwich, had become an instrument of justice. Unwittingly he had carried on the work of a star secret agent.

Motorcycle patrolmen, radio cars, shot into the dusk like earth-bound rockets. Phones buzzed. The private line to Washington stayed red hot for hours. And Nayland Smith, in the office of his old friend. Deputy Commissioner Burke, a heavy powerful man with black, tufted eyebrows and greying hair, smoked his foul pipe incessantly as if in competition with Burke's strong cigars.

Raymond Harkness inhaled cigarettes in swift succession, each neatly fitted into a tortoiseshell holder. He displayed no other signs of excitement.

"This card," said Nayland Smith, "which Harkness found wedged between the leather cover and the silver of poor Or-son's flask, is clearly intended to admit him to a meeting at the house of Kwang Tsee, wherever that may be, at two a.m. tomorrow morning, September 10th — that is, tonight. It has the Si-Fan crest at the top."

"Not a doubt of it," Burke growled in his deep bass. "He meant to pick up the stick and the flask just as soon as he thought it was safe. If I could have a hand in cleaning up this Fu Manchu gang before I retire next year, I'd go to growing watermelons with a light heart."

"The Fu Manchu gang," Smith rapped back, "is too big to be cleaned up overnight. But we have a chance to get some of the high executives and to break the Fort Knox scheme." He glanced at a clock over Burke's desk. "I'm waiting for news about the house of Kwang T'see!"

"So am I," Burke agreed, and was about to ring when a rap sounded on the door and Police Captain Rafferty came in.

He saluted Burke with the deference due to a dreaded but respected chief.

"I have a report on Kwang T'see, sir."

"Spill it."

"The only man of that name known in the Chinatown area is the proprietor of a store formerly owned by old Huan Tsung."

"That settles it!" said Nayland Smith drily. "Go ahead."

"Huan Tsung disappeared about a year ago. We wanted him, you may remember, but we could pin nothing on him. This man, Kwang T'see, bought the business. He's enlarged it. He owns a big warehouse in the next street, same block, stocked with antiques from the East. He lives somewhere on the premises. Nothing against him… "

When Rafferty was gone, with a number of instructions:

"I guess this Kwang T'see is a dummy. Smith," said Burke. "What's your idea?"

"The same as yours. A Chinatown base is characteristic of Dr Fu Manchu."

"You knew Huan Tsung fairly well, didn't you?"

Raymond Harkness smiled but said nothing.

"You exaggerate!" Nayland Smith assured him. "I never really knew him at all. He was once governor of a Chinese province. He is now Dr Fu Manchu's chief aide. He's a first-class soldier although of incalculable age. If Chiang Kai-shek had had him on his staff, the Communists would be nowhere in China today. I have had several skirmishes with General Huan Tsung Chao, to give him his full name, but never won one yet!"

"The whole thing drops dead," Burke declared, "if any news has leaked about the slaughter in Room 113."

"No leakage has occurred," came Harkness' gentle assurance. "No one saw the baskets taken out. The room remains sealed. I arranged for Mr Thurston to dine and spend the night with friends of mine in Bronxville, where there is gay company. He has driven there in one of our cars."

Nayland Smith's grim face relaxed in a smile. It was a smile which betrayed the schoolboy who had never grown up.

"Clean, smart, efficient work," he commented. "Satisfied, Burke?"

"I guess so. It's up to us, now. We know that Fu Manchu is playing for recognition. He figures that if performers with records like that old crosstalk act. Hitler and Mussolini, not to mention artists still with us, have been allowed a place in public life — why not Dr Fu Manchu?"

"And why not?" Nayland Smith challenged. "He has the brains of all of them rolled into one."

"Must have," Burke agreed. "You've been down to Fort Knox and you know that a consignment of gold in one of the vaults, still in the boxes it was shipped in, has been turned into something that looks like lead!"

"Quite so! In accordance with Fu Manchu's threat to Washington. Contents of the other twenty-seven vaults are still intact."

"But the Treasury's nearly crazy," Harkness said quietly. "Already, the loss is enormous. If the further threat of the Si-Fan to destroy the entire reserve is made good, the financial stability of the United States will lie in the hands of those people!"

"And we can't find out how it was done," Burke groaned. "It sounds like a miracle. Fu Manchu knows that such losses have to be officially denied. Otherwise we'd have a financial panic. He aims to blackmail Washington into recognising him."

"He wants to see the Si-Fan where the Nazis and the Fascists stood — where the Soviets stand today!"

"When this conference assembles," Burke pointed out, "even if we manage to grab the lot we shan't know what we want to know."

"There's another point." Harkness fitted a fresh cigarette into his holder. "News of it might speed up the action we want to stop. Our information clearly indicates that Fu Manchu won't be present, and we may have no evidence whatever against the others."

Nayland Smith began to walk about restlessly.

"The meeting must not be disturbed. It's the best chance we're ever likely to have of finding out what happened to that gold in Fort Knox, and of taking steps to see that it doesn't happen again."

"But /low?" Burke shouted.

"Surely it's obvious. They will all be masked. I regard it as highly unlikely — a hundred to one against — that Mrs van Roorden ever suspected Orson of being a Si-Fan deputy. What could be more simple… I'll take his place!"

Mrs van Roorden leaned over the balcony, watching two streams of light, one north bound, the other south, which represented Fifth Avenue, below. No individual light could be picked out; just two long, luminous ribbons broken only when 6, red traffic signal checked their flow.

She wore the green gown which she had worn at the purser's party on the Lauretania. This, for two reasons: the first, that she despised ideas of good and bad luck, the second, that It amused her to dress to the green mask she must wear at the Si-Fan conference.

The unaccountable disappearance of Sha Mu, her Burmese bodyguard, was disturbing and ominous.

But, whatever the explanation, she could do nothing at all about it — yet.

No amount of interrogation would extract anything from Sha Mu. What little he knew was negligible and he spoke no language other than the Shan dialect.

