Yueh Hua was watching him and smiling. It would be unwise to probe deeper, he decided.
“I have to see a man in Niu-fo-Tu. Is it a small place, Yueh Hua?”
“Yes. But there is a market there. I think Niu-fo-Tu is dangerous for us, Chi Foh.”
And instinctively he knew she was thinking of the officer with eyes “like pieces of green jade”.
They set out towards sundown. By morning, Yueh Hua said, they could reach a canal which connected with a creek. It was rarely used and they could tie up there until it seemed safe to go on.
They sculled and rested in turn through the hours of the night. Sometimes Tony would lean on the long oar and bend forward, looking in to see if Yueh Hua was asleep. At a place where the bank he followed became low, he swung in to a point formed by several small creeks joining the river, forming a little delta carpeted with wild hyacinths.
Yueh Hua woke up as the regular sweep of the oar stopped.
“Is anything the matter, Chi Foh?”
“Yes. I’m thirsty!” he said quickly.
“Shall I make tea?”
“Not unless you want tea. Whiskey will do for me. Would you like some?”
“No, thank you. But I should like some lime juice.”
They sat and sipped their drinks, diluted with boiled water cooled in an old clay jar. This was a custom Tony followed throughout his journey. He used to do it in Burma and never had a trace of dysentery.
If Yueh Hua wondered about it, she never said so, and he knew that his use of chopsticks was faultless. Yet he often caught her watching him in a queer way.
He was sure of himself where passing acquaintances were concerned. But he hadn’t counted on a close intimacy with any bred-in-the-bone Chinese. Almost hourly he found himself wondering if Yueh Hua suspected that he wasn’t what he pretended to be . . .
* * *
It was a dim hour of the night, but old General Huan Tsung-Chao and Dr. Fu Manchu still remained in conference in the room with the lacquered desk. Apparently, they had conferred there since dusk. Piles of documents littered the desk. General Huan, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, was reading one of them. He glanced up; began to speak. Dr. Fu Manchu, fingertips pressed together, sat with closed eyes and compressed lips.
“We can rely upon the armed forces in the four provinces adjoining Szechuan. Some seventy-five per cent have joined the Si-Fan. I have a report here from Peiping which states that agents of Free China are securing many recruits, and I have ordered those of these agents who already belong to our Order to make sure of these recruits.”
Fu Manchu, still keeping his eyes closed, spoke softly.
“There is a rapport between the free Chinese and the Secret Service of which our old friend, Nayland Smith, is an active member. Great caution is necessary. We are not ready. And if our present standing with Peiping should be disturbed—if they lost their confidence in me—our strategy would be badly shaken.” His voice sank yet lower. “This loss of the register alarms me. Such evidence, in the hands either of the Allies or of Russia, would destroy us.’
“It is certain that the register could not be in the possession of the man called Wu Chi Foh—and equally certain that he could not have stolen it. He was in prison at the time. I doubt if he is concerned in any way.”
“Yet the affair, Tsung-Chao, was so cunningly contrived that some outside agency must have planned it. The escape was brilliantly managed, and the complete disappearance of the man and his boat is phenomenal. Some hiding place had been prepared for him.”
General Huan smiled wrily. “This is possible. But he may yet be found. It is now nearing the time when I must prepare to entertain Andre Skobolov.”
“I have already made my preparations.” Fu Manchu’s soft tones assumed that sibilant character which was something more than a hiss. “I have some choice glossina in my laboratory—a highly successful culture. I shall take steps to ensure his mental incapacity and ultimate death. The symptoms will develop some hours after he leaves here. I selected this method as the most suitable. Mahmud and a selected party will cover his movements from the moment of his departure. They will take the first possible opportunity to seize any briefcase or other receptacle he may carry. If he has the register, we shall recover it, and if he has notified Moscow, his death, should the body be found, cannot be laid at your door. The trypanosomes which the insects will inject are so amplified that fatal conditions develop in twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”
General Huan’s wrinkled face, which was not unlike a map of Asia, assumed a troubled expression.
“I agree, although with reluctance, that this man’s execution is necessary to our safety, but I do not understand how these insects to which you refer—I am a scientist only of war—are to be employed.”
Dr. Fu Manchu opened his eyes, and smiled. It was a deathly smile. He dipped his long fingers in a silver snuffbox.
“I, also, have studied the science of war. But my strategy is designed to prevent it—by removing those few who have power to loose upon the world forces of wholesale destruction. It is simple and it is just . . . I have ordered that one of my Cold Men be brought here. He will arrive about dawn. These living-dead, as the ignorant masses term them, are dispensable. And handling the glossina is very dangerous. I shall smoke awhile, Tsung-Chao, and repose; for I have much work to do. Be so good as to send Chung-Wa to prepare my pipe . . .”
* * *
Dawn was stealing shyly over the river when Yueh Hua piloted the sampan into the canal. They went up for a mile or more before coming to a place where a gnarled tree hung right over the water, forming a sort of green cover. They tied up under the tree.
It was as Tony was eating his unpalatable breakfast that a slight movement in a field of rape in full yellow bloom drew his attention to the bank. At first he thought he was mistaken. Then he knew he wasn’t.
A pair of bright, beady black eyes peered out intently!
Tony stood up, staring under raised hands. And presently, in rapid flight along a path through the five-feet-high rape he saw a tiny boy, naked except for a loincloth.
“Why should he run away, Yueh Hua?”
He saw her face flush.
“He may have been watching us for all sorts of reasons. I suppose he thought you would beat him.”
An old rush basket, water-logged and broken, was drifting toward them along the canal. He watched it until it had reached the sampan. Then he pulled it on board.
“If anyone comes to ask questions, Yueh Hua, I shall disappear. Say this is your boat, and say that there has been no one else with you.”
“As you wish, Chi Foh. But how are you going to disappear?”
A flight of wild ducks passed overhead. It was the fact that this marshy land teemed with wild fowl which had given him the idea.
“It may not be necessary. If it is, I’ll show you.”
While Yueh Hua washed the rice bowls, he made a sounding with the long sweep. He found more than five feet of water in the canal.
He had no sooner completed this than he saw that his disappearance was going to be necessary.
Far off across the fields, on the side to which they were tied up, a small figure, little more than a yellow dot in the distance, came running along an embankment. Two men in uniform followed!
“Yueh Hua!” He spoke quietly She turned. “Yes, Chi Foh?”
“Remember what we arranged. That little devil of a boy is bringing two soldiers. It’s your word against his.”
He ducked into the low cabin and came out carrying the pistol. Yueh Hua had seemed alarmed the first time she saw it, but now she smiled bravely and nodded her approval.
Then he managed to pull away the heavy iron pin which did duty as a rowlock. He tied it to a line on which he knotted a loop and threw it overboard. Next, with a piece of string he fastened the automatic around his neck. Last, he went overboard himself, feet first, holding the ground line and the rush basket.