Re-enter Fu-Manchu (6 page)

They dined on the terrace, overlooking the Nile. The girl said her name was Zoe Montero, that her family lived in Spanish Morocco. She was on a visit to an aunt and uncle who had a business in Luxor, but who had arranged to meet her in Cairo. She had just received a message saying that her aunt had been taken ill and so they were detained.

“I shall know tomorrow if they can come or if they want me to go up to Luxor,” she told Brian.

They danced in the moonlight, and the dark beauty of his graceful partner stirred Brian’s pulses dangerously. He had decided that she was partly of Arab blood. Zoe’s voice, her quaint accent, her natural gaiety fascinated him. Sometimes when he looked into her eyes, that dormant memory awoke. He tried to grab it—and it was gone.

But he enjoyed the evening. There was no word from Lola.

It was quite early next morning when Mr. Ahmad called and found Brian having a smoke on the terrace.

“I have good news,” he announced. “Sir Denis expects to reach Cairo late this afternoon.”

Mr. Ahmad turned at that moment to bow to a passing acquaintance, or he could hardly have failed to note Brian’s change of expression. All his suspicions had been justified. He had become enmeshed in a cunning plot, a most mysterious plot. If Lola had any part in it he couldn’t be sure. But Peter Wellingham was one of the conspirators, and Mr. Ahmad was another. He was no diplomat and he spoke impetuously:

“But I saw Sir Denis right here in Cairo yesterday!”

The effect of those few words upon Mr. Ahmad was miraculous. He changed color alarmingly, clutched at the edge of the table, and stared like a man who has been struck a body blow.

“You saw him… in Cairo.”

Words failed Mr. Ahmad, and Brian could have kicked himself; he knew he had been a fool. He had had the game in his hands and had thrown his chance away. If, as he now had fresh reason to believe, Wellingham and Ahmad were conspiring against Nayland Smith, were no more than spies of the enemy (whoever the enemy might be), he could perhaps have exposed their game by the use of a little tact.

Brian wondered if the situation could yet be saved. He could try.

“Yes.” He spoke easily. “When I was coming back here last night with a friend, our taxi passed a smart English sports car. I think it was a Jaguar. There were two men in it, and one of them was Sir Denis.”

Mr. Ahmad moistened his lips with his tongue. “Where was this?”

“I asked the driver, that, as a matter of fact, and he told me we had just passed the British Consulate.”

“The British Consulate,” Mr. Ahmad echoed mechanically, his expression ghastly. “You alarm me, Mr. Merrick. I must make immediate inquiries. Sir Denis’ mission is a vital and dangerous one. He has powerful enemies. It is possible that he has returned secretly for some reason of his own.”

He left soon afterward, a man badly confused, and Brian settled down to try to puzzle out the truth. Mr. Ahmad had behaved like a crook unmasked, but on the other hand, it was possible that there might be a different explanation.

If Ahmad was on the level, he had done the wrong thing.

* * *

Dr. Fu Manchu was writing at a large desk of Arab manufacture, most cunningly inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl, and semiprecious stones. It was loaded with books, racks of test tubes, manuscripts, and certain queer objects not easy to define. Peko, the tiny marmoset, a companion of Fu Manchu’s travels, crouched on the Doctor’s shoulder, beady eyes moving restlessly.

There was a faint buzzing. A voice spoke.

“Abdul Ahmad is here.”

“I will see him.”

Dr. Fu Manchu continued to make notes in small, neat characters, in the margin of a bulky faded volume until a door opened and Mr. Ahmad came in. He bowed obsequiously, then stood still. Fu Manchu glanced up.

“Yes? You wish to report something?”

“Excellency,” Ahmad stammered, “it is that Brian Merrick claims to have seen Nayland Smith last night!”

Dr. Fu Manchu closed the large volume and fixed a glance upon Mr. Ahmad that seemed to freeze him to the floor.

“Tell me what he said, exactly—exactly—and also what
you
said.”