So that, whatever had happened, no clue could be picked up from it leading either to the time or to the place of the Si-Fan meeting. As to the man, Fordwich, there was no longer any room for doubt… He had been covering her since their first meeting in Java. He was a secret service agent, either of Great Britain or of the United States.

But, although she taxed her memory unmercifully she could recall not one slip she had made. All the same, it must have Occurred; for he had searched her room, and had taken nothing but the letter from her father which betrayed her identity.

Where was that letter now? Highly probable that every precinct in New York City had a description of the appearance of Dr Fu Manchu's daughter!

She smiled, turned, and went into the softly lighted room, redolent of old memories. Mat Cha, who had been seated, reading, stood up as the graceful figure appeared.

"Sit down, dear. There's no need for ceremony when we are alone.'* She addressed the girl in English, which she spoke without trace of accent.

"Thank you," Mai Cha said simply, and obeyed.

"I have had the same training as you," Mrs van Roorden sank onto a low settee. "The beautiful old courtesies. But we both live in a new world. Perhaps we shall never know that old world of ours again. You are to be my guide tonight?"

"Yes, my lady. Those are my orders. But I was told… "

Mai Cha hesitated.

"Yes, dear, what were you told?"

"That Sha Mu would follow, to protect us if necessary."

"You know Sha Mu?"

"He was here a year ago."

"He landed with me. But I am sorry to say he has disappeared!"

"That is bad," Mai Cha murmured.

Mrs van Roorden studied her. She was very young to be a child of Huan Tsung. Her mother must have been pretty, for beauty was not a characteristic of the old mandarin.

"We must go alone. I am a stranger to New York, Mai Cha. Is it far?"

"Quite a long way. We can take the car nearly to where we are going and then we must walk."

"I wonder if you can find me a cloak to put over my frock?"

"Certainly, my lady. I was told to do so."

The careful staff work of Huan Tsung could be detected in this. What he had not foreseen was the loss of her credentials — so that she must convince six men, e.ach one risking his liberty, six men who had never met her before, that she was authorised to preside over their conference…

The car in which Nayland Smith was being driven to Kwang T'see's house of mystery slowed up at a selected point, and Harkness got in. Although the black sedan belonged to Headquarters, there was nothing visible to indicate this fact, and the police driver wore plain clothes.

"Turn right at the lights," Harkness directed, "and cruise along the river front slowly."

"What news?" Nayland Smith asked.

"The meeting is at Kwang's beyond doubt." Harkness fitted a cigarette into his holder. "Something afoot there all right. And we have settled one point that was bothering you. Visitors aren't going in at the store; they're ringing a private bell beside the door on the other street. Small office belonging to the warehouse."

"There have been visitors, then?" Smith rapped. "How many?"

Harkness nodded as he lighted his cigarette.

"Two, so far. Strangers to the area. And both carried cases."

"Similar to Orson's which I have here?"

"That's it. The first man arrived on the dot of One-thirty-five. Exactly at one-forty, the second came along… Ah! here's a report."

He lifted the 'phone, listened, said "Go on reporting," then hung up, "Another?"

"Number three was there on the stroke of one-forty-five. I expect you follow my line of reasoning. Sir Denis?"

"Clearly. The cards are timed so that no two deputies arrive together. My card says: 'Two a.m/ — So I'm evidently expected to be the sixth arrival. Do they all come alone?"

"Yes. On foot."

"Hm."

Nayland Smith stared out across the River, through a gap in dock buildings, to where the Jersey City skyline stretched like far-flung ramparts of some giant castle. A launch of the Harbour Patrol went by, its crew ignorant of the fact that a conspiracy to upset the stability of the United States was brewing close on shore.

"I don't like this business," Harkness remarked in his gentle way. "It's believed, but has never been proved, that the cellars under both those places intercommunicate, in fact form a perfect warren in the time-honoured Chinese style."

"What of it? You may remember that I know something about Huan Tsung's cellars, anyway. Been down there before. Point is, if anything goes wrong, you know I'm there and you know where to look for me."

"Yes. But I feel this should be my job, not yours."

"The hell you do!" rapped Nayland Smith, his eyes suddenly steely. "Don't misunderstand me, Harkness. I quite follow and I appreciate. But, now that poor Orson is gone, there's probably no man outside the Si-Fan who knows more about the organisation than I do. No. Definitely it's my job."

Harkness sighed.

"You have memorised the notes pencilled on Orson's report?"

"I have. But I don't know what some of them mean. I wonder if he had a premonition of what was to happen? Or were they intended to refresh his own memory?"

The notes referred to had been scribbled on the back of one of the typed pages hidden in Orson's hollow stick. They were:

Ring seven times Si-Fan. The Seven Give up card Mask. Gown Seven rings. Sixth bell "The first one's clear enough," Harkness said. "You ring the doorbell seven times. The others are incomprehensible. I can only hope that their meaning will come to you when you get inside. But if anything goes wrong, you know what to do?"

"Certainly. But I should hate to disturb the party before it had properly begun."

The arrival of a fourth man at Kwang's door had been reported:

"Time we were moving," Smith said, rapidly, and glanced at the illuminated dial of his wrist-watch. "Better put the glasses on!"

At a word from Harkness, the sedan shot forward at sudden speed, swerved swiftly left and swept almost noiselessly into a dark street. At this hour of the night on the outskirts of the Asiatic quarter, windows were blackened, there were few people on the sidewalk. These mean houses might have been uninhabited.

Even the show places onMott and Pell Street would be closing. Only one prepared to explore deep in secret burrows could hope to penetrate to the shady side of Eastern life in Manhattan's Chinatown.

The big car came to a sudden halt.

"You can't miss the door," Harkness said. "Remember-I'm standing byl"

Nayland Smith, wearing no disguise other than heavy-rimmed glasses (with plain lenses), got out. He carried Sel-wyn Orson's small leather case. They had driven past the establishment of Kwang T'see an hour before, and it was impossible for him to make any mistake.

As he walked slowly along, he paid an unspoken compliment to the police arrangements, whereby several men had been placed, earlier, so that they commanded a view of Kwang T'see's office door. The store on the next street was also under close observation.

