Fu Manchu halted as suddenly as if he had walked into a brick wall. Then, he turned, and his eyes blazed murderously, madly.
“Are you presuming to question my surgery?” he shouted. “Am I, now, to return to Heidelberg, to the Sorbonne, to Edinburgh, and beg to be re-enrolled as a student—I, who took highest honors at all of them.”
He was in the grip of one of those outbursts of maniacal frenzy which, years before, had led Nayland Smith, and others, to doubt his sanity.
Matsukata seemed to shrink physically. He became speechless.
Fu Manchu raised clenched hands above his head. “God of China!” he cried, “give me strength to conquer myself—or I shall kill this man!”
He dropped down on to a chair, sank his head in his hands. Matsukata began to steal away.
“Stand still!” Fu Manchu hissed softly.
Matsukata stood still.
There was complete silence for several minutes. Then, Dr. Fu Manchu stood up. He was calm; the frenzy had passed.
“Prepare the cold room,” he ordered. “I must reexamine the patient . . .”
On his return from the early morning investigation, Nayland Smith’s behavior was peculiar. After a hasty meal, he appeared dressed as a working man. Grinning at Tony and Moon Flower:
“I’m off again!” he announced. “All I want you two to do is to stay indoors until I come back. Can you bear it?”
Tony and Moon Flower exchanged glances. Tony’s inclinations and his sense of duty were at war. “Can’t I be of any use, Sir Denis?” he asked.
“There’s not a thing you could do, McKay, that I can’t do better alone.”
And off he went.
“Chi Foh—” Moon Flower spoke almost in a whisper—”it’s wonderful for us to be together again. I know that Sir Denis is working to rescue father. But you must feel, as I do, that to stay inactive is dreadful.”
Tony threw his arms around her. “You weren’t inactive, Moon Flower, in finding Shun-Hi, and I don’t think it will be long before we are active again. I’m learning a lot about Sir Denis. When he tells me to stay put, I stay put. He’s a grand man, and I’m glad to take his orders . . .”
Their party occupied a floor of the house, and their landlord and host, the doctor, had his office and residence on the floor below. The lama had arranged everything. They enjoyed complete privacy. So that the interval of waiting, to these affianced lovers, was rapturous rather than boring. But, even with Moon Flower’s arms around him. Tony had pangs of conscience. Nayland Smith was on the big job, and he was dallying.
And as the day wore on, and Sir Denis didn’t return, this uneasiness became alarm.
Where had he gone? What was he doing?
With the coming of dusk, both were wildly uneasy. Tony’s sight of Dr. Fu Manchu that morning had sharpened his dread of The Master. He was painfully aware of the fact that if anything happened to Nayland Smith they would be helpless; two wanderers lost behind the second Bamboo Curtain.
Tony paced the room. Moon Flower rarely stirred from the window.
“If I had any idea where he had gone . . .” Tony said desperately.
There sounded a crisp step on the landing. Nayland Smith walked in.
“Thank God!” Tony added.
Moon Flower turned in a flash. “I didn’t see you on the street!”
“No, Jeanie. I came another way and entered by the back door. I had an uneasy feeling I was being followed.”
“I hope you were wrong,” Tony said.
“So do I,” Sir Denis admitted, opening the closet where they kept a scanty stock of liquor. “A stiff Scotch and soda is clearly indicated.”
“I had hoped to hear from Shun-Hi,” Moon Flower began—
“No luck today,” Nayland Smith rapped. “I have seen her. She’ll try again to-morrow. By that time we’ll be ready to go into action.”
“Why tomorrow and not to-day?” Tony asked.
Sir Denis grinned in his impish way. “I had to clear the course,” he stated cryptically, and began to fill his pipe . . .
Chapter XVIII
Tony woke early on the following morning. Looking across the room which he shared with Nayland Smith, he saw that the bed was empty. He thought little about it, for Sir Denis’s hours of rising were unpredictable. He took a shower, went into the living-room and lighted a cigarette.
When the woman who looked after their apartment appeared, to lay the table for breakfast, he asked her in Chinese at what time Sir Denis had gone out. They always spoke Chinese in the presence of the servants. She looked surprised and told him that it must have been before six o’clock, as no one had gone out since.
Moon Flower joined him half an hour later. “Isn’t Sir Denis up yet?” she asked in surprise.
“Very much up!” Tony told her. “He must have gone out around dawn!”
She stared at him in a puzzled way. “He’s behaving very oddly, isn’t he? Of course, I know it’s all something to do with getting father free, but I wish he wouldn’t scare us by these disappearances.”
“Who’s scaring you?” came a snappy voice from the direction of the doorway.
Tony turned—and there was Nayland Smith smiling at them. He wore his workman’s clothes.
“Where on earth have you been?” Tony asked. “And at what time did you start?”
“I started some time before daylight, McKay. I didn’t disturb you by taking a bath, so I’ll take one now. As to where I have been, I have been finishing the job of clearing the course. All we’re waiting for is word from Cameron-Gordon. Be with you in ten minutes.”
And a moment later they heard the bath water turned on; for the house of the Lama’s cousin, who had graduated in New York, boasted Western equipment.
During breakfast, in spite of Moon Flower’s cross examination, Nayland Smith evaded any explanation of his plans. “I believe, Jeanie, I have done all that can be done so far. Our next move will be touch-and-go. And I don’t want to raise false hopes.”
He spent the forenoon smoking his pipe near the window, constantly watching the passers by. Once, he spoke to Tony, out of Moon Flower’s hearing: “If they once suspected we were here, all my plans would be shattered.”
Tony felt like a greyhound on the leash, and Moon Flower, reproachfully, retired to her own room.
During luncheon, Nayland Smith tried to divert their gloomy thoughts with memories of his many encounters with Dr. Fu Manchu, particularly those in which he had foiled the cunning Chinese scientist. “I’m only a moderately competent policeman. This man is a criminal genius. But I have had him on the mat more than once. Unfortunately, he always got up again . . .”
The afternoon was passed in the same way; and when evening drew near, Nayland Smith’s imperturbable calm began to show signs of breaking down. Several times he looked at his watch, then out of the window again, until suddenly:
“Here she is!” he cried out, and sprang to the room door in his eagerness.
Shun-Hi, flushed and excited, came in. Moon Flower ran to meet her.
“Here it is, Miss Yueh Hua. The answer from your father!”
Moon Flower almost snatched a folded sheet of paper which Shun-Hi held in her hand.
“Quick, Jeanie—is it for tonight?” Nayland Smith snapped.
She read quickly, tears in her eyes, then looked up.
“Yes! To-night! Oh, Sir Denis, please God you succeed!”
* * *
In the dusk, Tony and Nayland Smith set out. They had weathered a bad storm with Moon Flower.
“I simply dare not take her, McKay,” Sir Denis said. “I understand her anxiety to see her father; but if anything goes wrong tonight, we shall have walked into hell! Whatever happens to you and me, Jeanie will be safe, if she does as I told her to do. You heard my instructions to Lao Tse-Mung. If we get Cameron-Gordon clear, the plans are laid for Jeanie and her father to fly to Hong Kong. Your capture of the Chinese manuscript was a divine miracle. We may have Dr. Fu Manchu at our mercy. But Skobolov’s correspondence has given me ideas about the Soviet research center We are going to take a look at the Soviet research center, McKay . . .”