Mr. Ahmad evidently had a phenomenal memory, for he repeated the conversation practically, word for word under the barely endurable gaze of those strange green eyes.

Dr. Fu Manchu looked down at the emerald signet ring he wore and there was silence. The marmoset broke this silence by uttering one of his whistling cries and leaping to the top of a tall cabinet behind the Chinese doctor, where he sat chattering wickedly at Mr. Ahmad. Fu Manchu spoke.

“Merrick is lying for some reason of his own. There has been bungling. He suspects something. He did not see Nayland Smith where he claims to have seen him. But he may have seen him elsewhere. This we must learn. Vast issues are at stake. Order Zobeida to report to me here immediately.”

Mr. Ahmad went out, and shortly afterwards Zobeida came in. Brian would have recognized Zobeida as Zoe Montero.

* * *

The memory that had been dodging Brian like a will-o’-the-wisp, came out into the open that evening. He was waiting on the hotel terrace for Zoe. He stood up when he saw her coming. Dusk had fallen and she moved gracefully through shadows, into the light of the moon, and out again. Once, when she was quite near, in shadow, a stray moonbeam touched her briefly, lighting up her eyes.

And he knew where he had seen those beautiful eyes before. She had been in the shop of old Achmed es-Salah, wearing native dress and veiling her face. She had followed him when he left.

He was entangled in an invisible web. Every move he made was covered. Someone who had known he was going to Achmed’s shop had planted the girl there. She was infernally clever, too. That trick in the cocktail bar had been done beautifully.

And he could no longer doubt that Lola also was in the plot.

Zoe smiled and gave him both her hands. She looked very lovely tonight.

“If I kept you waiting I am sorry, Brian. But an old friend of my father’s, an Englishman, heard I am in Cairo and called me. He talked for so long. I am thirsty with talking. Please get me a big, cool drink.”

Brian clapped his hands for a waiter and gave the order. “Does this old friend of yours live here in Cairo?” he ventured cautiously.

“Oh, no. He came only yesterday, and from my uncle in Luxor he found out I am here. He is very quick to find things out. He was for many years with the English police.”

“Is that right? I suppose he’s here on some investigation?”’

Zoe shook her head. A waiter brought two tall glasses.

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. But I know from my father that Sir Denis now belongs to the British Secret Service.”

She took a long drink and sighed contentedly. Brian tried to tell himself that her remark hadn’t stupefied him. “What’s the rest of his name?”

“Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Brian breathed, and met the regard of wide-open amber eyes.

“What surprises you, Brian?”

“Just that I happen to know him, too.”

Zoe smiled delightedly. “That is wonderful! And you didn’t know he was here?”

“Well”—he spoke very slowly—“maybe he doesn’t know
I’m
here.”

He was doing some hard thinking. In that first starting moment or revelation, when he became suddenly convinced that Zoe and the girl in the bazaar were one and the same, which seemed to reveal this bewitching little tramp as an impostor, a spy set to watch him, he had decided what he would do. But this new development threw the whole plan out of gear.

Could he possibly have been wrong all along? Prejudiced by his dislike for Peter Wellingham, he might have jumped to a false conclusion that the girl he had seen with him in Hyde Park was Lola, for he had never actually caught even a glimpse of her face. Still hag-ridden by his suspicions, he might also have assumed wrongly that Zoe and the veiled lady of the bazaar were identical, for no better reason than that both had amber eyes. Amber eyes were not uncommon in the East.

Zoe’s claim that she knew Nayland Smith couldn’t very well be bogus, or she would have reacted very differently when he told her that he, too, knew Sir Denis.

Where did he stand? Had he misjudged Mr. Ahmad at well?

“You are very thoughtful,” Zoe whispered softly. “Don’t you like me tonight?”

“My dear Zoe!” They sat side by side on a cushioned cane divan. “I was so surprised that I forgot to tell you how lovely you are.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. She smiled, raising pouting lips. And Brian didn’t even try to resist the sweet temptation…

* * *

Dawn was not so far away when Brian finally turned in that night, and he slept late into the morning. He sent for his mail when he ordered coffee but again there was nothing from Lola.