He had the whole of the New York Police Department behind him… and the unknown before…

"We must walk from here, my lady."

Mrs van Roorden alighted from the car. Her green gown was hidden by a dark rainproof coat, the hood pulled over her head. A satchel hung from a strap across her shoulder. Mai Cha, hatless, and wearing a cheap frock in place of her native dress, had stepped out first and held the car door open. The chauffeur sat, silent, at the wheel.

There was garbage piled on the dirty sidewalk. The dingy houses looked as though they had been deserted in a plague. Two or three dilapidated automobiles were parked along the street.

"This is a dreadful neighbourhood, Mai Cha."

"Yes. It is bad. I worked near here for a long time. But further up it is better."

"Which way do we go?"

"To the corner. Then around, half way along the block."

"The car will wait?"

"Of course, my lady."

The warmth of the night had grown sultry. Clouds gathered, to add to the gloom of the depressing street. They had nearly reached the corner when Mrs van Roorden heard the sound of a started engine. She stopped, turned.

"You told me the chauffeur would waft?"

"He will wait, my lady." Mai Cha's placid voice remained soft, soothing. "I shall know where to find him."

They came to the corner, and Mrs van Roorden stood back against a wall decorated with a Chinese poster. A heavily built man, a half-caste of some sort, picturesquely drunk, had al most bumped into her. He pulled up, stared at her, stared at Mai Cha, and staggered on.

"Let's hurry!"

Mrs van Roorden was coolly composed, but delicately disgusted. Her composure might have faltered if she had known that the drunken halfcaste was one of Raymond Harkness' men. That he had returned to the corner to watch them and that, two minutes later, he would report: "The woman has gone in."

They hurried along to a door set beside double, barred gates.

"Here is the bell, my lady. I shall be waiting for you to come out."

Nayland Smith five minutes before, had pressed the same bell — seven times.

An interval followed, during which nothing happened. Then, there was a faint clicking sound. Realising that it operated mechanically. Smith pushed the door — and found himself in a complete blackout, stuffy, airless. The door closed behind him.

He stood still for a moment, trying to get his bearings in (he dark. But he could see nothing, hear nothing. He wondered what he should do next, thought of Orson's notes — and had an idea.

"Si-Fan. The Seven!" he called.

A mechanical rumbling followed, heavy, dull, thunderous. A second door was being opened. In that utter darkness he saw a panel of faint green light. It enlarged as he watcher, became a wide rectangular gap.

He found himself looking out into a dimly illuminated place which resembled Aladdin's cave. It was the warehouse referred to by Police Captain Rafferty.

This green light came from a solitary lamp far away in cavernous darkness, but coming out of even more complete darkness, Nayland Smith's eyes quickly became accustomed to it. He glanced around — and was amazed.

Here was a fabulous treasure-house.

The distant light was from a silver mosque lamp fitted with green glass; one of the objects of art with which this incredible place was crowded. Piled upon the floor wete rugs and carpets of Kermanshah, of Khorassan, of the looms of China. Here was furniture of lemonwood, ivory, exquisitely inlaid, some of it with semi-precious stones; lacquer and enamel caskets, robes heavy with gold brocades and gems, pagan gods, swords, jars and bowls of delicate porcelain.

He looked back at the door by which he had entered, for he had heard it closing.

It was a metal door, set in a steel frame.

Clearly, Kwang Tsee did not rely on burglary insurance. But, setting aside certain qualms aroused by this unbreakable door, Nayland Smith concentrated upon the next move.

It was highly probable that the real delegates were familiar with the routine, and his only chance of safety lay in divining what this routine was. He hesitated for no more than twenty seconds.

Picking a route along a sort of alleyway amid priceless pieces, some of them fragile, he paused under the green lamp. It was suspended before a drapery of magnificent Chinese tapestry which only partly concealed another metal door. The ingenuity of the scheme, carried out without care for cost, earned his admiration.

These steel doors could be explained readily by the proprietor of such a collection as this. But other than a bank strongroom, no safer place could well be imagined for a meeting of conspirators.

A ticking sound, ominously like that of a time-bomb, drew his glance swiftly upward.

From somewhere in the shadowy roof an object that looked like a lacquered tray, suspended on thin metal chains, was descending slowlyl Lower it came, and lower, until it swung within reach of his hand.

Feverishly, Nayland Smith reviewed the pencilled notes.

Give up card… He might be right, he might be wrong. But to hesitate would certainly be fatal.

Taking from his pocket the card found in Orson's flask, Smith dropped it in the tray and gently twitched the chain.

The tray was wound up again.

A moment after it had been swallowed in the shadows of the roof beams, that now familiar rumbling was repeated. He saw that the halfdraped door had begun to open. When the opening became wide enough, he stepped through.

The rumbling ceased for three seconds, was renewed — and the metal door closed upon his entrance.

He was in a small, square room, unfurnished except for a long couch and a row of pegs on the wall, and lighted by one ceiling lamp. A number of cases and handbags lay on the settee. Two robes, or gowns, rather like those of university bachelors but of a dull green colour, hung on the pegs.

His next step was crystal clear… Mask. Gown.

Taking out the hideous green mask, he removed his glasses and fitted it onto his head. It was contrived so as to cover the hair, and made of some flexible, lightweight material. The mouth aperture was hidden by a sort of grating, but the eyeholes were not obstructed in any way.

Orson's case he laid on the settee, where five others lay already. None of the cases was initialled, he noted. Then he draped one of the two voluminous gowns over his shoulders.

And now came the crucial test:

Seven rings. Sixth bell.

What in the name of reason, did that mean? He inspected the room closely. Apart from the heavy, mechanical door now shutting him off from the world of normal men, he could see no other way in or out. But he saw something else: a narrow board, with seven green buttons. Reaching out, Nayland Smith pressed the button numbered six. He pressed it seven times.

Throughout, no human sound had reached him; but he could not dismiss an impression of being covertly watched. So far, he believed, he had done nothing to betray himself. So that, unless the unseen watcher had recognised him, his course still remained clear.

