The Drums of Fu-Manchu (35 page)

“Listen to me, Ardatha,” Smith grasped her shoulders. “Have you any knowledge, any whatever, of the Si-Fan plans for tonight?”

She faced him fearlessly; her hands remained clenched.

“If I had, I could not tell you. But I have no knowledge of these plans. As I hope for mercy, it is true. Only I know that you are to die.”

“How do you know?”

Ardatha from her handbag took out a square envelope.

“I was ordered to leave this at the desk and not allow myself to be recognised. I waited, until I
knew
… I had been recognised!”

FINAL NOTICE

Lower and raise the lights in your sitting room slowly twice, to indicate that you are prepared to take instructions. You have until midnight.

President of the Council

T
he apartments faced upon a courtyard. There were a number of police in the hotel under Jussac’s orders, and the passports of all residents had been scrutinised. Some of the rooms around the courtyard were empty; the occupants of the others were supposedly above suspicion. But Ardatha’s terror-stricken face haunted me. When she had realised that she was to be locked in the end room to await the hour of midnight, a fear so overwhelming had come upon her that my own courage was threatened.

Gallaho was in the lobby outside her door. And now I heard the clocks of Paris chiming…

It was a quarter to twelve.

We had curtained all the windows, although if one excepted opposite rooms, no point commanded them. The atmosphere was stale and oppressive. Paris vibrated with rumours and counter-rumours. By some it was believed that France already was at war; another story ran that Delibes was dead. But to the quiet old courtyard none of this penetrated. Instead a more real, a more sinister menace was there. The shadow of Fu-Manchu lay upon us.

A hopeless fatalism began to claim me. Already I looked upon Nayland Smith as a dead man.

From Ardatha came no sound. Her eyes had been unnaturally bright when we had left her: I had seen that splendid composure, that proud fearless spirit, broken. I knew that if she prayed, she prayed for me; and I thought that now she would be in tears—tears of misery, despair—waiting, listening… for what?

“Have your gun ready, Kerrigan!”

“What are you going to do?”

“I am going to search every inch of this room.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know! But you remember the black streak that went over Delibes’ balcony? That thing, or another, similar thing, is here!”

I took a grip of failing nerves and stepped up to a walnut cabinet containing many cupboards, but:

“Touch nothing!” Smith snapped. “Leave the search to me. Just stand by.”

He began to walk from point to point about the room, sparsely furnished in the manner of a continental hotel. No drawer was left unopened, no nook or cranny unsearched.

But he found nothing.

The electric clock registered seven minutes to midnight.

And now came a wild cry, for which I knew that subconsciously I had been waiting.

“Let me out! For God’s sake—let me out! I want to be with you—I can’t bear it!”

“Go and pacify her, Kerrigan. We dare not have her in here.”

“I won’t budge!”

“Let me out—let me out—I shall go mad!”

Smith threw the door open.

“Allow her to join you in the lobby, Gallaho. On no account is she to enter this room.”

“Very good, Sir Denis.”

As Smith released the door, I heard the sound of a lock turned. I heard Ardatha’s running footsteps…

“Come out there! Dear God, I beg of you—come out!”

Gallaho’s growing tones reached me as he strove to restrain her.

“If you are so sure, Smith”—my voice was not entirely under control—“that the danger is
here
, why should we stay?”

“I have asked you to leave,” he replied coldly.

“Not without you.”

“It happens to be my business, Kerrigan, to investigate the instruments of murder employed by Doctor Fu-Manchu, but it is not yours. I believe some death agent to be concealed in this room, and I am determined to find out what it is.”

“Smith! Smith!” I spoke in, a hoarse whisper.

“What?”

“For heaven’s sake don’t move—but look where I am looking. There, under the cornice!”

The apartment had indirect lighting so that there was a sort of recess running around three of the walls directly below the ceiling. From the darkness of a corner where there were no lamps, two tiny fiery eyes—they looked
red
—glared down at us!

“My God!”

“What is it, Smith? In heaven’s name, what
is
it?”

Those malignant eyes remained immovable; they possessed a dreadful, evil intelligence. It might have been an imp of hell crouching there, watching… Raising my repeater, I fired, and… all the lights went out!

“Drop flat, Kerrigan!”

The urgency of Smith’s order booked no denial. I threw myself prone on the carpet. I heard Smith fall nearby…

There came a moaning cry, then a roar from Gallaho:

“What’s this game? What’s happened?”

The door behind me burst open. I became aware of a pungent odour.

“No lights, Gallaho—and don’t come in! Make for the door, Kerrigan!”

I groped my way across the room. The awareness of that unknown thing somewhere in the darkness afforded one of the most terrifying sensations I had ever known. But I got to the door and into the lobby. Gallaho stretched out his hand and grasped my shoulder.

“Where’s Sir Denis?”

“I am here.”

There were sounds of movement all about, of voices.

“It’s the big black-out,” came Smith’s voice incisively, “ordered by Delibes to take place tonight. Whoever is in charge of the air defenses of Paris has received no orders to cancel it. This saved us—for I’m afraid you missed, Kerrigan!”

“Ardatha!” I said shakily “Ardatha!”

“She fainted, Mr Kerrigan, when the shot came…”

“
O
pen this door.”

We stood before a door bearing the number 36. It was that of a room which adjoined our apartments. Lights had been restored. An alarmed manager obeyed.

