“James Richet, I am displeased with you.” Richet looked right, left, above and below. Then:
“Who is speaking?” he demanded angrily. “These stage illusions are not impressive. Was I to blame for what happened? I wish to see you, speak to you face to face.”
“An unwise wish, James Richet. Only Numbers one to twelve have that privilege.”
Richet’s brow was covered with nervous perspiration. “I want a square deal,” he said, striving to be masterful. “You shall have a square deal,” the implacable, guttural voice replied. “You will be given sealed orders by the Number in charge of Base 3. See that you carry out his instructions to the letter. . . .”
in
Mark Hepburn sprang up in bed.
“All right, Hepburn!”—it was Nayland Smith’s voice. “Sorry to awaken you, but there’s a job for us.”
The light had been switched on, and Hepburn stared somewhat dazedly at the speaker, then glanced down at his watch. The hour was 3.15 a.m. But Nayland Smith was fully dressed. Now wide awake:
“What is it?” Hepburn asked, impressed by his companion’s grim expression and beginning also to dress hastily.
“I don’t know—yet. I was called five minutes ago—I had not turned in—by the night messenger. A taxi—perhaps a coincidence, but it happens to be a Lotus taxi—pulled up at the main entrance. The passenger asked the man to step into the lobby and inquire for me——”
“In what name?”
“The title was curiously accurate, Hepburn. It was typed on a slip of paper. The man was told to ask for Federal Agent Ex-Assistant Commissioner Sir Denis Nayland Smith, O.B.E.!”
Hepburn was now roughly dressed. He turned, staring:
“But to everybody except myself and Fey you are plain Mr. Smith!”
“Exactly. That is why I see the hand of Dr. Fu Manchu, who has a ghastly sense of humour, in this. The man proceeded to obey his orders, I gather, but he had not gone three paces when something happened. Let’s hurry down. The man is there . . . so is his passenger.”
The night manager and a house detective were talking to Fey by the open door of the apartment.
“Queerest thing that ever happened in my experience, gentlemen,” said the manager. “I only hope it isn’t a false alarm. The string of titles means nothing to me. But you are Mr. Smith and I know you are a Federal agent. This way. The elevator is waiting. If you will follow me I will take you by a shorter route.”
Down they went to the street level. Led by the manager they hurried along a service passage, crossed a wide corridor, two empty offices, and came out at the far end of the vast pillared and carpeted main foyer. Except for robot-like workers vacuum cleaning, it was deserted and in semi-darkness. A lofty, shadow-haunted place. Light shone from the open door of the night manager’s room. . . .
A man who wore a topcoat over pyjamas was examining a still figure stretched on a sofa. There were three other men in the room, one of them the taxi driver.
Nayland Smith shot a searching glance at the latter’s pale, horrified face, as, cap on the back of his head, he stared over the doctor’s shoulder, and then, pushing his way forward, he too looked once, and:
“Good God!” he muttered. “Hepburn”—Mark Hepburn was beside him—”what is it? Have you ever met with anything like it?”
There was a momentary silence, grotesquely disturbed by the hum of a distant vacuum cleaner.
The prostrate man, whose torso had been stripped to restore cardiac action, exhibited on his face and neck a number of vivid scarlet spots. They were about an eighth of an inch in diameter and on the dull white skin resembled drops of blood. . . .
“Never.”
Mark Hepburn’s voice was husky. The doctor looked up. He was a heavily built Teutonic type, his shrewd eyes magnified by powerful spectacles.
“If you are a brother practitioner,” he said, “you are welcome. This case is outside my experience.”
“When did he actually die?” rapped Nayland Smith.
“He was already dead when I arrived—although I worked over him for ten minutes or more—”
“The scarlet spots!”—blurted the taxi driver in a frightened voice—“That’s what he called out, ‘The scarlet spots’—and then he was down on the sidewalk rolling about and screaming!”
Mark Hepburn glanced at Nayland Smith.
“You were right,” he said; “we shall never get that information.”
The dead man was James Richet, ex-secretary to Abbot Donegal!
Chapter 11
RED SPOTS
“What is it, mister,” the taximan whispered, “some new kind of fever?”
“No,” said Nayland Smith. “It’s a new kind of a murder!”
“Why do you say so?” the hotel doctor asked, glancing in a puzzled way at the ghastly object on the sofa.
But Nayland Smith did not reply. Turning to the night manager:
“I want no one at present in the foyer,” he said, “to leave without my orders. You”—he pointed to the house detective— “will mount guard over the taxicab outside the main entrance. No one must touch it or enter it. No one must pass along the sidewalk between the taxi and the hotel door. It remains where it stands until further notice. Hepburn”—he turned— “get two patrolmen to take over this duty. Hurry. I need you here.”
Mark Hepburn nodded and went out of the night manager’s room, followed by the house detective.
“What about anyone living here and coming in late?” asked the night manager, speaking with a rich Tipperary brogue.
“What’s your house detective’s name?”
“Lawkin.”
“Lawkin!” cried Smith, standing in the open door, “any residents are to be directed to some other entrance.”
“O.K., sir.”
“The use of an office, Mr. Dougherty,” Nayland Smith continued, addressing the manager, “on this floor? Can you oblige us?”
“Certainly Mr. Smith. The office next to this.”
“Excellent. Have you notified the police?”
“I considered I had met regulations by notifying yourself and Captain Hepburn.”
“So you have. I suppose a man is not qualified to hold your job unless he possesses tact.” He turned to the taximan. “Will you follow Mr. Dougherty to the office and wait for me there?”
The driver, a man palpably shaken, obeyed Dougherty’s curt nod and followed him out, averting his eyes from the sofa. Two men and the doctor remained, one wearing dinner kit, the other a lounge suit. To the former:
“I presume that you are the assistant night manager?” said Nayland Smith.
“That is so. Fisk is my name, sir. This”—indicating the square-jowled wearer of the lounge suit—”is James Harris, assistant house detective.”
“Good,” rapped Nayland Smith. “Harris—give a hand to Lawkin outside.” Harris went out. “And now, Mr. Frisk, will you please notify Mr. Dougherty that I wish to remain alone here with Dr.——?”
“My name is Scheky,” said the physician.
“—with Dr. Scheky.”
The assistant night manager went out. Nayland Smith and Dr. Scheky were alone with the dead man.
“I have endeavoured to clear this room, Doctor,” Smith continued, addressing the burly physician in the topcoat, “without creating unnecessary panic. But do you realize that you and I face risk of the same death”—he pointed—”that he died?”
“I had not realized it, Mr. Smith,” the physician admitted, glancing down with a changed expression at the bright red blotches on the dead man’s skin; “nor do I know why you suspect murder.”
“Perhaps you will understand later, Doctor. When Captain Hepburn returns I am sending for certain equipment. If you care to go to your apartment I will have you called when we are ready. . . .”
In an adjoining office, amid cleared desks and closed files, the pale-faced taximan faced Nayland Smith’s interrogation.