As for anything which might happen now, he was totally without guidance and must rely on his wits.

His pressure on the bell-push had produced no audible result. Complete silence claimed the small room. He was just beginning to wonder, uneasily, if he had misread Orson's last note, when a second door, camouflaged so cleverly in a wall that he had overlooked it, slid almost noiselessly open.

Nayland Smith stood at the head of a flight of concrete steps.

He was about to enter the secret cellars!

Smiling grimly (from now onward he stood alone against the Si-Fan) he began to go down.

The stairs led to a long, paved passage. It seemed to end before semitransparent green draperies. Evidently green was the Si-Fan colour. Light showed through the drapes.

And then, at last, a silence which had been disturbed only by the sound of his footsteps on the stair, was broken.

It was broken so sharply that he started, clenched his fists.

Six strokes on a deep-toned gong echoed, eerily, from wall to wall of the passage…

Raymond Harkness had just received the report, "The woman has gone in," when he noted a disturbance outside the vard in which the black sedan was parked. He stubbed out a cigarette he had been inhaling and sat quite still to listen.

A bulky figure appeared — and came right up to the open window.

"Who is it?" Harkness asked, sharply.

The glowing end of a big cigar was poked right in.

"Who does it look like?" Burke's growling bass inauired. "Your Aunt Fanny? Suppose I could wear out the seat of my pants with a show like this on? I have all the dope up to Smith going in. What's new since then?"

"The woman has gone in."

"Was she alone?"

"She went in alone. But a girl came out with her."

"Where's this girl?"

"She walked around to Kwang Tsee's store."

"Fine! We know where to find her. Did they come in a car?"

"Yes. But they left it too far away for anybody to pick it up. The car was driven off."

"Lousy!" Burke growled. "Oh, lousy! Nobody tailing it?"

"Rafferty reports there wasn't time. It was off the moment the owner got out."

"I'll talk to Rafferty, later. Is it certain, stone-sure certain, that every possible bolt-hole is plugged up?"

"There's a cordon right around the two blocks. You see, this car stopped outside the netted area—"

"Forget it! How long are we to give Smith to try to find out what we want to know before we go look for him?"

Harkness fitted a cigarette into his holder. "As I'm not in charge tonight, sir, that must rest with you."

Nayland Smith pulled the green draperies aside and stepped into a room which challenged his sanity.

It was a square room having no visible opening except the one through which he had come in. The green draperies were carried around all four walls and up to the centre of the ceiling, so that the interior resembled a tent. Its sole furniture consisted of a shaded lamp suspended on a chain over a circular ebony table around which were placed seven ebony chairs. Before each of the chairs a disk with a number stood on the gleaming surface.

Five green-masked, green-robed figures arose as he entered. Nayland Smith clenched his teeth, trying to assure himself that he had not been drugged in some subtle way, that this was not delirium.

Five pairs of eyes stared from five masks as the deputies saluted him by swinging their right hand across so that it rested, palm outward, over the heart. No word was spoken. Reverberations of six gong strokes still haunted the air.

He returned the salute, and sat down in an ebony chair placed before a disk numbered six.

The five masked men resumed their seats in silence.

Was he accepted — or did this ominous and unnatural silence mean that they were waiting for him to carry out some part of the ritual not mentioned in poor Orson's hastily scribbled notes? Furtively, he glanced from mask to mask, trying to detect any signal one to another. No such communion was visible. These men were waiting — but for what? It was a nightmare. Temptation to exchange some word with his neighbours became nearly irresistible. His heart was beating over-fast. Perhaps he wasn't the man he had been. His mental reserves might be failing him. He fixed his gaze on the only vacant place at the circular table. It faced him almost directly.

And it was numbered One.

Nayland Smith reviewed the mumbo-jumbo practised by other secret societies of which he had knowledge, the Fascist and the Nazi ceremonies, hunting for some parallel. In fact, this silence was getting his nerves on edge.

Almost with relief, although it startled him, he heard a deep gong note. One!

The five masked men stood up, and Nayland Smith did the same. Light footsteps became audible beyond the green draperies. The curtain was swept aside and a masked woman entered the room.

Her entrance was a signal for the first human sound to disturb that ghostty company. A wordless murmur swept around the ebony table.

Ignoring it, the woman gave the Si-Fan salute, walking slowly to the vacant chair. The salute was returned. But a new silence had fallen. It was an uneasy silence.

She carried the green cloak on her arm, and now draped it over the back of her chair. Light from the hanging lamp gleamed on white shoulders as she took her seat. The men, imitated by Nayland Smith, slowly sat down. But many glances were exchanged across the table. Her face concealed by the grotesque mask, Fu Manchu's daughter looked like an incarnation of the goddess Ishtar.

Coolly, without hesitation, she began to speak in that bell-like voice which Nayland Smith remembered — bad good reason never to forget.

She greeted the deputies briefly, in French, English, German and Arabic. Unmistakably the French greeting was addressed to him. His deduction, from certain evidence, that Selwyn Or-son had posed as a Frenchman had apparently been correct Greetings over, she continued in English.

"You were expecting the President, my father. This I know, for he has appointed me to act for him in his unavoidable absence. As I am a stranger to all present tonight, he gave me his sealed authority to represent him." She shrugged nonchalantly. "It was stolen from my cabin on the ship by a dangerously clever agent who evidently knows far too much about the SiFan for our safety."

Number Five, who sat next to Nayland Smith, speaking English with a German accent, said that it was well known they had a clever agent somewhere amongst them; for top secrets had already leaked out.

There was a loud murmur of agreement. Unfriendly eyes became focussed on the woman; but:

"A great decision has to be made tonight," she went on coolly. "You are aware that we have brought pressure to bear upon Washington in an effort to induce the United States Government to give support to our president's plan to drive Communism out of the East."

No one spoke. Six pairs of eyes watched her.

"It was decided to implement words by action. Washington was notified that unless our friendly intentions were recognised and our proposals considered, a small demonstration of the powers at our disposal would be made: the gold in one of the vaults at Fort Knox would be destroyed."

