All three were packed into the back seat, the door was closed and the car started. The engine had the velvet action of a Rolls.
“No talking!” came the deep African voice.
The big Nubian was still with them!
A dreadful idea crossed Tony’s mind. They were being taken to the jail at Chia-Ting! The thought seemed to chill his blood. Once inside that grim prison they would be lost to the world. Even Sir Denis, with all the power of Britain behind him, would merely be listed as missing!
But the horror was quickly dismissed. The car stopped long before they could have reached Chia-Ting, and he was hauled out. Unseen hands guided him through what he knew to be a garden; for a faint fragrance of flowers told him so.
He was led in on to a softly carpeted floor, led upstairs. He could hear the stumbling footsteps of his friends who followed. He was thrust down in a chair. And, last, the bandage was removed from his eyes.
Tony blinked, for a light shone directly on to his face. For awhile, he couldn’t get accustomed to it after complete darkness. But at last he did . . .
He saw a luxuriously furnished room. There were rich Chinese rugs, cabinets in which rare porcelain vases gleamed, trophies of arms; openings veiled by silk curtains. The lighting was peculiar. It came from a shaded lamp, the shade so constructed that light shone fully on to his face and on to the faces of his two companions. This lamp stood on a long lacquer desk, its gleaming surface littered with a variety of objects: books, manuscripts, some curious antique figures on pedestals, a small gong, and several queer-looking objects of the nature or use of which he was ignorant.
But these things he saw clearly later. His first impression of them was a vague one. For his attention became focused upon the man who sat behind the lacquer desk, wearing a plain yellow robe, his long-fingered hands resting on the desk before him. Owing to the cunning construction of the lampshade, his face was in half-shadow.
His green eyes glinting under partly lowered lids. Dr. Fu Manchu sat passively regarding the three trapped men.
“It is a long time. Sir Denis,” he said softly, “since I had the privilege of entertaining you. I trust you enjoyed your supper?”
“Oh! it was supper?—it was excellent.”
“Prepared by a first-class French chef.”
“Tell him if he cares to come to London I can find him better employment.”
Dr. Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff. “Incorrigible as always. In our many years’ association I cannot recall that you ever admitted defeat.”
Nayland Smith didn’t reply. The green eyes were turned upon Tony, and he felt, again, the horrible sensation that they looked, not at him, but through him.
“You have proved yourself a nuisance. Captain McKay,” the sibilant voice continued; “but not a serious menace. Suppose I offered you your freedom, on two conditions?”
“What conditions?”
“One that you married Miss Cameron-Gordon.”
Tony’s throat grew dry. “And the other?”
“That you both took the oath of allegiance to the Order of the Si-Fan.”
Tony turned and met a glance from the haggard eyes of Cameron-Gordon as he cried out, “I don’t understand. I didn’t know you were even acquainted!”
“We were thrown together for a long time, sir. I love your daughter deeply, sincerely. And she has consented to marry me, with your approval . . . but not until you are free.”
“I have already offered Dr. Cameron-Gordon his freedom.” Fu Manchu murmured.
“On the same terms,” Cameron-Gordon began, then stopped, sank his head in his hands.
Nayland Smith sat silent, looking neither right nor left, but straight ahead at Dr. Fu Manchu.
“Suppose I decline?” Tony asked hoarsely.
Fu Manchu struck the small gong. Draperies before one of the several doors were swept aside, and Moon Flower came in!
She wore the nurse’s uniform in which Tony had recently seen her.
“Yueh Hua!” he gasped, half stood up.
“Jeanie, darling!” Cameron-Gordon’s voice rose on a note of high emotion.
She ignored them. Her blue eyes were turned upon Dr. Fu Manchu. Without even glancing in her direction:
“You are happy in your new work?” he asked.
“I am happy. Master.”
“You may go.”
Moon Flower turned and walked out automatically through the opening by which she had come in.
Cameron-Gordon and Tony sprang simultaneously to their feet. Nayland Smith reached out right and left and grabbed an arm of each in a powerful grip.
“Sit down!” he snapped. “Don’t act like bloody fools!”
Tony conquered the furious rage which had swept sanity aside, and sat down. Cameron-Gordon resisted awhile, but finally sank back in his chair. “You yellow blackguard!” he muttered. “Why didn’t I strangle you long ago!”
Fu Manchu, who had remained impassive, replied in that sibilant undertone so like a snake’s hiss, “Probably out of consideration for your daughter. Doctor. I am obliged to you. Sir Denis. If you will glance behind you, I think you must realize how childish any display of force would have been.”
Tony turned in a flash.
Four stockily built Burmese, armed with long knives, stood behind their chairs!
“I knew they were there,” Nayland Smith told him.
“You have the ears of a desert fox. Sir Denis,” Fu Manchu said, “and a long experience of my methods.”
He added three guttural words, not in English, and Tony knew, although he heard no sound, that the four body-guards had retired.
“Now let us hear—” Nayland Smith spoke crisply—”what plans for our welfare you may have in mind if your generous offer is declined.”
His irony ruffled Dr. Fu Manchu no more than Cameron-Gordon’s violence had done. Resting his elbows on the desk, he pressed the tips of his long fingers together. Moon Flower’s evident submission to the will of the perverted genius had shaken Tony so badly that his brain seemed numbed.
Waiting for Fu Manchu’s next words, he felt like a criminal awaiting sentence.
“There was a time. Sir Denis,” he heard the sibilant, cool voice saying, “when I employed medieval methods. You may recall the Wire Jacket and the Seven Gates of Wisdom?”
Tony looked aside at Nayland Smith, noted a tightening of the jaw muscles, and knew that he had clenched his teeth; then:
“Quite clearly!” he rapped. “Hungry rats featured in the Seven Gates, I remember.”
“I have abandoned such crudities. Doubtless they were appropriate in dealing with the river pirates, if only as a warning to other low-class criminals. But I recognized that they were useless to me. I had to deal with enemies on a higher social and intellectual plane. Therefore more subtle means were indicated—”
“Such as kidnapping and hypnotizing a man’s daughter!” Cameron-Gordon burst out.
“You are misinformed. Doctor,” the poisonously suave voice assured him. “It is not a case of kidnapping. On my way to visit you in the laboratory I found your daughter hiding on General Huan’s property.”
“Go on,” Nayland Smith said irritably. “We are splitting hairs. The plain fact is that you have all four of us in your hands. What do you propose to do with us?
“I hope to make you understand that it is my methods and not my ideals against which you have fought, without notable success, for many years. In England, I agree, those methods were unusual. In consequence, your Scotland Yard branded me as a common criminal. My political aims were described as “The Yellow Peril7!”
Fu Manchu’s strange voice had increased in volume, had become guttural. He had changed his passive pose. Lean hands lay clenched upon the desk before him.