“Three of them I have seen before.”
Sir Denis opened the door of the car. We had reached the end of that sanded drive which swept around the side of the villa and terminated near the southerly wing of the terrace.
“Have you ever tried to interrogate a Chinaman who didn’t want to commit himself?” he asked.
“Yes, I have employed Chinese servants, and I know what they can be like.”
Nayland Smith turned to me—he was standing on the drive.
“They are loyal, Sterling,” he snapped. “Bind them to a tradition, and no human power can tear them away from it....”
Many of the section doors had been forced, but more than half the party remained imprisoned. Under instructions from Sir Denis, I gathered, a party had been landed in that tiny bay which was the sea-bound terminus of the exit from the water cave. Suitably prepared, they had landed there, and were operating upon the first of the section doors in order to liberate members of the raiding party trapped in that long glass-lined corridor. The local Chief of Police was still among the missing.
“I think,” said Sir Denis, “we can afford to overlook infection from the hybrid flies, and even from other insects which you have described to me. Those used experimentally by Dr. Fu Manchu—for instance, the fly in Petrie’s laboratory— seem to have survived the evening chill. But you may have noticed that there has been a drop in the temperature during the last two days. I think it was these eccentricities of climate which baffled the doctor. His flying army couldn’t compete with them.”
We spent an hour at Ste Claire; but it was an hour wasted.
When, presently, we left for Nice, where Dr. Fu Manchu was temporarily confined, I reflected that if Ste Claire was a minor base of the Si-Fan, as Fleurette had given me to understand, then the organisation must be at least as vast as Sir Denis Nayland Smith believed.
Ste Claire was a scientific fortress; its destruction in one way and another represented a loss to human knowledge which could not be estimated. His section doors had checked pursuit of the doctor so effectively that, failing my adventurous swim across the pool and discovery of that other exit, the fugitive could conveniently have landed from the motor yacht Lola at any one of many ports before the radio had got busy with his description.
I wondered if the measures taken to ensure secrecy would prove to be effective.
The very air was charged with rumours; the Nice police had caught the infection. Such suppressed excitement prevailed that the atmosphere vibrated with it.
Dr. Fu Manchu had declined to be transported to Paris until he had had an opportunity of consulting with his legal adviser. In this he was acting within his rights, as he had pointed out; and the departmental authorities, at a loss, welcomed the arrival of Sir Denis.
M. Chamrousse awaited us, his magisterial dignity definitely disturbed....
There was a guard before the doubly locked door, but in due course it was opened. The Prefet conducted Sir Denis and myself into the apartment occupied by Dr. Fu Manchu.
This officially was a cell; actually, a plainly furnished bed-sitting room.
At the moment of my entrance the scene was unreal— wholly chimerical. During my acquaintance with the Chinese doctor I had formed the opinion, reinforced later by what I had heard from Sir Denis of the monstrous tentacles of the organisation called Si-Fan, that ordinary frail human laws did not apply to this man who transcended the normal.
And, as I saw him seated in a meanly furnished room, this feeling of phantasy, of unreality, claimed me.
It was just as fantastic, I thought, as the mango-apple; the tsetse fly crossed with the plague flea; the date palms growing huge figs; the black spider which could reason....
He had discarded his astrakhan cap and fur coat, and I saw that he wore a yellow robe of a kind with which I was familiar. Chinese slippers were upon his feet. Something strikingly unusual in his appearance at first defeated me; then I realised what it was. He did not wear the little cap which hitherto he had worn.
For the first time I appreciated the amazing frontal development of his skull. I had never seen such a head. I had thought of him as resembling Seti the First; but the great king had the skull of a babe in comparison with that of Dr. Fu Manchu.
He sat there watching us as we entered. There was no expression whatever in that wonderful face—a face which might well have looked upon centuries of the ages known to man.
“I shall be glad to see you, Sir Denis,” came the guttural, imperturbable voice, “and Mr. Sterling may also remain. Pray be seated.”
He fixed a glance of his emerald-green eyes upon the prefet, and I knew and sympathised with the effect which that glance had upon its recipient. The dignified official backed towards the door. Sir Denis saved his dignity.
“It may be better if you leave us for a few moments, M. Chamrousse,” he whispered....When we were alone:
“Alan Sterling,” said Dr. Fu Manchu. And prisoner though he was, he was not so truly a prisoner as I; for he had caught and held my glance as no other man in the world had ever had power to do. I knew that my will was helpless. A dreadful sense of weakness possessed me, which I cannot hope to make clear to anyone lacking experience of that singular regard.
“I speak as one,” the guttural voice continued, “who may be at the end of his career. You lack brilliance, but you have qualities which I respect. You may look upon Dr. Petrie’s daughter as your woman, since she has chosen you. Take her, and hold her—if you can.”
He turned his eyes away. And it was as though a dazzling light had been moved so that I could see the world again in true perspective; then:
“Sir Denis,” he continued.
I twisted aside and looked at Nayland Smith. His jaws were clenched. It was plain that every reserve of his enormous vitality, mental energy, his will, was being called upon as he stared into the face of the uncanny being whom he had captured, who was his prisoner.
“In order that we may understand one another more completely,” the imperious voice continued, “I desire to make plain to you. Sir Denis Nayland Smith, that the laws of France, the laws of England, the laws of Europe, are cobwebs which I blow aside. It is your wish that I shall be carried to Paris, and thence to London. You believe that your English courts can end my labours....
“I have this to say to you: the work of a world reformer is a work in which there is no sleep—no rest. That which he achieves is always in the past, as he moves forward upon his endless path. Himself, he is alone—always looking into the future. You have fought me; but because you are untiring as myself, you have stimulated. You have checked me. But you cannot hold back the cloudburst nor stifle the volcano. I may fall—thanks to you. But what I have made stands granite fast.
“Ask me no questions: I shall answer none.”
I stared again at Sir Denis. His profile was as grimly mask-like as that of the Chinaman. He made no reply.
“Maitre Foli,” Dr. Fu Manchu continued, “my French legal adviser, has been detained unavoidably, but will be here at any moment.”
chapter fiftieth
“THE WORK GOES ON”
when presently we left the apartment of Dr. Fu Manchu, Nayland Smith’s face was very stem.
“He was rather obscure,” I said.
“Obscure?”
He turned his piercing grey eyes upon me with a glance almost scornful.
“I thought so.”
Whereupon Sir Denis smiled, that rare smile which when it came must have disarmed his bitterest enemy. He grasped my arm.
“Dr. Fu Manchu is never obscure,” he said; “he spoke the plain truth. Sterling. And truth is sometimes a bitter pill.”
“But—Maitre Foli! He is one of the greatest advocates in France!”