“That’s the snag, Merrick. Doubt if he has one. Runs a sort of art shop near the Palace Hotel, Never knew the address. Does reproductions of murals from the old temples, statuettes of gods and so on. Sir Lionel Barton employed him when he was excavating a tomb up there.”
“Well, how am I to contact him? Would a radiogram to the Palace Hotel find him?”
“It might, Merrick—in time. I can suggest nothing better. Shall be sorry if anything happens to Isobel Jansen. I know Jansen was devoted to her. By the way, stand by tomorrow. I’m breaking cover. Look out for me!”
Nayland Smith hung up. Brian rather resented the light dismissal of his concern for Zoe, but reflected that Sir Denis had affairs more serious on his mind than the erratic movements of a girl he evidently thought of as a child. He wrote out a careful message addressed to Jansen (he didn’t know his first name) at the Luxor Palace, and gave it to the operator for transmission.
But, try how he would to fight it off, a mood of black depression swept down upon him. . . .
Chapter
8
Dr. Fu Manchu sat behind his desk, his disconcerting eyes focused upon Mr. Ahmad.
“You have instructed our agent at Luxor?”
“In detail, Excellency. The situation is under control.”
“Good. Return to your duties.” He resumed his reading of a closely written manuscript.
And Ahmad had not long gone out by one door when the Sherif Mohammed came in at another. “A messenger from China has just arrived, Excellency.”
Dr. Fu Manchu glanced up. “What has he to report?”
“There have been serious disturbances in three provinces. The Communist authorities have been compelled to send military reinforcements to——”
Fu Manchu suddenly stood up. His eyes blazed as though fires burned behind their greenness.
“What folly is this!” The words were rather hissed than spoken. “Are our Si-Fan directives no longer obeyed? My orders were clear: Accept whatever conditions, however harsh are imposed upon you. Lull the enemy into a state of false security. Wait! Wait for my word! Then—but not until then—strike, all my millions together. And at last China, our China, will lie like a choice pearl in my hand!”
Fu Manchu spoke as a man inspired—or possessed. The Sherif Mohammed lowered his head and muttered a Moslem prayer.
“It is true, Excellency. But agents of our enemy are sent amongst them to stir up rebellion, as an excuse for massacre. Here in Egypt I have great difficulty in preventing premature action, also.”
Dr. Fu Manchu clenched long, slender hands and sat down again. From some spot high above his head, Peko, his pet marmoset, sprang down on to his shoulder, giving his curious cry, which sounded like a short whistle. Fu Manchu reached up and stroked the little creature.
“Ah, Peko! You come to soothe me, my tiny friend.”
“No doubt,” Mohammed murmured, “Excellency will wish to send further orders back to General Huan Tsung Chao?”
Fu Manchu nodded. “Let the messenger wait. The fate of all the world hangs now upon a silk thread. Communism is not ready for war, and has nothing to gain by it. Washington fails to see how one step in the wrong direction may force the hazard. I have been selected to prevent this catastrophe, since I alone could hope to carry out the plan. Upon my success everything depends. Be good enough, my friend, to ask Dr. Matsukata to come in.”
The Sherif Mohammed salaamed and went out, leaving Dr. Fu Manchu playfully teasing the marmoset, which sometimes tried to bite him, whistling with fury, and sometimes snuggled up against his silk robe affectionately.
Matsukata came in; bowed ceremoniously. “Excellency wished to see me?”
Fu Manchu fixed his strange gaze upon the Japanese surgeon.
“No later than forty-eight hours from now, Matsukata, we must be on our way. You are ready?”
“I am ready.”
“And your last patient?”
“Is ready also.”
“You are satisfied?”
“He is sleeping. But Excellency might wish to see him.”
Fu Manchu slightly shook his head. “It is unnecessary. He must make the journey.”
Matsukata bowed again. The marmoset sprang across the desk and whistled at him angrily . . .
* * *
Brian spent a wretched day. He remained extremely uneasy about Zoe. Whatever the urgency, he couldn’t understand why she had gone with never a word to him. He had found out from the management that she had left all her luggage behind, and all her expensive dresses!
They had never seen her before and could give him no information about her. They hoped nothing unpleasant had happened. But as the value of her abandoned property was apparently greater than the amount of her unpaid bill, they weren’t so deeply concerned as otherwise they might have been.
It was late in the afternoon when a boy handed him a telegram. It was signed “J. Jansen.” The message was brief, merely stating that Zoe had hurried back to Luxor with the writer and that there were hopes for her aunt’s recovery. She sent her love to Brian and Sir Denis.
Brian gave a great sigh of relief.
He had built up a pyramid of doubts based upon her disappearance. These included the theory that Mr. Ahmad was a traitor in Sir Denis’s camp; that Sir Denis was losing his grip and didn’t recognize friend from enemy.
This telegram shattered these delusions, lifting a dreadful load from his mind.
Perhaps he would never see Zoe again, but she had given him many hours of happiness and, after all, he wasn’t in Cairo to enjoy himself!
During the remainder of the evening he wrote a long letter to her, addressed c/o J. Jansen, but never wandered far from the hotel, expecting Nayland Smith to walk in at any moment.
But up to the time that he went in to dinner Sir Denis hadn’t appeared.
He was about to stand up and go out on to the terrace for coffee when he saw him hurrying in his direction and accompanied by another man quite unmistakably English. Both wore evening dress.
“Ah, there you are, Merrick!” Sir Denis snapped. “Want you to meet Sir Nigel Richardson from the Embassy!”
“How do you do, Mr. Merrick!” Sir Nigel shook hands cordially. “Devil of a game you fellows have taken on! Smith’s been telling me all about it.”
Brian felt quite confused. “Will you join me for coffee?”
“Came to fetch you,” Sir Nigel explained. “You’re coming back to the Embassy for your coffee and so forth. Business to be done! Lots of work. Very little time.”
Brian found an Embassy car waiting outside, and a few minutes later found himself in Sir Nigel Richardson’s study. Coffee was passed around and an assortment of liqueurs offered by a butler who would have delighted P.G. Wodehouse;
also excellent cigars. A young attache, Captain Arkwright, joined the party and made notes from time to time. He was earnest, efficient, and highly excited.
“Please give my regards to your father, Mr. Merrick.” Sir Nigel raised his glass to Brian. “He was with the American Legation in Madrid some years ago when I also was posted to Spain. We were much younger!” He smiled, glanced at Nayland Smith, “You were a policeman in Burma in those days, Smith!”
“Where I first crossed the path of Dr. Fu Manchu!” Sir Denis stood up, and began to move about restlessly, filling his pipe, which he rarely forgot to bring along, as Brian recalled. “And he’s a bigger menace today than he was then.”
Sir Nigel Richardson frowned thoughtfully, drawing together his heavy eyebrows, black in contrast with his silvered hair.
“Your sudden appearance, Smith, has set me thinking. Rumours of this man’s doings, nothing further, have come my way in spots as far apart as Teheran and Paris. What should you guess his age to have been the first time you saw him?”