He stood still—in fact, seemed almost to become rigid. I saw where his gaze was set.
The sinew-tearing pincers to which Dr Fu Manchu had drawn our attention lay not at the spot from which he had taken them up, but beside the pillar . . .
“Smith!” I whispered, “can you reach them?”
With never a word or glance he walked forward to the extreme limit of the chain, went down upon his hands and crept forward with a stoat-like movement. Fully extended, his right hand outstretched to the utmost, he was six inches short of his objective!
Even as I heard him utter a sound like a groan:
“Comeback, Smith!”
My voice shook ridiculously. He got back onto his feet turned and looked at me.
Although robbed of my automatic, my clasp knife and anything else resembling a lethal weapon, a small piece of string no more than a foot long which I had carefully untied from some package recently received and, a habit, had neatly looped and placed in my pocket proved still to be there. I held it up triumphantly.
Nayland Smith’s expression changed.
“May I inquire what earthly use you can suggest for a piece of string?”
“Tie one end to the handle of that metal pitcher on the ledge beside you, then crawl forward again and toss the pitcher into the open arms of the tongs. You can draw them across the floor.”
For a moment Smith’s stare was disconcerting, and then:
“Top marks, Kerrigan,” he said quietly. “Toss the string across . . .
Many attempts he made which were unsuccessful, but at last he lodged the pitcher between the iron arms of the pincers. Breathlessly I watched him as he began to pull . . . The pitcher toppled forward: the pincers did not move. “We are done,” he panted. “It isn’t going to work!” And at that moment—as though they had been treading on my heart—I heard footsteps approaching.
Korêani
Those soft footsteps halted outside the door. There followed a provocative rattle of keys, the sound of a lock being turned; then the door opened, light sprang up . . .
Dr Fu Manchu’s daughter came in.
She was dressed as I remembered her in the room with the lotus floor. Her frock was a sheath, clinging to her lithe figure as perfectly as scales to a fish. She wore no jewelry save the Arab necklace. As she entered the cell and looked about her I grasped the fact immediately that she was looking not for me, but for Nayland Smith.
When her long, narrow eyes met my glance their expression conveyed no more than the slightest interest; but as, turning aside, she looked at Smith I saw them open widely. There was a new light in their depths. I thought that they glittered like emeralds.
She stood there watching him. There was something yearning in her expression, yet something almost hopeless. I remembered Dr Fu Manchu’s words. I believed that this woman was struggling to revive a buried memory.
“So you are going to join us,” she said.
Fu Manchu had used a similar expression. There was some mystery here which no doubt Smith would explain, for the devil doctor had said also, “Fah lo Suee is dead. I have reincarnated her as Korean! . . .”
The spoken English of Korean! was less perfect than that of Ardatha, but she had a medium note in her voice, a soft caressing note, which to my ears sounded menacing as the purr of one of the great cats—a puma or tigress.
There was no reply.
“I am glad—but please tell me something.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” Nayland Smith’s tones were coldly indifferent. “Of what interest can my life or death be to you?”
She moved more closely to his side, always watching him.
“There is something I must know. Do you remember me?”
“Perfectly”
“Where did we meet?”
Smith and I had stood up with that automatic courtesy which prompts a man when a woman enters a room. And now she was so near to him that easily he could have grasped her. Watching his grim face into which a new expression had come, I wondered what he contemplated.
“It was a long time ago,” he replied quietly.
“But how could it be so long ago? If I remember you how can I have forgotten our meeting?”
“Perhaps you have forgotten your name?”
“That is stupid! My name is Korean!.”
“No, no.” He smiled and shook his head. “Your real name I never knew, but the name given to you in childhood, the name by which I did know you, was Fah lo Suee.”
She drew down her brows in an effort of recollection.
“Fah lo Suee,” she murmured. “But this is a silly name. It means a perfume, a sweet scent. It is childish!”
“You were a child when it was given to you.”
“Ah!” She smiled—and her smile was so alluring that I knew how this woman must have played upon the emotions of those she had lured into the net of Dr Fu Manchu. “You have known me a long time? I thought so, but I cannot remember your name.”
For Korean! I had no existence. She had forgotten my presence. I meant no more to her than one of the dreadful furnishings of the place.
“My name has always been Nayland Smith. How long it will remain so I don’t know.”
“What does a name matter when one belongs to the Si-Fan?”
“I don’t want to forget as you have forgotten—Korean!.”
“What have I forgotten?”
“You have forgotten Nayland Smith. Even now you do not recognize my name.”
Again she frowned in that puzzled way and took a step nearer to the speaker.
“Perhaps you mean something which I do not understand.
Why are you afraid to forget? Has your life been so happy?”
“Perhaps,” said Smith, “I don’t want to forget you as you have forgotten me.”
He extended his hands; she was standing directly before him. And as I watched, unable to believe what I saw, he unfastened the gold necklace, held it for a moment, and then dropped it into his pocket!
“Why do you do that?” She was very close to him now. “Do you think it will help you to remember?”
“Perhaps. May I keep it?”
“It is nothing—I give it to you.” Her voice, every line of her swaying body, was an invitation. “It is the Takbir, the Moslem prayer. It means there is no god but God.”
“That is why I thank you for it, Korêani.”
A long time she waited, watching him—watching him. But he did not stir. She moved slowly away.
“I must go. No one must find me here. But I had to come!” Still she hesitated. “I am glad I came.”
“I am glad you came.”
She turned, flashed a glance at me, and stepped to the open door. There she paused and glanced back over her shoulder.
“Soon we shall meet again.”
She went out, closed the door and extinguished the light. I heard a jingle of keys, then the sound of her footsteps as she went along the passage.
“For God’s sake. Smith,” I said in a low voice,”what has come over you?”
He raised a warning finger.
* * *
As I watched uncomprehendingly, Nayland Smith held up the gold necklace. It was primitive bazaar work, tiny coins hanging from gold chains, each stamped with an Arab letter. I saw that it was secured by means of a ring and a clumsy gold hook. Quickly but coolly he removed the string from the handle of the pitcher and tied it to the ring.
Now I grasped the purpose of that strange episode which in its enactment had staggered me. Once more he dropped onto the stone floor and crept forward until he could throw the hook of the necklace into the angle of the pincers. Twice he failed to anchor the hook;
the third time he succeeded.
Gently he drew the heavy iron implement towards him—until he could grasp it in his
“Kerrigan, if I never worked fast in my life before I must work fast now!”