He dropped the notebook back into his pocket.
“I assume that he crept up to the inn to learn the identity of the new arrival or arrivals. Having satisfied himself in some way, he then set out across country for the A.A. call box. Unfortunately he had been seen—and someone was following him. At a stone bridge which spans the stream the follower overtook him. Yes—I have found the bloodstains. As he received the fatal stroke he toppled over the parapet. A slow current carried his body down to the point at which it was found.”
He ceased speaking and stood staring at me in a curious way. I was seated on the sofa, rubbing my aching leg muscles.
“There’s one thing, Smith,” I said, “for which I owe thanks to heaven. Whatever brought you to my rescue in the nick of time?”
“I was about to mention that,” he snapped. “Someone called up the police (I had just returned from my visit to the scene of the crime) begging us to set out without a moment’s delay—not for the inn itself, but for a stone boathouse which lies twenty yards further down the creek. We had come provided to break the door in, but as luck would have it, Constable Weldon, who was leading us, detected the sound made by those Thugs in the boat. You know the rest.”
He continued to stare at me and I at him.
“Was it a man’s voice?”
“No: a woman—a young woman.”
A medley of emotions had me silent for a moment, and then:
“Did you find anyone here?”
“My party, with Gallaho, found the pair of Thugs, as you know. Inspector Derbyshire, who entered from the front, discovered the man Pallant bathing a deep cut in his forehead. There’s a fellow who combines the duties of stable lad and bartender, but he’s off duty . . . There was no one else.”
“I am glad—although perhaps I shouldn’t be.”
After ten minutes’ rest I was fit to move again.
Apart from the fact that the secret cellars were packed with contraband, nothing of value bearing upon the matter which had brought the police there was discovered in the Monks’ Arms. Both yellow men remained imperturbably dumb. The ex-pugilist, under a grueling examination by Chief Detective Inspector Gallaho, pleaded guilty to smuggling but denied all knowledge of the identity or activities of his Chinese guest. He said that from time to time this person whom he knew as Mr. Chang, stayed at the inn, usually accompanied by two colored servants, and sometimes by a lady. He flatly denied all knowledge of the tragedy, and finally:
“Take him away,” Gallaho growled, “we’ll find enough evidence later. Book him in on a charge of smuggling.”
The Si-Fan
Many hours had elapsed, hours of bitter disappointment, before Nayland Smith and I found ourselves at his flat in Whitehall.
Fey had nothing to report. Smith glanced significantly at the television set which in some unaccountable manner Dr Fu Manchu had converted to his private uses.
“No sir.” Fey shook his head.
When he had gone out:
“It seems almost incredible,” said Smith, beginning to pace up and down the carpet, “that this man whom I held in the hollow of my hand has slipped away! Every point of egress was watched, every officer afloat and ashore notified for miles around.”
“Perhaps he doubled back?”
Nayland Smith began to tug at the lobe of his left ear.
“Impossible to predict his movements. I am beginning to wonder if it is time I retired from the unequal contest. It is many years since Doctor Fu Manchu first crossed my path. It was in a swampy district of Burma and I was nearly counted out in the first round.” He suddenly pulled up his sleeve and rolled back his shirt cuff, revealing a wicked-looking wound upon the forearm. “A primitive weapon, but a deadly one. An arrow, steeped in snake’s venom.”
He rolled his sleeve down again.
“You should never be alone, Smith. You need a bodyguard.”
“I assure you I rarely go about alone. Why do you suppose I drag six feet of newspaper correspondent about with me? You are my bodyguard, Kerrigan! But Fu Manchu’s methods are of a kind from which no bodyguard could protect me. I am saved by my utter futility. I believe he is laughing at me.”
“He has small cause for laughter. Although you have failed to destroy him you have foiled him all along.”
Nayland Smith’s grim face relaxed in a smile.
“Then I can’t account for it. He must enjoy the sport, or I shouldn’t be alive!”
“Do you think he was making for the open sea?”
“I have a strong suspicion that he was. It has occurred to me that this mysterious radio plant which he controls may be on some vessel.”
“Such a vessel would require a pretty tall mast.”
“Not at all. Fu Manchu is probably half a century ahead of what we call modem radio. However, I can do no more. We can hang the Thugs, no doubt, but like Fu Manchu, what we want to do is to strike at the ‘nerves and brain.’“
He dropped into an armchair and began to load his pipe; then, looking up, he stared across at me.
“Judging from what you told me in the train,” he said, “I gather that your feelings about this girl Ardatha remain the same. Am I right?”
I felt acutely uncomfortable under that piercing scrutiny, but I replied:
“Yes, I am afraid you are, Smith. You see, although a criminal, she doesn’t realize that she is a criminal. In any case she has certainly saved my life. No one else could have given the warning.”
Nayland Smith nodded, proceeded with the filling of his pipe and lighted it carefully.
“A cunning scheme,” he muttered, standing up and walking about again. “Dictatorships with their ruthless methods have brought in crowds of willing recruits. Don’t you see it, Kerrigan? There are thousands! perhaps hundreds of thousands, living today, embittered by injustice, willing, eager, to enter into a blood feud against those who have destroyed husbands, children, families, wrecked their homes. The Si-Fan, always powerful, working for a dimly seen end, an end never appreciated by the West, today has become a mighty instrument of vengeance - and that flaming sword, Kerrigan, is firmly held by Doctor Fu Manchu.”
He stared from the window awhile, and I watched the grim outline of his features.
“One thing, and it looks as though the clue had eluded me,” he said suddenly, “is this: What was Fu Manchu doing in Essex? Assuming, as the radio experts believe, that this mysterious interference came from somewhere in that area, even that it came from a vessel lying off the Essex shore—we still come back to the same point. What was Fu Manchu doing there?”
He turned and stared at me fixedly.
“That problem is worrying me badly,” he added.
Frankly, it had not occurred to me before, but so stated I saw the significance of the thing. I was considering it while Nayland Smith resumed his restless promenade, when, preceded by a gentle rap, Fey opened the door and entered.
“Chief Detective Inspector Gallaho.”
Hot on the words came Gallaho, wrenching his tightly fitting bowler from his close-cropped skull and leaving a mark like a scar around his brow.
“Yes?” snapped Smith and took a step forward. “What is it? You have news!”
“News, yes!” the detective answered bitterly—”but has it come too late?”
He pulled out his pocket case and withdrew a slip of paper which he tossed on to the desk in front of Smith. As Smith picked it up I sprang to my feet and hurried forward. Over his shoulder I read—it was written in pencil, in plain block letters—the following:
Final notice