“Stand by outside, Gallaho. Come on, Kerrigan.”

I found myself in a single bedroom which did not appear to be occupied. There was an acrid smell, and the first object upon which my glance rested was a long, narrow cardboard box labelled: “Meurice frères.”

I glanced at an attached tab and read:

Mme Hulbert:

To be placed in number 36 to await Mme Hulbert’s arrival.

“Don’t touch that thing!” snapped Smith. “I’m not sure, yet—Hullo!”

He was staring up at part of the wall above the wardrobe. There was a jagged hole, perhaps six inches in diameter, which I could only
suppose to penetrate to the adjoining apartment.

Smith dragged a chair forward, stood on it and examined the top of the wardrobe.

“Apologise, Kerrigan! You didn’t miss after all… There’s in blood here!”

Down he came and began questing all about the floor.

“Here’s a fresh stain, Smith!”

“Ah! near the window! By gad! I believe it’s escaped! I’m going to pull the curtains open. If you see anything move, don’t hesitate—shoot!”

Colt in hand I watched him as he dragged the heavy curtains apart. The window was open about four inches at the bottom.

“Stains here, look!”

Standing beside him, I saw on the ledge bloodstains of so strange a character that comment failed me. They were imprints of tiny hands!

“Singular!” murmured Smith.

He stared out right and left and down into the courtyard. The building was faced with ornamental stone blocks.

“Smith—” I began.

“A thing as small as that could climb down such a wall,” he rapped, “and into an open window—assuming its wound not to be serious.”

“But, Smith—this is the print of a
human
hand!”

“I know!” He ran to the door. “Gallaho! Instruct Jussac to search all rooms opening on this courtyard and to make sure that nothing—not even a small parcel—leaves any of them. Come on, Kerrigan.”

Picking up the florist’s box, he returned to our locked apartments. Ardatha was in a room near by, in charge of a sympathetic housekeeper. As we entered the sitting room, I pulled up, staring…

At the moment of my firing at that thing up under the cornice,
Smith, just behind me, had been standing in of a walnut cabinet.

The top of the cabinet had disappeared!

“Merciful heaven!” I whispered, “you escaped death by a fraction of a second!”

“Yes! Ericksen’s Ray! The thing with the red eyes has at least elementary intelligence to be entrusted with such a weapon. This creature, or one like it, had been smuggled into Delibes’ house, but made its escape. In the present case the same device of the flower box was used, an adjoining room having been reserved by a mythical Mme Hulbert. During our absence this evening, by means of the ray, that hole was bored through the wall.”

“But the box remains unopened!”

“So do the boxes, apparently, used by stage magicians. I think we may risk it now!”

“Is all well in there, Sir Denis?” came Gallaho’s husky voice from the lobby.

“All’s well, Inspector.”

He cut the string and opened the box.

It was empty.

“Assuming a thinking creature small enough to get into such a box, for it to get out again would be a simple matter: merely necessary to draw these two end flaps and replace them without unfastening the string…”

I cannot say, I shall never know, what drew my attention away from the trick box, but I found myself staring fixedly into the shadows beneath the bureau. This bureau stood almost immediately below the hole high up under the cornice. Some dully shining object lay upon the carpet.

As I stepped forward to pick it up, indeed, all but had my hand upon it, I recognised it for what it was—just such a tube, as I had
seen in the possession of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

And as this recognition came I saw the thing with the red eyes!

“Quick! Grab it for your life, Kerrigan!”

Wounded, the creature had dropped the silver tube in that sudden darkness, had sought to escape, and then for some reason had returned for the day. It crouched now beside the bureau, a black dwarf no more than fifteen inches high, naked save for a loincloth also black: a perfectly formed human being!

Its features, which were Negroid, contorted in animal fury, its red eyes glaring like those of a rabid dog, it sprang up the tube.

But I snatched it in the nick of time…

That which happened next threatens to defeat my powers of description. Smith, who had been manoeuvring for a shot, fired—but as I made that frenzied grab, stumbling onto my knees, my fingers closed upon a sort of trigger in the butt end of the tube.

Smith’s bullet buried itself in the wall. I experienced a tingling sensation. The thing with the red eyes which crouched before me, disappeared!

My last recollection is that of the bureau crashing down upon my head.

* * *

“Bart, dearest, are you better?”

I lay propped on cushions. Ardatha’s arms were around me. My head buzzed like a wasps’ nest, and a man whom I took to be a surgeon was bathing a painful cut on my brow.

“Yes, he is better,” said the surgeon, smiling. “No serious damage.” He turned to Nayland Smith who stood watching. “It must have been a heavy blow, nevertheless.”

“It was!” Smith assured him. “Fortunately, he has a thick skull.”

When the medical man was gone and I felt capable of sitting up and observing my surroundings, I realised that I had been moved to another room.

“Explanation of what had occurred would have been too difficult,” Smith declared. “So we brought you in here.”

And now came the memory of the black dwarf who had disappeared…

“Smith—he was disintegrated!”

“So was a portion of the bureau,” Smith replied, “hence your being knocked out. It toppled before I had a chance to get at it. I have the mysterious tube, Kerrigan, Exhibit A, which resolves matter into its particles; but I don’t propose to experiment further. We should be grateful for the fact that it was not ourselves who were dispersed!”