“And suppose I refuse to step forward?”
“I shall come and fetch you!”
Still there was no sound save that of our low-pitched voices, nothing to indicate the presence of another human being.
“You would be mad to attempt such a thing. My advice was sincere. You dare not shoot me unless also you propose to commit suicide, and I warn you that one step in my direction will mean your death.”
I watched her intently—although now an attack from the rear was what I feared, having good reason to remember the efficiency of Fu Manchu’s Thugs. Perhaps one of them was creeping up behind me. Yet I dared not glance aside.
“Go back! I shall not warn you again.”
Whereupon, realizing that now or never I must force the issue, I leapt forward . . . That heavy odor of hawthorn became suddenly acute—overpowering—and stifling a scream, I knew too late what had happened.
The woman stood upon the black border, where I, too, had been standing. The whole of the center of the floor was simply an inverted “star trap.”
It opened silently as I stepped upon it, and I fell from life into a sickly void of hawthorn blossom and oblivion . . .
Ancient Tortures
“Glad to see that you are feeling yourself again, Kerrigan.”
I stared about me in stupefaction. This of course was a grotesque dream induced by the drug which had made me unconscious—the drug which smelled like hawthorn blossom. For (a curious fact which even at this moment I appreciated) my memories were sharp-cut, up to the very instant of my fall through that trap in the lotus floor. I knew that I had dropped into some place impregnated with poison gas of an unfamiliar kind. Now came this singularly vivid dream . . .
A dungeon with a low, arched roof: the only light that which came through a barred window in one of the stone walls; and in this place I sat upon a massive chair attached to the paved floor. My hands and arms were free, but my ankles were chained to the front legs of the chair by means of gyves evidently of great age and also of great strength. On my left was a squat pillar some four feet in diameter, and in the shadows behind it I discerned a number of strange and terrifying implements: braziers, tongs and other equipment of a torture chamber.
Almost directly facing me and close beside the barred window, attached to a similar chair, sat Nayland Smith!
This dream my conscious mind told me must be due to thoughts I had been thinking at the moment that unconsciousness came. I had imagined Smith in the power of the Chinese doctor; I had seemed to feel all about me uneasy spirits of men who had suffered and had died in those old palaces which lie along the Grand Canal.
There came a low moaning sound, which rose and fell—rose and fell—and faded away . . .
“I know you think you are dreaming, Kerrigan!” Smith’s voice had lost none of its snap. “I thought so myself, until I found it impossible to wake up. But I assure you we are both here and both awake.”
Tentatively I tried to move the chair. Stooping, I touched the iron bands about my ankles. Then I stared wanly across at my fellow captive . . . I knew I was awake.
“Thank God you’re alive. Smith!”
“Alive, as you say, but not, I fear, for long!”
He laughed. It was not a mirthful laugh. The sound of our voices in that horrible musty place was muted, toneless, as the voices of those who speak in a crypt. I had never seen Smith otherwise than well groomed, but now, growing accustomed to the gloom, I saw that there was stubble on his chin. His hair was of that crisp, wavy sort which never seems to be disordered. But this growth of beard deepened the shadows beneath his cheekbones, and the quick gleam of his small even teeth as he laughed seemed to accentuate the haggardness of his appearance.
“I left in rather a hurry, Kerrigan; I forgot my pipe. It’s been damnable here, waiting for . . . whatever he intends to do to me. You will find that the chains are long enough to enable you to reach that recess on your right, where, very courteously, the designer of this apartment has placed certain toilet facilities for the use of one confined here during any considerable time. I am similarly equipped. A Thug of hideous aspect, whom I recognize as an old servant of Doctor Fu Manchu, has waited upon me excellently.”
He indicated the remains of a meal on a ledge in the niche beside him.
“Knowing the doctor’s penchant for experiments in toxicology, frankly, my appetite has not been good.”
I stood up and moved cautiously forward, dragging the chains behind me.
“No, no!” Smith smiled grimly. “It is well thought out, Kerrigan. We cannot get within six feet of one another.”
I stood there at the full length of my tether watching him where he sat.
“What I was about to ask is: do you happen to have any cigarettes?”
I clapped a hand to my pocket. My automatic, my clasp knife, these were gone—but not my cigarettes!
“Yes, the case is full.”
“Do you mind tossing one across to me? I have a lighter.”
I did as he suggested, and he lighted a cigarette. Returning to the immovable chair I followed his example; and as I drew the smoke between my lips I asked myself the question: Am I sane? Is it a fact that I and Nayland Smith are confined in a cell belonging to the Middle Ages?
That gruesome moaning arose again—and died away.
“What is it, Smith?”
“I don’t know. I have been wondering for some time.”
“You don’t think it’s some wretched—”
“It isn’t a human sound, Kerrigan. It seems to be growing louder. . . However—how did you fall into this?”
I told him—and I was perfectly frank. I told him of Ardatha’s visit, of the sounds which I had heard out on the canal side, of all that had followed right to the time that I had fallen into the trap prepared for me.
“There would seem to be a point, Kerrigan, where courage becomes folly.”
I laughed.
“What of yourself, Smith? I have yet to learn how you come to be here.”
“Oddly enough, our stories are not dissimilar. As you know, I did not turn in when you left me, but I put out the lights and stared from the window. The room was not ideal in view of the peril in which I knew myself to be. But I noted with gratitude a moored gondola in which a stout policeman was seated, apparently watching my window. It occurred to me that the sitting-room windows were equally accessible and, quietly, for I assumed you had gone to bed, I went in to look.
“I found that one was wide open and as I moved across to close it, I heard voices in your room. My first instinct was to dash in, but I waited for a moment because I detected a woman’s voice. Then I realized what had happened. Ardatha had paid you a secret visit!
“Knowing your sentiments about this girl, I was by no means easy in my mind. However, I determined not to disturb you or to bring you into the matter in any way. But here was a chance not to be missed.
“Dropping out of the sitting-room window (which the man in the gondola could not see) I tripped and fell. The sound of my fall must have attracted your attention. I discovered a half-gate which shut me off from the courtyard directly below your room. I tried it very gently. It was not locked. Knowing that Ardatha must have approached from the other end, I crept past your window and concealed myself in a patch of shadow near the small bridge which crosses the canal at that point.
“When Ardatha came out (I recognized her from your description) I followed; and my experiences from this point are uncommonly like your own. She entered the old stone storehouse facing the Palazzo Mori; and I, too, performed that clammy journey through the tunnels. I lost her at the top of the steps leading out of the wine cellar. But having learned all I hoped to learn I was about to return when something prompted me to look into the room with the lotus floor.”