“What’s this?” came a muffled exclamation.
The ray of a torch cut the darkness; then many others. Every member of the party was seemingly provided. Someone thrust a light into my hand and I went racing along to the door of Fleurette’s room.
One glance showed me that it was empty....
“I forgive you, Sterling,” came hoarsely, “but you are wasting time.”
The party tore down the stairs, Nayland Smith and I leading.
“Petrie’s room!” came huskily, “that first....”
We dashed across the dismantled radio research laboratory, eerie in torchlight, through the empty study where Dr. Fu Manchu, wrapped in a strange opium dream, had sat in his throne chair, and on through those great forcing houses where trees, shrubs, and plants to which Dame Nature had never given her benediction wilted in the keen air sweeping through open doors.
Hoarse exclamations told of the astonishment experienced by the police party following us as we dashed through those exotic mysteries. Then, mounting the stair and coming to the corridor with its white, numbered doors, I became aware of a crunching sound beneath my feet.
I paused, and shone the light downward.
The floor was littered with dead and comatose insects, swift victims of this change of temperature! The giant spider had succumbed somewhere, I did not doubt; yet even now I dreaded the horror, dreaded those reasoning eyes.
“We turn right here!” I shouted, my voice muffled by the mask.
I ran along the passage and in at the open door of that room in which I had seen Petrie.
The room was empty!
“They have taken him!” groaned Nayland Smith. “We’re too late. What’s that?”
A sound of excited voices reached me dimly. Then came a cry from the rear. The men under the local Chief of Police had joined us; they had come in by the main entrance.
Yet neither group had discovered a soul on the premises!
“Spread out!” cried Nayland Smith—”parties of two! There’s some Chinese rathole. A big household doesn’t disappear into thin air. Come on, Sterling! our route is downward, not up.”
We pressed our way through the throng of men behind us, Nayland Smith and the Chief of Police repeating the orders.
Sir Denis beside me, I raced back along the way we had come; and although every door appeared to be open, there was seemingly none in that range of rooms other then those I knew. We searched the big forcing houses, meeting only other muffled figures engaged upon a similar task.
But apparently the doors leading into Dr. Fu Manchu’s study and those which communicated with the botanical research room were the only means of entrance or exit!
Out into the big dismantled laboratory we ran. There were two open doors in the wall opposite our point of entrance.
“This one first!” came in a muffled voice.
Sir Denis and I ran across to an opening in the glass wall.
“The Chinaman who arrived in the speedboat went this way,” he shouted.
Shining our torches ahead, we entered—and found a descending stair. Our light failed to penetrate to the bottom of it.
“Stop, Sir Denis!” I cried.
Wrenching off the suffocating glass mask, I dropped it on the floor, for I saw that in the darkness he had already discarded his gas helmet.
“We must assemble a party—we may be walking into a trap.”
He pulled up and stared at me; his face was haggard.
“You are right,” he rapped. “Get three or four men, and notify Fumeaux—he’s in charge of the police—which way we have gone.”
I ran back across the great empty hall from which that curious violet light had gone, and shouted loudly. I soon assembled a party, one of whom I despatched in search of the Chief of Police, and, accompanied by the others, I rejoined Nayland Smith.
We left one man on duty at the door.
Nayland Smith leading, and I close behind him, we began to descend the stairs into the subterranean mystery of Ste Claire.
chapter fortieth
THE SECRET DOCK
“this is where the Chinaman went,” he said. “It speaks loudly for the iron rule of the doctor. Sterling, that although this man had presumably brought important news, not only did he avoid awakening Fu Manchu, but he even left the doors of the palm house open. However, where did he go? That’s what we have to find out.”
A long flight of rubber-covered stairs descended ahead of us. The walls and ceiling were covered with that same glassy material which prevailed in the radio research room. I counted sixty steps and then we came to a landing.
“Look out for traps,” rapped Nayland Smith, “and distrust every foot of the way.”
We tested for doors on the landing, but could find none. A further steep flight of steps branched away down to the right.
“Come on!”
The lower flight possessed the same characteristics as the higher, and terminated on another square landing. A long corridor showed beyond—so long that the light of our torches was lost in it.
“One man to stand by here,” came the crisp order—”and keep in contact with the man at the top.”
We pressed on. We were now reduced to a party of four. There were several bends in the passage, but its general direction, according to my calculations, was southerly.
“This is amazing,” muttered Nayland Smith. “If it goes on much farther, I shall being to suspect that it is a private entrance to the Casino at Monte Carlo!”
Even as he spoke, another bend unmasked the end of this remarkable passage. Branching sharply down to the right, I saw a further flight of steps—rough wooden steps; and the naked rock was all about us.
“What’s this?”
We must be down to sea level.”
“Fully, I should think.”
Sir Denis turned; and:
“Fall out another man,” he directed; “patrol between here and the end of the passage. Keep in contact with your opposite number, a shot to be the signal of any danger. Come on!”
A party of three, we pressed on down the wooden steps. There was a greater chilliness in the air, and a stale smell as of ancient rottenness. Another landing was reached, wooden planked: roughly hewn rock all about us. More wooden stairs, inclining left again.
These terminated in an arched, crudely octagonal place which bore every indication of being a natural cave. It was floored with planks, and a rugged passage, similarly timbered, led yet farther south—or so I estimated.
“Stay here,” Nayland Smith directed tersely. “Keep in touch with the man at the top.”
And the last of the police party was left behind.
Sir Denis and I hurried on. Fully a hundred yards we went—and came to a yawning gap, which our lights could not penetrate. Moving slowly now, we reached the end of the passage.
“Careful!” warned Sir Denis. “By heavens! what’s this?”
We stood on a narrow wharf!
Tackle lay about; crates, packing cases, coils of rope. And the sea—for I recognized that characteristic smell of the Mediterranean—lapped its edge!
But not a speck of light was visible anywhere. The water was uncannily still. One would not have suspected it to be there.
“Lights out!” snapped Sir Denis.
We extinguished our lamps. Utter darkness blanketed us:
we might have stood in a mine gallery.
“Don’t light up!” came his voice. “I should have foreseen this. But even so, I don’t see how I could have provided against it....My God! what’s that?”
A dull sustained note, resembling that of a muted gong, vibrated eerily through the stillness...In fact, now that he had drawn my attention to it, I believed that it had been perceptible for some time, although hitherto partly drowned by the clatter of our rubber soles upon wooden steps.