"This," (it was the guttural voice again) "is knowledge common to ourselves and also to the United States authorities. I have a question to put… "

There were assenting murmurs.

"Later, if you please." Through the openings in her mask Smith could see those blazing jade-green eyes. "I have more to say."

The musical, imperious voice reduced the meeting to silence.

"What is not common knowledge — a fact known only to a few of us and to a few United States officials — is that the threat was carried out. No one knows, but I am authorised to tell you, how it was done."

Nayland Smith almost literally held his breath. A mystery which had defied scientists and expert investigators, himself among them, was about to be unveiled. Furthermore, he was fascinated, wholly enthralled, by the magnetic personality of this woman, her power to dominate desperate men who doubted her identity, who knew that life or liberty might be the forfeit of accepting an imposter.

"My father," she continued quietly, "has always known that the old alchemists were wrong only in one vital particular. Whilst it is impracticable to transmute base metal to gold, it is practicable to transmute gold to base metal. For many years he carried out experiments with a Runsen beam. The Riinsen beam, as you may be aware, is a kind of super X-ray."

And now — it seemed, against their better judgement — the five men were listening intently as Nayland Smith listened.

"It has the property of penetrating nearly everything, even steel or concrete. It is invisible. But gold resists the beam, which cannot penetrate it. Dr Fu Manchu succeeded in amplifying the Riinsen process, producing a Riinsen Beam II. Gold still resisted it, but, to speak unscientifically, died in the attempt."

"Explain further, if you please."

The request came from Number Two. Nayland Smith had already noted his slim, Arab hands.

"But certainly. The effect is to disturb what my father described as the 'atomic poise* of gold, and to break it down (I quote him again) 'to its primeval elements'."

"But how," (the guttural once more) "was this beam operated upon Fort Knox?"

White shoulders dimpled in a shrug.

"It was not operated upon Fort Knox. A consignment of gold, worth twenty-four million dollars and meant to be stored there, was dealt with on the high seas. A plane circled low over the ship and a Riinsen Beam II was directed upon the bullion-room in which the gold was packed. The sealed cases were never opened until Washington was advised by the president of our council to examine their contents."

Excitement became vibrant, but no word was uttered until a third voice, speaking cultured English (Nayland Smith identified Number Three), asked:

"Assuming, Madame, without prejudice, that what you tell us is true, how are we to proceed, if Washington remains obstinate, to any further demonstration of what you termed *the powers at our disposal'?"

Without hesitation, the bell voice replied:

"Quite simply."

Nayland Smith clenched his teeth, glancing swiftly right and left. A pad and pencil were placed before each delegate, and one of them (number Seven) had already made several notes. Smith's Germanic neighbour seemed to have brought notes with him. A large wallet lay at his elbow and he was fingering a card on which appeared a mass of neat writing.

But, as the silvery voice paused, and jade-green eyes searched each mask in turn, no one spoke.

"Quite simply. We have a plane with a maximum ceiling of 45,000 feet."

A sound of sharply drawn breaths alone interrupted.

"At a height of 40,000 feet it is already beyond interception by any type of fighter possessed by the United States Air Force, and ground defences are useless. Dr Fu Manchu has completed a radio-controlled torpedo equipped with a proxim-ty fuse. Its explosion releases energy almost identical with that of Riinsen Beam II."

Nayland Smith scribbled rapidly, in shorthand, which he hoped neither of his immediate neighbours understood:

"Bomber attack planned on Fort Knox from 40,000 feet. Fighter patrol at highest ceiling might intercept or at least give warning… "

"Some of the energy would be dispersed, but a considerable quantity of gold could be transmuted to that metal new to metallurgists which my father has named voluminum."

"Madame." The light voice was that of Number Seven. "Is there any substance which is non-conductive of this energy?"

"Only one," came a prompt reply. "Voluminum. A thin coat of voluminum would suffice."

Nayland Smith wrote rapidly: "All gold at Fort Knox must, immediately, be protected by a thin coating of the unknown metal found in those cases which were recently opened. Urgent. Nayland Smith."

There came slight, nervous movement around the table; glances were exchanged. But that compelling voice continued:

"From such a height, accurate observation is impossible. As it is vital that the first attack shall succeed (for when it takes place, the remaining gold will certainly be removed elsewhere), the purpose of this meeting is to select from among ourselves reliable ground observers. They must be near enough to Port Knox to be able to report correctly, by radio, to the attacking plane which will carry four torpedoes. You have all been chosen for your special knowledge and experience. Several amongst you are intimately acquainted with the district Great ingenuity will be called for. Great danger must be incurred. But ground observers are indispensable. A second pilot must also be appointed. I await your suggestions."

Number Four, who had not spoken yet, anticipated everybody. He had fat, white hands and curiously oily tones. "My first suggestion is this: that before we commit ourselves any further, we take steps to make sure that the extraordinary absence of our honoured president and the appearance here of a charming lady none of us knows does not mean that we have all walked into a trap."

The German beside Nayland Smith banged the table and sprang to his feet.

"This is just what I have been wanting to say! All she has told us may be fabrication! Where, I demand, is Dr Fu Man-chu? Who, I demand, is this lady?'* Nayland Smith quietly tore off his shorthand note, folded it neatly on his knees — and by an apparent accident knocked the speaker's wallet off the table.

"Pardon, M'sieu!"

He stooped, slipped his note in amongst a number of papers, and restored the wallet to its place. He was adopting the tactics of the late Selwyn Orson. His own life hung in the balance here, but when the men left Kwang Tsee's premises it was near-certain they would be picked up by the cordon of FBI agents and police surrounding the block.

"I agree," came the English voice, "that we are entitled to ask for a few more particulars."

Mrs van Roorden stood up, slowly, languidly, and faced the German.

"Sol You have the audacity to challenge your president's daughter! You are so great a fool that you think I am the spy in our ranks!" Her glance moved from mask to mask. "Is there no sane man amongst you? Are you so ready to invite the anger of Dr Fu Manchu?"

