“You see?” Colonel Correnti shrugged his shoulders. “We can do nothing.”
I tried to control my voice when I spoke:
“Do you really understand what is at stake? An ex-commissioner of Scotland Yard has been kidnapped, probably murdered. He is one of the highest officials of the British Secret Service. The most prominent figure in European politics, and I do not except Pietro Monaghani, is, beyond any shadow of doubt, in deadly peril. Are you sure, Colonel, that every available man is straining himself to the utmost, that every possible place has been searched, every suspect interrogated?”
“I assure you, Mr. Kerrigan, that every available man in Venice is either searching or watching tonight. I can do no more . . .”
I think during the next hour I must have plumbed the uttermost deeps of despair. I wandered about the gay streets of Venice like a ghost at a banquet, staring at lighted windows, into the faces of the passers-by until I began to feel that I was attracting public attention.
I returned to the hotel, went to my room and sat down on that settee where Ardatha had bewitched me with kisses.
How I cursed every moment of that stolen happiness! No contempt I had ever known for a fellow being could approach that which I had for myself. I conjured up a picture of Nayland Smith;
almost in my state of distraction I seemed to hear his voice. He was trying to tell me something, trying to direct me, to awaken in my dull brain some spark of enlightenment.
Had our cases been reversed what would he have done?
This idea seemed to give me a new coolness. Yes! what would he have done? I sat there, head buried in my hands, striving to think calmly.
That the dark woman had entered and left that ruined palace was a fact. Whoever or whatever she might be, of her presence there we had unassailable evidence. Our search had revealed no explanation of the mystery. But there were doors we had failed to open.
This would not have been Nayland Smith’s way!
He would never have been satisfied to leave the Palazzo Mori until those lower rooms had been examined. Nor would he have been content with the assertion of the chief of police that the ancient passage under the canal was blocked . . .
I sprang up.
This was the line of inquiry which Smith would have followed! I was sure of it. This should be my objective. A disheveled figure (I had not been undressed for thirty-six hours), once more I set out.
The ancient house of the gondoliers was easy to locate. It was solidly built of stone with three windows on the land side and a heavy padlocked door at the end. The narrow lane by which one approached it was dark and deserted. I had brought an electric torch, and I shot a beam through one of the broken windows. It showed a quantity of litter: fragments of wall paper, mortar boards and numerous empty paint cans. I inspected the padlock.
This bore evidence of use: it had recently been oiled!
But it was fast.
Greatly excited, I returned to the broken window and looked in again. The litter had not been disturbed, I could have sworn, for a considerable time—yet the door had recently been used.
My excitement grew. I thought that from some place, in this world or beyond, Nayland Smith had succeeded in inspiring me with something of his old genius for investigation. A great task lay to my hand. I determined to do it well.
I studied the padlock. I had no means of picking it, nor indeed any knowledge of that art. To crash a pane in one of the windows would have been useless, for they were of a kind not made to open, and the panes were too narrow to allow entrance had the glass been entirely removed. I walked around to the other side. Here was evidence of a landing stage long demolished. There were three windows and a walled-up door. Inspection was carried out from a narrow ledge which overhung the canal. Baffled again, I was about to return—when I heard footsteps coming down the lane!
I stayed where I was. Directly opposite, the narrow canal glittering between, rose a wall of the deserted Palazzo Mori. I could see that stone balustrade up which I had scrambled, the iron balcony to which I had clung. Nearer and nearer the footsteps approached, and now I heard a woman’s voice:
“Wait, just a moment! . . . I have the key.”
It was a soothing, caressing voice, and I longed for a glimpse of the speaker, but dared not move.
I heard the rattling of the padlock, opening of the door.
“Please wait! Not yet! We may be seen!”
Light suddenly illuminated the interior of the building. I crouched low, my heart beating fast, and cautiously from one corner of a window, peered in.
What I saw made my heart beat faster. It strengthened my resolution to do what Nayland Smith would have done . . .
Rudolf Adion, wearing a half mask, and a cloak over his evening dress, stood hands clasped behind him, watching a woman who knelt in a corner of the floor!
His eyes were ardent; he tore the mask off—and I saw a man enslaved. The woman wore a loose fur wrap, her arms resembled dull ivory. She was slender, almost serpentine, jet-black hair lay close to her shapely head. And as I looked and recognized her, she stood upright.
A trap had been opened, a section of floor with its impedimenta of pots and litter had been slid aside! She turned—and for the first time I saw her eyes.
Her eyes—long, narrow, dark-lashed eyes—were emerald green! I had thought that there were no eyes in the world like these except the eyes of Dr Fu Manchu.
She made a gesture of triumph. She smiled as perhaps long ago Calypso smiled.
“Be patient! This is the only way—come!”
The words reached me clearly through the broken window. Pulling her wrap over her bare shoulders, she beckoned and began to descend steps below the trap. I saw that she carried a flashlamp.
Rudolf Adion obeyed. The light below shone up into his dark, eager face as he stooped to follow.
And then came darkness.
The Zombie
Rudolf Adion, dictator of a great European nation, was going to his death!
I thought rapidly, trying to envisage the situation from what I believed would have been Nayland Smith’s point of view.
Probably I could reach police headquarters in ten minutes. A call box was of no avail, owing to my ignorance of the language, so that this meant ten minutes wasted. Before the police arrived, Adion might have disappeared as Nayland Smith had disappeared. That the passage led to the Palazzo Mori I had good reason to suppose. But unless it had been planned to assassinate the chancellor in that deserted building and hide his body, where were they going?
My experience of the methods of the Si-Fan inclined me to believe that Adion would be given a final opportunity to accept the Council’s orders. My decision was soon made. I would follow; and when I had found out where the woman was leading the dictator, return and bring a party large enough to surround the place.
The door I knew to be unfastened. I groped my way to where a dim oblong light indicated the position of the trap. I saw stone steps. I descended cautiously. The place in which I found myself had a foul reek; the filthy water of the Rio Mori dripped through its roof in places. It was an ancient stone passage, slimy and repellent. A vague moving light at the further end was that of the flashlamp carried by the woman.
Adion’s infatuation had blinded him to his danger. But putting myself in his place and substituting Ardatha for the woman of death, I knew that I, too, would have followed to the very gates of hell.
Fixing my eyes on that guiding light, I proceeded. The light disappeared, but I discovered ascending steps. A spear in the darkness led me up to a door ajar. I heard a voice and recognized it. It was the voice of Adion.