Gorodin’s lips were turning blue. “There is none.”
“Then you will have the honour to die as you planned I should die. Recently I watched a rat in its last agonies from this treatment. I have no desire to watch another rat die in the same way.” He dropped the syringe in a glass bowl and glanced at Matsukata. “Sterilize. Incinerate the body.”
Dr. Fu Manchu turned and walked slowly out of the laboratory. . . .
* * *
For Brian Merrick the days that followed in London seemed more like a dream than a reality when, later, he looked back on them. Mr Wellingham, always operating in the background, made all the necessary passport and medical arrangements, fixing appointments at times to suit Brian’s convenience. The organization for which he acted was undeniably efficient. Lola took charge of his shopping list and, whenever possible, went with him to a famous store at which an account had been opened in his name. She sternly checked some of his wilder impulses—such as the purchase of a sun helmet.
“You’d look a fool in Cairo wearing such a thing! If they send you up to the Sudan there are plenty of stores in Cairo where you can buy all you want.”
They lunched, dined and danced together. The sun shone and Brian was ridiculously happy. One afternoon sitting in Hyde Park with Lola he said: “Today I felt as though we were shopping for a honeymoon abroad! Oh, Lola! If only it had been true!”
He saw her flush, lower her lashes and glance away, then:
“We come from a country of hasty marriages,” she told him, softly, her usual composure restored. “Such a marriage, as often as not, is just the first of several more. We enjoy being together. Why get serious about it?”
“Lola, I hate leaving you.”
“I know I shall miss you, too, Brian. But we both have jobs to do and our jobs are interesting. All you know about me is what I’ve told you. But you find me good company and physically attractive. The same applies to you.”
Brian watched the piquant face. “But you won’t drop out of sight? You’ll write to me?”
“Of course I shall—if I know where to find you.”
“Sure! I hadn’t thought of that! But this is what I’ll do. Directly I reach Cairo I’ll radio my address to you at Michel’s in London.”
“No, Brian dear! Don’t do that. Michel won’t deal with private correspondence. And I might be anywhere. I’ll tell you what, Brian. When I get my sailing orders I’ll leave a forwarding address at the hotel if I haven’t heard from you by then.”
“It might take weeks to reach you!”
“I’ll tip the hall porter to send it airmail. . . .”
That night they were out together later than usual, Lola lovely to look upon in her cunningly simple dance dress, Brian drunk with longing but kept in check by those sudden moods of aloofness which sometimes came over Lola, like a mysterious cloak, changing her entire personality. At one moment all sweet surrender, in the next she became the unattainable woman.
But in the taxi going back to the hotel he took her in his arms and kissed her, passionately. . . . “Lola,” he murmured, “I love you . . .”
She returned his kiss, which set him on fire, but gently pushed him away.
“Don’t make love to me now, Brian—when I know we’re parting so soon. I’m very fond of you. But please wait. I feel we shan’t be parted for long.”
He detained her in the dark lounge of the hotel for an unreasonable time; and in the lift when, very tired, she stepped off (Lola lived on the floor below Brian) he felt that he had lost her for ever. A sense of desolation swept over him. . . .
* * *
It was approximately at the same hour that an event occurred in the old Arab mansion near the Mosque of El-Ashraf which would have a great influence upon Brian Merrick’s life.
The lofty saloon was dimly lighted by hanging lamps of perforated brass. On a cushioned seat in one of the mushrabiyeh windows Dr. Fu Manchu lay, so that what little breeze there was could reach him from the courtyard outside.
His normally gaunt features were so grey and sunken that now they resembled a death’s head. His eyes were dim. It seemed to Matsukata, the Japanese physician who sat watching him, that only the man’s unquenchable spirit remained alive. When he spoke, the once imperious voice was a mere croak.
“You have never . . . seen me ... in this pitiable condition . . . before. I knew I had . . . little time. But the . . . dreadful change has ... come so suddenly.” Fu Manchu panted for some moments. “Gorodin’s treachery . . . has destroyed me. .... You have searched ... every inch . . . of his rooms ... for the stolen . . . phial?”
Matsukata bowed his head. “Every fraction of an inch, Excellency. But the Sherif Mohammed has been at work nearly twenty-four hours without sleep or rest on the material.”
Dr. Fu Manchu’s eyes closed. “If I die . . . tonight,” he whispered, “mankind will . . . not long . . . survive me.”
He became silent. Matsukata bent over him in sudden anxiety. A door opened in the other end of the saloon and a man entered quietly, an old, white-bearded man who wore Arab dress. A change crept over Fu Manchu’s grey face. Without opening his eyes:
“You have it, Hakim?” he whispered, speaking in Arabic.
“I have it, Excellency, at last.”
From under his black robe, the old physician took out a small phial, half filled with a nearly colourless fluid.
“You are .. . sure . . . of the antacoid?” The words were barely audible.
“Positive.”
“Pro . . . ceed . . . quickly . . .”
“His heart”—Matsukata spoke close to the Arab doctor’s ear—”is dangerously weakened.”
“I understand. We have no choice. The convulsions which follow the administration of the elixir are frightful. Be prepared for this. But any attempt to check them would be instantly fatal. . . .”
* * *
Brian had a restless night, not falling asleep until dawn was peering in at the window. He was wakened by the buzzing of his bedside phone. As he took up the receiver, he noted vaguely that it was ten o’clock.
“Is that Mr. Merrick?” a woman’s voice inquired.
A hope that the caller was Lola died. “Brian Merrick here.”
“Hold the line for Mr. Wellingham.”
Peter Wellingham came on. Even without seeing the pale face, those tones of false geniality chilled him.
“Good morning, Merrick. Hope I haven’t wakened you up.
Your instructions are just to hand, in the form of a reservation for a BOAC flight to Cairo, leaving at the uncomfortable hour of 5.30 a.m. tomorrow morning. You’ll be picked up at your hotel at 4, so I thought I’d give you time to pack!”
“Very thoughtful,” Brian murmured.
“A member of Sir Denis’s staff, a Mr. Ahmad, will contact you when you arrive in Cairo. You’ll like him. I’ll send all papers along right away. Everything else is in order?”
“Everything.”
“I’m off to Paris in an hour, or I should have loved to have you to lunch with me. But I expect you’ll be well occupied with your own affairs. I saw you in Pall Mall one afternoon with an uncommonly pretty girl. You Americans seem to be damned popular!”
When Wellingham hung up, Brian lay back on his ruffled pillow and tried to figure out just where he stood and how he felt about it.
He had sent a long airmail letter to his father, telling him that a chance to travel had some his way in the form of a job as assistant to no one less than Sir Denis Nayland Smith. The senator had replied, offering good advice and assuring Brian of his support if ever it should be needed. Then had followed some disturbing facts about the situation in the Near East.
“The public,” his father wrote, “don’t appreciate the seriousness of the situation out there. Here at home they think it doesn’t concern them as the trouble is so far away. But I can assure you that the President is deeply disturbed. The U.S.A. is the only partner in the Western bloc with any cash in the bank. This piles a terrible responsibility on to us. I’m sure you know how to take care of yourself, my boy, but be very careful when you get to Egypt. You couldn’t have a better man beside you than Nayland Smith. . . .”