Nayland Smith's brain was working at top speed. This situation did not suit him. The meeting must adjourn amicably. Any change of plan might ruin everything.

He inhaled a deep breath, wondered if he had chosen the right tack, and spoke stiffly in French.

"Madame — fellow deputies. It chances that (his lady is wrong in supposing that none of us knows her by sight. 7 know Dr Fu Manchu's daughter. You will agree that she cannot unmask before us all. And so I suggest that she and I retire for a few moments so that I may verify my belief that this is indeed the daughter of our honoured president. If it is so, I have means to enable her to convince you."

There was a momentary silence, broken by the German.

"To this I can see no objection. I ask for a show of hands."

All hands were raised.

Nayland Smith bowed to Mrs van Roorden, crossed and held the green drapes aside. They went into the paved passage. A babel of words burst behind them.

They had walked right to the foot of the stairs before the woman halted. There, she turned, impatiently removed the green mask and faced Nayland Smith, a contemptuous smile upon her lips.

"Well, monsieur? You claim to know me. Are you satisfied?"

He was accepted. She spoke in French. He was amazed, as always, vaguely disturbed, by her beauty. Aspasia, Leontium, Faustine must have been such women. He had no idea of her age, had never known what mother bore her; but she was dangerously alluring. Her jade-green eyes had some of the hypnotic quality of her father's, allied to an appeal seductively feminine.

"I have known all along," he replied, continuing in French, which he spoke accurately but awkwardly. "In fact, to provide against misadventure, Madame, I carry a second sealed authority from the president."

He handed her the parchment found in the jade baton.

She glanced at it, then fixed the penetrating gaze of those wonderful eyes upon him.

"You are therefore a high initiate, monsieur. I had not been informed of this. What are the wishes of my honoured father?"

"That you adjourn the meeting, Madame."

He was answered by a smile, at once voluptuous and mocking. She replaced her mask.

"Let us go back."

Excited voices died away as Nayland Smith held the green curtain aside and Fu Manchu's daughter walked slowly to her chair. The five masked men stood up until Nayland Smith had resumed his place, and then:

"Be seated, if you please," the bell voice ordered.

All resumed their seats — except the last speaker. She stood for a moment, a graceful, indolent figure, and then tossed the sealed document across the table to the German.

"My father, who foresees most things, took the precaution of sending a second authority, bearing his seal, by the hand of Deputy Six. When you have satisfied yourself, be good enough to pass it around."

Number Five no more than glanced at the parchment. He stood up, bowed, and gave the Si-Fan salute. Mrs van Roorden resumed her seat, resting one ivory arm across the carved ebony back of her chair as if deliberately to display the beauty of its curves.

The letter passed from hand to hand. One deputy after another rose and gave the Si-Fan salute. When the parchment was returned to the slender hand which had thrown it on the table, Mrs van Roorden stood up again.

"I am adjourning the meeting." Another murmur, in which fear might be detected, swept around the board. "You will await instructions as to time and place of the next. I am instructed to tell you that you leave by another route, to which you will be guided, one by one, and in the order of your arrival. Masks to be worn until you reach the door."

The six men stood up and saluted. Number Three bowed and went out.

Nayland Smith silently repeated those words, "the order of your arrival."

He would be left alone with Fu Manchu's daughter.

Deputy Commissioner Burke was getting restive; so much so that he had allowed his cigar to go out. He had just begun to growl something when the 'phone in the control car buzzed. Harkness took it up. Listening, he whistled softly, asked several questions and hung up.

"What's moving?"

"The first man to go in has just come out. But he came out of Kwang's store!"

"Who is he?"

"You'll be surprised. Sir Mostyn Bierce, English baronet, ex-Member of Parliament."

"Jumping JupiterI"

"He was suspected of Fascist sympathies at one time. He's a celebrated racing motorist. And he's married to an American wife with a home not fifty miles from Fort Knox. Anyway, he's in the bag."

"You're dead sure he was picked up far enough off to escape observation by the gang?"

"He was covered until he had reached his Cadillac, which he had parked half a mile away. When he stepped in, two of the boys stepped in behind him."

The next catch was Colonel Otto von Seidler, German gunnery expert, and a former military attache in Washington.

Then came Dr Griswal, atomic scientist; quickly followed by Captain Cooper, ex-pilot United States Air Force. Cooper for a time had been in charge of the air defences of Fort Knox. Lastly, they picked up the Emir Abdulla al-Abbas, prominent left-wing politician from Trans-Jordania; well-known in diplomatic society and an international polo player.

"There's nothing against any of them," Harkness remarked, "except that they all carry green masks."

"There'll be plenty against 'em by the time I'm through!" Burke predicted darkly. "Where's Smith? Where's this woman? If they aren't out in five minutes, we're going in."

Another buzz sounded.

"This may be news of them!" Harkness took up the phone, listened, and then: "Hold the line for the Deputy Commissioner," he said, and turned to Burke.

"They've just finished working over Colonel Seidler. Among a lot of papers in his wallet they found a shorthand message which he swears he didn't know was there. It says a bomber attack is planned on Fort Knox, and that all the gold has to be protected in some way I'm not clear about… the message is signed Nayland Smith."

"By God! they've got him!" Burke snatched the phone. "Commissioner Burke here. I'm coming right over." He hung up. "This is where we divide forces. Break Kwang's place wide open. Explore every rathole. Use dynamite if necessary."

When Deputy Number Two — last to leave — had performed the SiFan salute with that delicate but muscular brown hand, had bowed and retired, there followed a few moments of almost unendurable silence. Nayland Smith, staring fixedly at a draped wall half-right of where he sat, tried to avoid those jade-green eyes. But always, he knew that they were watching him.

What was this incalculable woman going to do? What was a "high-initiate"? How could he hope, alone with her, to keep up such a part? The effort was not called for.

As the footsteps of the outgoing man died into silence, she raised her arms and removed the mask.

"Surely," she said, her voice very soft, "it is time we tried to understand one another. Sir Denis."

