Huan Tsung-Chao shook his head slightly. “This I doubt, Master, but I admit it may be so. As Skobolov is closely covered, should they meet, Mahmud, who knows this man, will take suitable steps.”
The conversation was interrupted.
Uttering a shrill whistling sound, a tiny marmoset which had been hiding on a high ledge sprang like a miniature acrobat from there to Fu Manchu’s shoulder and began chattering angrily in his ear. The saturnine mask of that wonderful but evil face softened, melted into something almost human.
“Ah, Peko, my little friend! You are angry with me? Yet I have small sweet bananas flown all the way from Madeira for you. Is it a banana you want?”
Peko went on spitting and cursing in monkey language.
“Some nuts?”
Peko’s language was dreadful.
“You are teasing him,” General Huan smiled. “He is asking for his ration of my I850 vintage rose wine which, ever since he tasted it, he has never forgotten.”
Peko sprang from Fu Manchu’s shoulder on to the rug-covered floor, from there on to the shoulder of Huan. The old soldier raised his gnarled hand to caress Peko, a strange creature which he knew to be of incalculable age.
Dr. Fu Manchu stood up, crossed to a cabinet, and took out a stoppered jar of old porcelain. With the steady hand of a pharmacist, he poured a few drops into a saucer; restopped the jar. Peko rejoined him with a whistle not of anger, but of joy, grasped the saucer and drank deep.
Then, the uncanny little animal sprang on to the desk and began to toss manuscripts about in a joyous mood. Dr. Fu Manchu picked him up, gently, and put him on his shoulder.
“You are a toper, Peko. And I’m not sure that it is good for you. I am going to put you in your cage.”
Peko escaped and leapt at one bound on to the high ledge.
“Such is the discipline,” murmured Dr. Fu Manchu, “of one of my oldest servants. It was Peko to whom I first administered my elixir, the elixir to which he and I owe our presence amongst men today. Did you know this, my friend?”
“I did.”
Fu Manchu studied Huan Tsung-Chao under lowered eyelids.
“Yet you have never asked me for this boon.”
“I have never desired it. Master. Should you at any time observe some failure in my capacity to serve you, please tell me so. I belong to a long-lived family. My father married his sixth wife at the age of eighty.”
Dr. Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff from a box on the desk. He began to speak, slowly, incisively.
“I have learned since my return to China that Dr. von Wehmer is the chief research scientist employed here by the Soviet. I know his work. Within his limitations, it is brilliant. But the fools who employ him will destroy the world—and all my plans—unless I can unmask and foil their schemes. Von Wehmer is the acknowledged authority on pneumonic plague. This is dangerously easy to disseminate. Its use could nearly depopulate the globe. For instance, I have a perfected preparation in my laboratory now, a mere milligram of which could end human life in Szechuan in a week.”
“This is not war,” General Huan said angrily. “It is mass assassination.”
Fu Manchu made a slight gesture with one long, sensitive hand. “It must never be. For several years I have had an impalpable powder which can be spread in many ways—by the winds, by individual deposits. A single shell charged with it and exploded over an area hundreds of miles in extent, would bring to the whole of its human inhabitants nearly instant death.”
“But you will never use it
“It would reduce the area to an uninhabitable desert. No living creature could exist there. What purpose would this serve? How could you. General, with all your military genius, occupy this territory?”
Huan Tsung-Chao spread his palms in a helpless gesture. “I have lived too long. Master. This is not a soldier’s world. Let them close all their military academies. The future belongs to chemists.”
Dr. Fu Manchu smiled his terrible smile.
“The experiments of those gropers who seek, not to improve man’s welfare, but to blot out the human race, are primitive, barbaric, childish. I have obtained complete control of one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Sound. With sound I can throw an impenetrable net over a whole city, or, if I wish, over only a part of it. No known form of aerial attack could penetrate this net. With sound I could blot out every human being in Peiping, Moscow, London, Paris or Washington, or in selected areas of those cities. For there are sounds inaudible to human ears which can destroy. I have learned to produce these lethal sounds.”
Old General Huan bowed his head. “I salute the world’s master mind. I know of this discovery. Its merit lies in the simple fact that such an attack would be confined to the target area and would not create a plague to spread general disaster.”
“Also,” Dr. Fu Manchu added, “it would enable your troops to occupy the area immediately. So that Othello’s occupation would not be gone . . .”
* * *
The sampan seemed like sanctuary when Tony and Yueh Hua reached it. But they knew that it wasn’t.
“We dare not stay here until sunset, Chi Foh. They are almost sure to search the canal.”
She lay beside him, her head nestled against his shoulder. He stroked her hair. Tony knew he had betrayed himself when he had called out in his mad happiness, “Moon Flower”—in English! But, if Yueh Hua had noticed, she had given no sign. Perhaps, in her excitement, she had not heard the revealing words.
“I know,” he said. “I expect they are looking for us now. But what can we do?”
“If we could reach Lung Chang we should be safe—” she spoke dreamily—”It is not far to Lung Chang.”
He nodded. Oddly enough, Nayland Smith’s instructions had been for him to abandon his boat and hurry overland to Lung Chang! He was to report there to a certain Lao Tse-Mung, a contact of Sir Denis’s and a man of influence.
“What I think we should do, Chi Foh, is to go on up this canal and away from the river. They are not likely to search in that direction. If we can find a place to hide until nightfall, then we could start for Lung Chang, which is only a few miles inland.”
Tony considered this program He laughed and kissed Yueh Hua. This new happiness, with fear of a dreadful death overhanging them, astonished him.
“What should I do without you, Yueh Hua?”
They started without delay. It was very hot, and Tony welcomed his large sun hat, gift of the lama. He worked hard, and Yueh Hua insisted upon taking her turn at the oar. There was no evidence of pursuit. The rich soil of this fertile plain, called “the Granary of Szechuan”, was now largely given over to the cultivation of opium poppies, offering a prospect of dazzling white acres where formerly crops of grain had flourished.
Nothing but friendly greetings were offered by workers in the fields. Evidently the hue and cry for an escaped prisoner had not reached this agricultural area. In the late afternoon Yueh Hua found a perfect spot to tie up; a little willow-shadowed creek.
There was evidence, though, that they were near a village, for through the trees they could see a road along which workers were trudging homeward from the fields.
“It will do,” Tony agreed, “for we shall never be noticed here. But presently I’m going to explore a little way to try to find out just where we are.”
When they had moored the sampan they shared a scanty and dull meal, made more exciting by a seasoning of kisses, and Tony went ashore to take a look around.
He discovered that they lay not more than a few hundred yards from the village, which only a screen of bamboos concealed from them. It was an insignificant little group of dwellings, but it boasted an inn of sorts which spanned the road along which they had seen the peasants walking homeward. He returned and reported this to Yueh Hua.