The Drums of Fu-Manchu (12 page)

“No doubt you are right, Smith!”

“You are possibly wondering, Kerrigan, why Osaki, finding
himself being overcome by the symptoms of the Green Death, of which we know one to be an impression of beating drums, did not run out and hurry to the house.”

“I confess the point had occurred to me.”

“Here, I think, is the answer. We know from the case of General Quinto that the impression of beating drums is very real. May we not assume that Osaki, knowing as he certainly did know that imminent danger overhung Doctor Jasper and himself, believed the menace to come from the outside—believed the drumming to be real and deliberately remained in this place?”

“The theory certainly covers the facts, but always it brings us back to—”

“What?”

“The mystery of how a man…”

“A man locked in alone,” Smith snapped, “can nevertheless be murdered and no clue left to show what means has been employed! Yes!” the word sounded almost like a groan. “The second mystery, of course, is the extraordinary behaviour of Doctor Jasper…”

He paused.

From somewhere outside came the sound of running footsteps, a sudden murmur of voices, then—I thought Hale, the chauffeur, was the speaker:

“Thank God, you’re alive, sir!”

A man burst into the laboratory, a short, thick-set, dark man, hair dishevelled and his face showing every evidence of the fact that he had not shaved for some time. His eyes were wild—his lips were twitching; he stood with clenched hands looking about him. Then his pale face seemed to grow a shade paler. Those staring eyes became focussed upon the body lying on the sofa.

“Good God!” he muttered, and then addressing Smith:

“Who are you? What has happened?”

“Doctor Martin Jasper, I presume?”

“Yes, yes! But who are you? What does this mean?”

“My name is Nayland Smith; this is Mr Bart Kerrigan. What it means, Doctor Jasper, is that your associate Mr Osaki has died in your place!”

“
Y
ou are indeed a fortunate man to be alive.” Nayland Smith gazed sternly at the physicist. “You have been preparing a deadly weapon of warfare—not for the protection of your own country, but for the use of a belligerent nation.”

“I am entitled,” said Dr. Jasper, shakily wiping his wet brow, “to act independently if I choose to do so.”

“You see the consequences. As he lies, so
you
might be lying. No, Doctor Jasper. You had received three notices, I believe, from the Si-Fan.”

Dr. Jasper’s twitching nervousness became even more manifest.

“I had—but how do you know?”

“It happens to be my business to know. The Si-Fan, sir, cannot be ignored.”

“I know! I know!”

The doctor suddenly dropped on to a chair beside one of the benches and buried his dishevelled head in his hands.

“I have been playing with fire, but Osaki, who urged me to it, is the sufferer!”

He was very near to the end of his resources; this was plain enough, but:

“I am going to suggest,” said Nayland Smith, speaking in a quiet voice, “that you retire and sleep, for if ever a man needed rest, you do. But first I regret duty demands that I ask a few questions;”

Dr. Jasper, save for the twitching of his bands, did not stir.

“What were the Si-Fan’s orders?”

“That I deliver to them the completed plans and a model of my vacuum charger.”

“This invention I take it, gives a great advantage to those employing it?”

“Yes.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “It increases the present range of a rifle rather more than fifty per cent.”

“To whom were you to deliver these plans and model?”

“To a woman who would be waiting in a car by the R.A.C. call box at the corner of the London Road.”

“A woman!”

“Yes. A time was stated at which the woman would be waiting at this point. Failing my compliance, I was told that on receipt of a third and final notice at any hour during the twelve which would be allotted to me, if I cared to go to this call box, I should be met there by a representative.”

“Yes?” Smith urged gently. “Go on.”

The speaker’s voice grew lower and lower.

“I showed these notes to Osaki.”

“Where are they now?”

“He took them all. He urged me, always he urged me, to ignore them. By tonight I thought that my experiments would be completed, that I should have revolutionised the subject. He was to meet me here in the laboratory, and we both fully anticipated
that the charger would be an accomplished fact.”

“He had a key of the laboratory?”

“Yes.”

Nayland Smith nodded to me.

“Just before half past eleven an awful dread possessed me. I thought that the price which I should receive for this invention would be useless to a dead man. Just before Osaki was due I took my plans, my model—everything, slipped on a light coat, in the pockets of which I placed all the fruits of my experiments, and ran—I do not exaggerate—ran to the appointed spot.”

“What did you find? By whom were you met?” Smith snapped. “There was a car drawn up on the north side of the road. A woman was just stepping into it—”

“Describe her.”

“She is beautiful—dark—slender. I know her as Mrs Milton. I know now she is a spy!”

“Quite enough. What happened?”

“She seemed to be much disturbed as I hurried up. Her eyes—she has remarkable eyes—opened almost with a look of horror.”

“What did she do—what did she say?”

“She said: ‘Doctor Jasper, are you here to meet me?’ I was utterly dumbfounded. I knew in that awful moment what a fool I had been! But I replied that I was.”

“What did she say then?”

“She enumerated the items which I had been ordered to deliver up—took them from me one by one… and returned to the car. Her parting words were, ‘You have been wise.’ ”

“Then your invention, complete and practical, is now in the hands of the Si-Fan?”

“It is!” groaned Dr. Jasper.