He was a man who, once his suspicions had been aroused, could never let the matter rest until his doubts were either proved or disproved. If indeed he had become involved in a conspiracy against Nayland Smith, a conspiracy in which Wellingham, Lola, Ahmad, and Zoe were concerned, a love affair with Zoe was the best, and by far the most pleasant, way to find it out.

He had wasted no time.

Zoe, who, for all her youth, he suspected to be far from unsophisticated in love and the ways of lovers, had responded to the point of unconditional surrender. And it was then that Brian began to distrust himself. Never once, even while he caressed her, mingling kisses with what he believed to be artful leading questions, had she breathed one word that he wanted to hear. He had been equally reticent.

She didn’t know if she would see Nayland Smith. She hadn’t seen him since she was a child. He hadn’t told her where he was staying in Cairo. Sir Denis had met her uncle when he was in Egypt with Sir Lionel Barton, the famous archaeologist, many years ago. Sir Lionel had been excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. And Brian remembered that Nayland Smith had spoken of this very expedition when he had visited their home in Washington.

Brian, being no roué, began to reproach himself. If Zoe was really not a conspirator sent to trap him, he was behaving rather like a cad. He must not pretend to himself that the zeal of the investigator, and not the fact that Zoe was very desirable, inspired his love-making. It wouldn’t be true. If he had known beyond all doubt that she was a spy of the enemy, he might have scrapped his scruples. But he didn’t know.

He pondered the situation over his morning coffee and smoked a number of Achmed es-Salah’s cigarettes. Then he called Mr. Ahmad’s number, but failed, as usual, to get a reply. He began to feel like a man lost in a maze.

Two things he made up his mind to do. First, he would call at the address that appeared on top of Ahmad’s letter. Second, he would return to the house hidden away in the native town, ring the bell (if there was one), and ask for Sir Nayland Smith.

He took a cab to the address in Sharîa Abdîn, which he saw to be a modern office building only a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. This made him feel like a fool, and he asked the man to wait while he went in. He found a list of tenants just inside the door and read all the names carefully.

Mr. Ahmad’s was not one of them.

Then it occurred to him that Ahmad might be a member of a firm that didn’t bear his name at all. As there seemed to be no hall porter, he stepped into the nearest office (“The Loofah Products Co.”) and found a smart young Jewess seated before a typewriter.

She greeted him with a brilliant smile. Many women greeted Brian that way.

“Excuse me,” Brian began, “but I’m looking for someone called Mr. Ahmad. Can you—”

The smile was wiped out. Dark eyes challenged him. “I’m sorry. There’s no one of that name here.”

“I’m sorry, too, for troubling you. But, you see, I have a letter from him here”—he produced Ahmad’s letter—“and it has this address on it.”

The dark eyes melted a little. “There are many offices in the building. Perhaps someone else could help you.”

“I’ll try.” He turned to go.

The girl said more softly, “Try the Aziza Cigarette Corporation, third floor. They’ve been here longer than we have. They may know. But don’t say I sent you.”

Brian swung around, and met the brilliant smile again. “Thanks a million!” He gave her a happy grin.

He was really getting somewhere. The cigarettes he had bought from old Achmed es-Salah were called “Aziza.”

T
he office of the Azîza Cigarette Corporation was, if anything, even smaller than the one he had just left. An Egyptian youth, incredibly cross-eyed, looked out through a little window. What Brian could see of the room behind this window seemed to indicate that it was totally unfurnished.”

“Can I see Mr. Ahmad?” he inquired.

The young Egyptian looked blank, “Nobody here.”

“Are you expecting Mr. Ahmad?”

“Don’t know him, sir. Don’t know any of the gentlemen.”

Brian frowned irritably. “What do you mean? You must know who employs you.”

“Why for sure, sir. Mr. Quintero pays me to come here every morning and collect the letters. This business it has moved to Alex. This office is for renting.”