Nayland Smith clenched his hands, stood up, took off his mask and threw it on the ebony table. Perhaps he should have forseen that this woman he had known by her childish name of Fah Lo Suee, later as Madame Ingomar, now as Mrs van Roorden, could not be deceived.

He met the gaze of green eyes with the challenge of grey. A panorama of past encounters swept before him. He saw her as she had looked under the skies of Egypt; in an ancient palace on the Grand Canal of Venice; in the more prosaic setting of a London house; he saw her triumphant, he saw her humiliated. When he spoke, his voice sounded harsh in his own ears.

"What do you propose to do?"

She walked, in her indolent fashion, around the table until she was beside him. Then, resting against it, her fingers on its edge, she faced him again, and smiled.

"I suppose," she said, "as you are here, that all the members whom I dismissed will now be in the hands of the police? I am not infallible, you know. Your French, which is not good, and which you speak slowly, disguised your voice. I grasped the opportunity you offered. Shall I tell you how you betrayed yourself?"

"If it woulrf amuse you.'* "By your hands — when you found yourself alone with me. I could never forget that nervous movement of your hands."

She bent towards him, her lips taunting.

Nayland Smith, conscious of a heightened pulse, for Fah Lo Suee was beautifully dangerous, continued to watch her grimly. The perfume of her near presence must have conquered a lesser man.

"As you forget so little, no doubt you remember that you are the daughter of Dr Fu Manchu, his second self, and that, be tween you and me, Fah Lo Suee, there can never be compromise."

She bent closer. Raising one hand, she rested it on his shoulder. Her wonderful eyes were claiming, absorbing him.

"I have suggested no compromise. You say I am my father's second self." She laughed softly; the laughter of bells. "I am his second self only in this: I know what I want… And I want to be free, forever, of the SiFan'"

Her hand glided across his shoulder, her arm brushing his cheek. Her lips were very near.

"You are a fascinating woman, Fah Lo Suee, but I locked the door on women and the ways of women one day before you were born — at least, as I have no idea when or where you were born, probably before your birth."

But the white arm coiled around his neck, half parted lips drew even closer.

"You think so, DeniSy-you think so. To yourself, you are an old man, because there is silver in your hair. To me you are the dream-man of my life — because I could never make you love me. You are strong, inflexible. So am I. In the service of the Si-Fan, failure is not permitted. Excuses are not listened to. I have failed — and I dare not go back."

Her lips now were trembling on his own. He seemed to be losing his soul in the deep green pools of her eyes… "There is a third exit from this place, of which I have of course been told. None of your police will be watching it. Had I recognized you in time, I could have saved all those men." Her voice had dropped to a whisper, her lithe body was pressed to him. "For you there is no exit — unless I choose to guide you to it."

Calling upon the last atom of a weakening resolution. Nay-land Smith unloosed those seductive arms, and, his hands grasping her shoulders, held Fah Lo Suee away from him, looking into her face.

His glance was met by a mocking smile. She knew, had sensed, her power, knew that this iron-willed man was not entirely immune — that she might conquer yet.

"I don't know your object — but you are planning some trap."

"No." Shfe shook her head; she triumphed in the nervous tension of his hands on her bare shoulders. "I am planning to save you from one. It would take a rescue party hours, perhaps days to reach this room. And it can be flooded to the roof in four minutes."

"But suppose I held you here, my prisoner?"

"You must know there is assistance within reach, if I care to call upon it."

"Then — quickly," he rasped, "Say what you mean, and I will give you my answer."

"I mean that I want to come with you! Oh, God! Take me away with you, away from all this — anywhere, anywhere! All I know of the Si-Fan I will tell you. I will bring a flame of passion into your cold, lonely life that will alter the face of the world. Take me with you!"

"The offer," came a quivering sibilant voice, "is an attractive one. I should advise you to accept it. Sir Denis."

Nayland Smith turned in a flash. Fah Lo Suee's face blanched to the whiteness of her shoulders.

The tent-like room appeared to be empty behind him, undisturbed — until one of the green draperies was swept aside, revealing a doorway.

Dr Pu Manchu stood in it watching them.

He wore a long black, fur-lined coat, as if newly arrived from a cold journey. His massive head was uncovered, save for its scanty, neutral-coloured hair. And his features were contorted with a fury almost maniacal.

Hampered by the gown, Nayland Smith's attempt to draw his automatic was fumbled.

"Glance beyond me!"

It was a sibilant command. Smith obeyed it. From shadows of a stairway at the foot of which Fu Manchu was standing, two blue-grey barrels glittered.

Dr Fu Manchu came in, and began, step by feline step, slowly, to approach the cringing woman. His taloned fingers opened and closed as though itching to clutch her throat. A pair of those stocky Burmese whom he used as bodyguards stepped in behind him. They carried heavy automatics, "Little serpent!" he hissed in Chinese. "Bred of an evil mother. Why have I cherished you so long? Again and again you have struck at me, treacherously. Again and again I have relented in my purpose to destroy you."

Fah Lo Suee shrank back and back. Relentlessly, he contin ued to draw nearer. Without removing that deathly glance from her face, he spoke aside:

"One movement, Nayland Smith, and it will be your last." He advanced another step towards his daughter. "I know, now, but too late, why you begged to be transferred from Java and sent here upon this mission. To betray me! To ruin my labours! To seek out this man — my deadliest enemy — for whom your sensual infatuation has already cost me so dearlyl"

"It isn't true!"

The words came as a whisper, from blanched lips.

"Be silent. Prepare to die with dignity."

As if this sentence of death, for it was no less, had struck some new chord in that complex soul. Pah Lo Suee raised her dark head, and pale, motionless, faced the terrible Doctor.

"You have seen death by the Wire Jacket, in the Six Gates of Wisdom. Such a death as this you merit." Fah Lo Suee did not flinch — but Nayland Smith did. "Since you must die tonight, this cannot be. When your body is found, it will be known that in death as in life you belonged to the SiFan."