“Some deadly thing,” said Nayland Smith bitterly, “was placed in the laboratory during the time that your key remained in the door—for in your nervous state you forgot to remove it. A few moments later Osaki entered. Someone who was watching mistook Osaki for you; the shots heard by the butler were a signal to that call box. The phone call is the clue! It was Osaki who took it…”

Inspector Gallaho dashed into the laboratory.

“I have traced the call,” he said huskily—“the local police are of some use after all! It’s a box about half a mile from here, on the London Road.”

“I know,” said Smith wearily.

“You know, sir!” growled Gallaho, then suddenly noticing Dr. Martin Jasper: “Who the devil have we here?”

The doctor raised his haggard face from his hands. “Someone who has no right to be alive,” he replied.

Gallaho began chewing phantom gum.

“I said the local police were of some use,” he went on truculently, staring at Nayland Smith. “What I mean is this: They have the woman who made the call.”

“What!”

Smith became electrified; his entire expression changed.

“Yes. I roused everybody, had every car challenged, and luckily got a description of the one we wanted from a passing A.A. scout who had seen it standing near the box. The village constable at Greystones very cleverly spotted the right one. The woman is now at police headquarters there, sir! I suggest we proceed to Greystones at once.”

W
hen presently Smith, Gallaho and I set out in the police car for Greystones, we had succeeded in learning a little more about the mysterious Mrs Milton. A police inspector and the police surgeon we had left behind at Great Oaks; but as Nayland Smith said, what expert opinion had failed to learn in regard to the death of General Quinto local talent could not hope to find out.

Mrs Milton, Dr. Jasper had told us before he finally collapsed (for the ordeal through which he had passed had entirely sapped his nervous energy), was a chance acquaintance. The doctor, during one of his rare constitutionals in the neighbouring lanes, had found her beside a broken-down car and had succeeded in restarting the engine. Quite obviously he had been attracted. They had exchanged cards and he had invited her to lunch and to look over his laboratory.

His description of Mrs Milton tallied exactly with that of the woman who had visited General Quinto on the night before his murder!

My excitement as we sped towards Greystones grew ever greater. With my own eyes I was about to see this harbinger of death
employed by Dr. Fu-Manchu, finally to convince myself that she was not Ardatha. But indeed little doubt on this point remained.

“Unless I am greatly mistaken,” said Nayland Smith, “you are going to meet for the first time, Kerrigan, an example of a dead woman moving among the living, influencing, fascinating them. I won’t tell you, Inspector Gallaho”—he turned to the Scotland Yard officer—“whom I suspect this woman to be. But she is someone you have met before.”

“Now that I know Doctor Fu-Manchu is concerned in this case,” the inspector growled in his husky voice, “nothing would surprise me.”

We passed along the main street of a village in which all the houses and cottages were in darkness and pulled up before one over which, dimly, I could see a tablet which indicated that this was the local police headquarters. As we stepped out:

“Strange,” murmured Nayland Smith; looking about him—“there’s no car here and only one light upstairs.”

“I don’t like this,” said Gallaho savagely, marching up the path and pressing a bell beside the door.

There was some delay which we all suffered badly. Then a window opened above and I saw a woman looking out. “What do you want?” she called: it was a meek voice.

“I want Constable Isles,” said Gallaho violently. “This is Detective Inspector Gallaho of Scotland Yard. I spoke to the constable twenty minutes ago, and now I’m here to see him.”

“Oh!” said the owner of the meek voice, “I’ll come down.”

A minute later she opened the door. I saw that she wore a dressing gown and looked much disturbed.

“Where’s the woman,” snapped Nayland Smith, “whom the constable was detaining?”

“She’s gone, sir.”

“What!”

“Yes. I suppose he must have been satisfied to have let her go. My husband has had a very hard day, and he’s fast asleep in the parlour. I didn’t like to disturb him.”

“What is the meaning of this?”

Nayland Smith spoke as angrily as he ever spoke to a woman. Accompanied by the hastily attired Mrs Isles, we stood in a little sitting room. A heavily built man who wore a tweed suit was lying on a couch, apparently plunged in deep sleep. Chief Detective Inspector Gallaho chewed ominously and glared at the woman.

“I think it’s just that he’s overtired, sir,” she said. She was a plump, dark-eyed, hesitant sort of a creature, and our invasion seemed to have terrified her. “He has had a very heavy day.”

“That is not the point,” said Smith rapidly. “Inspector Gallaho here sent out a description of a car seen by an A.A. man near a call box on the London Road. All officers, on or off duty, were notified to look out for it and to stop it if sighted. Your husband telephoned to Great Oaks twenty minutes ago saying that he had intercepted this car and that the driver, a woman, was here in his custody. Where is she? What has occurred?”

“I don’t really know, sir. He was just going to bed when the phone rang, and then he got up, dressed, and went out. I heard a car stop outside, and then I heard him bring someone in. When the car drove away again and he didn’t come up I went to look for him and found him asleep here. When he’s like that I never disturb him, because he’s a bad sleeper.”

“He’s drugged,” snapped Smith irritably.

“Oh no!” the woman whispered. Drugged he was, for it took us nearly ten minutes to revive him. When ultimately Constable Isles
sat up and stared about I thought that I had rarely seen a more bewildered man. Smith had been sniffing suspiciously and had examined the stubs of two cigarettes in an ash tray.

“Hello, Constable,” he said, “what’s the meaning of this? Asleep on duty, I’m afraid.”