“Tough they are, these Japanese. It is extreme nervous exhaustion. Is your flask empty. Sir Denis?”
It wasn’t. And the doctor went to work to revive Matsukata.
“McKay!” Nayland Smith said, supporting the inert body. “There must be some kind of bell, or something, to arouse the gate porter. Tung may know!”
But Tung knew of no bell, so he began to rattle the bars and shout.
“Open the gate! Open the gate!”
He was still shouting when a light sprang up in the lodge, a door was unlocked. An old man looked out, cautiously.
“Quick! Let us in!”
“It is Dr. Matsukata!” Tony called in Chinese. “We have business with his Excellency!”
The ancient porter came to the gate. “Gladly—for the place is taken over by demons! “ He peered about, fearfully. “I saw them—leaping over the wall!”
He opened the heavy gate almost at the moment that Matsukata revived enough to speak.
“They meant to kill me,” he whispered. “They forced the driver to take the truck to the clinic. I was helpless. They can communicate with one another in some way. I knew this. They acted together. I was forced to open the store of Looma. They drank it all. Then they forced the driver to come here. I do not know why they compelled me to come. Perhaps to torture me. From the roof of the truck they sprang over into the governor’s garden—all of them; like apes. I know no more, except that the Master—”
Matsukata passed out again.
McKay and Tung carried him into the gate lodge. Then Tung drove the car in and the gate was relocked. Dr. von Wehmer volunteered to look after Matsukata, and Tony and Nayland Smith started off towards the house.
Tony saw that every window in the large building was lighted!
“What’s this?” he muttered.
“My guess is that the Cold Men are inside—looting!” Nay land Smith told him rapidly. “By the way, hide your radio.”
He began to run. So did Tony.
A gong hung on the flower-draped terrace before the main door. Nayland Smith struck it a blow with the butt of his revolver.
Before its vibration had died away, the big, heavy door was thrown open, and a terrifying figure stood before them, a lean, muscular figure of a man wearing a shirt of chain mail, baggy trousers and some kind of metal helmet. He held a heavy sword having a curved blade from which certain stains had been imperfectly removed!
“You are welcome, gentlemen.”
It was General Huan Tsung-Chao!
As the door was reclosed. Tony glanced around the lighted lobby, its exquisite tapestries and trophies of arms—from one of which he guessed that General Huan had taken his queer equipment. Nayland Smith was staring at the general in an odd way.
“I can assure you. Sir Denis,” the old soldier said in his excellent English, “that I have not taken leave of my senses. But my house was invaded some time ago by creatures not of this world. My steward, an excellent and faithful servant, detecting one of them entering through a window, shot him. The Thing ignored the wound, sprang on my steward and strangled him!”
“The Cold Men!” Nayland Smith rapped. “What did you do?”
“I ordered the resident staff to lock themselves in their quarters, and took the same precautions with my guests. Dr. Cameron-Gordon and his daughter. I locked the door of their apartment.”
“Thank God for that!” Tony murmured.
“Some of the creatures,” General Huan went on in unruffled calm, “had obtained knives. Hence this.” He tapped the shirt of mail. “It was worn by an ancestor many centuries ago. I called for aid from Chia-Ting and was interrupted by one of the grey horrors, who attacked me with a dagger. Although apparently immune to bullets, I am a saber expert, and I struck the things heads off without difficulty.”
Tony gasped. He had seen such a feat performed by the executioner in the prison yard at Chia-Ting. But General Huan he judged to be all of seventy years old!
“Listen!” Nayland Smith snapped.
A faint sound of maniacal laughter sent an icy chill down Tony’s spine.
“Some of them are upstairs,” General Huan declared. “They move like shadows. I beheaded another in the wine cellar. The creature was pouring a rare Chateau Yquem down his throat. But there are more to be accounted for. This imbecile laughter—”
A stifled shriek checked him.
“Moon Flower!” Tony shouted. “Lead the way, sir! Where is she?”
But that strange figure of a medieval Chinese warrior already led the way. Before a door carved in fanciful geometrical designs he halted and took a key from a pocket in his baggy trousers; threw the door open. It was their former apartment.
The effect resembled that caused by opening a refrigerator. Through a window having a balcony outside Tony saw the starry sky, and knew immediately how the Cold Man had got in. The room showed a scene of crazy disorder. Dr. Cameron-Gordon lay face-down by the window. But he had no time to observe details . . .
A necropolite, a grey, corpselike figure, was forcing Moon Flower back on to a divan; his lean left arm locked around her. She was past speech, but her feeble moans stung Tony to fighting madness. With his right hand the Cold Man stripped the clothing from her shoulders, pressing his loathsome lips to the soft curves he found.
Tony leapt forward and pumped three bullets into the Cold Man’s sinewy grey shoulder. The creature uttered no cry of pain; but its left arm relaxed and then fell limply. Moon Flower staggered back, collapsing on the cushioned divan.
As Nayland Smith sprang forward, the Cold Man turned, a murderous grin on his face.
“Oblige me by stepping aside, gentlemen,” General Huan cried in a tone of command.
Both twisted around, astounded by the words and the manner.
General Huan thrust himself before them. The necropolite plucked a knife from his loincloth. And at that same moment the long, curved blade of the great sword whistled through the air—and the grinning head rolled on the rug-covered floor. The trunk collapsed slowly, then slumped.
“See!” General Huan held up the blade. “No more blood than if one carved a fish! The creatures are not human . . .”
* * *
Cameron-Gordon had been stunned by a blow on his skull, received as the Cold Man silently entered through the window. Or so Nayland Smith deduced when his old friend came to his senses and stared dazedly across the room to where Tony knelt beside the divan whispering soothing words to Moon Flower. Her experience with a necropolite had brought her to the verge of hysteria, a feminine weakness which she despised.
The icy remains of her attacker, in two parts, had been removed before she recovered from the swoon; and General Huan had gone to call those male members of his staff who slept in the servants’ annexe to assist in the search for the Cold Men still at large.
Assured by Cameron-Gordon that he had suffered no physical injury, Nayland Smith jumped up and glanced quizzically at Tony.
“Come on, McKay!” he rapped. “Jeanie will be all right now with her father to look after her. We’re wanted downstairs.”
“Close those shutters,” Tony called to Cameron-Gordon as he started, “and lock the door after us!”
Their assistance proved to be unnecessary, however. Matsukata, fully restored, and Dr. von Wehmer, on their way to the house, had almost stumbled over several Cold Men lying in a state of coma induced by a surfeit of looted food and wine. Another, making his exit in the same way, from an upstairs window, had fallen on his head and lay unconscious on a tiled path.
Matsukata’s manner was furtive. From the way in which he glanced at von Wehrner, Tony knew that there were questions he wanted to ask, and from the way he avoided meeting Nayland Smith’s eyes that there were inquiries he didn’t want to answer. In fact, he seemed to be half-dazed.