From an inner pocket, Dr Fu Manchu took out a small metal box, opened it and snapped up a blue flame. It emitted a slight hissing sound. Nayland Smith clenched his fists, but the bodyguard had drawn nearer. Two barrels were jammed into his ribs.

Fu Manchu delicately extracted a metal seal from the box; grasped Fah Lo Suee with his left arm and pressed the seal to her shoulder. She uttered never a sound. But Smith had a glimpse of clenched white teeth between parted lips.

A muffled explosion shook the cellar. The lamp went out. Harkness' raiding party had blasted one of the steel doors.

Out of utter darkness, Fu Manchu spoke:

"Your last triumph. Sir Denis! My careful plans to force the United States government to act with me, and not against me, are shattered. And so, we must part."

The presence of the pistol barrels prohibited any action. Nayland Smith stood still. A theory which he had always held that Dr Fu Manchu could see in the dark, was now strengthened. Horror, a frenzied imagination, might have been responsible. But he thought those emerald green eyes were visibly watching him!

Then, they were gone.

A sharp order in what he recognised as a Shan dialect was spoken. There were faint movements.

The beam of a lamp was directed fully upon him from the hidden opening. The two men retired, covering him all the time. The light was switched off. ' "Good-by, Sir Denis," he heard, in that unforgettable voice.

Silence.

Drenched in perspiration, he threw off the green gown, dragged out his pocket torch, snapped it on and ran to the draped wall.

He wrenched the hangings bodily from their moorings, and began feverishly, to examine the surface behind.

He could find no trace of the concealed door.

But he was still searching for it, when clinging arms crept around him. He turned. And, before he could resist her, Fah Lo Suee's lips were locked to his own.

"Our long battles are over, Denis!" It was a breathless whisper. "We shall die together."

A second explosion rocked the cellar.

Nayland Smith freed himself — but gently. There was madness in that possessive kiss, and he had seen, indelibly seared on one white shoulder, the sign of the Si-Fan:

"What of the stairs?" He spoke hoarsely.

"The door at the top is locked. Those in charge will have escaped. Forgive me for all that has been in the past — for this, too. Promise, when the end comes, that you will hold me in your arms. My courage — might fail."

"I am far from beaten, yetl"

"But listeni"

Nayland Smith listened… to a sound which chilled his heart.

"The cellars are being flooded!"

"Yes. We have four minutes… "

A beam of light suddenly split the gloom, glittered evilly on rivulets of water pouring across the floor.

"Oh, God! he has returned!"

This time, Nayland Smith's automatic was ready as the hidden door slid noiselessly open. A cloaked figure stood there, stooping, peering in. Behind him, someone held a bright lamp.

"Who?.."

He was checked by a wild cry from Fah Lo Sueel "Huan! Oh, my dearest old friend! God bless you! Dear Father Huan!"

She ran across and threw herself into the extended arms of Huan Tsung — for indeed it was that ancient mandarin who stood there. He clasped her, tenderly, stooping a wrinkled face to kiss her hair.

"Little white lily blossom! How your heart beats." He spoke Chinese, in which Fah Lo Suee had spoken. "Almost you adventured too greatly. But time heals all things — even the wrath of Dr Fu Manchu. And a day must come when Excellency will rejoice to learn that his beloved daughter did not die the death of a drowned rat."

"Where is he?"

Fah Lo Suee's face was hidden against Huan Tsung's shoulder.

"I have induced Excellency, in this great urgency, to rejoin the plane in which we came — a mode of travel unsuited to my advanced years." He raised twinkling old eyes and spoke in English. "Sir Denis — you have never failed to exhibit towards me the most correct and formal courtesy. In return, I wish to give you some advice, and to make my own position clear."

"He must go free!" Fah Lo Suee raised her eyes to the parchment face. "I insist, he must go, tool"

Huang Tsung stroked her hair. But he was watching Nay-land Smith.

"Beyond doubt. Sir Denis, those distinguished men now held at headquarters will be detained until these cellars have been pumped out. I fear, if your body should be found here, our five friends would proceed from prison to the execution shed."

"I agree," Smith rapped.

"But, failing such a discovery, it is not clear to me what charge can be preferred against them. You can do us no more harm than you have done already. Even if these men could be identified as members of our Order, they have committed no breach of the penal code with which I am familiar."

Nayland Smith remained silent. He knew exactly what the master diplomat was going to say.

"And I believe. Sir Denis, you yourself, an officer of the law, would hesitate to identify any one of them?"

It was an evasion, but in the circumstances, an acceptable evasion.

"Since I have not seen their faces, legally it would be improper for me to do so."

"A prudent decision. I fear they will be marked men. Yet, as no crime has been committed here tonight, I trust they will be released. But we are wasting time. The water already approaches my knees, which, as I am subject to rheumatism, is regrettable." He turned Fah Lo Suee about so that she faced the stair. "My daughter tells me that she promised to be waiting for you. Members of my family always fulfil their promises. Here she is."

It was Mai Cha who stood holding-the light.

Fah Lo Suee twisted around, looked back.

"You promised… "

"Precede me. Lily Blossom, with Mai Cha. Sir Denis is safe."

"But ** "Precede me, child!"

The suave diplomat had become submerged. It was the word of command, spoken by one used to obedience.

Fah Lo Suee looked back once more, but Nayland Smith and old General Huan Tsung Chao were lost in shadows far behind.

It was an incredible maze of passages through which Nay-land Smith was led by his aged guide. Once they came out under the stars, in a narrow court, crossed it and entered a house beyond. Here, again, they descended to cellars, finally to climb up to an odorous Chinese grocery store.

Huan Tsung leaned heavily on the counter, breathing hard.

"When I unlock the door," he said slowly, "you will be free. I must exact one promise. It should not be hard to give. In whatever you may see fit to report concerning your escape, omit any reference to myself and to these premises. This — for Fah Lo Suee's sake."

"I promise. General."

"Good morning. Sir Denis."

Two minutes later, Nayland Smith stood in a silent, deserted street.

Reflectively, he began to fill his pipe.