Smith was too tensed up for ordinary conversation, but he jerked out a staccato summary as we sped through the black-out, for this London was a place of mystery, a city hushed; the heart of the world beating slowly, darkly.
“The United States have realized that the Panama Canal has two ends. Strange incidents in the Caribbean. Disappearances. Officers sent to West Indies to investigate. Never returned. Secret submarine base. I followed Fu Manchu to Jamaica. Lost him in Cuba. Barton has picked up some clue to the site of this base. Suspected before I left. Certain now. Got the facts in Norfolk only this morning. Fu Manchu has returned to England to silence Barton—and, my God! he has succeeded!”
We seemed to be speeding madly into darkness black as the Pit. I could form no idea of where we were: we might have been in the Grand Avenue of Kamak. Vague, elfin lights I saw in the shadows, to take the place of illuminated windows, blazing sky-signs. Sometimes a car would materialize like a form at a spiritualistic séance, only to disappear again immediately. The traffic signals, green, amber and red crosses, appeared and disappeared also like manifestations from another world . . .
Our car was braked so suddenly that I was nearly pitched out of my seat.
I saw the driver leap to the road and sprint forward to where a torch was flashing—in and out, in and out. Smith was on the running-board when the man came racing back.
“Jump in, sir!” he shouted, “jump in! They passed here only three minutes ago—I have the direction!”
And we were off again into impenetrable darkness. Angry cries I heard as we flashed past Crawling traffic, in contravention of the law issuing blasts of warning. Smith had commandeered Scotland Yard’s ace driver. I was wild with the spirit of the chase. Barton’s life was at stake—and more . . . .
Our brakes shrieked again, and the speeding car skidded to a perilous halt. We were all out in a trice.
In the light of torches carried by Smith and the driver I saw a police cyclist lying beside a wrecked motor-bike almost under our front wheels!
“Are you badly hurt?” cried Smith.
The man raised a pale face to the light. Blood was trickling down from his brow; his black steel helmet had fallen off. “Broken ankle, I think. This—” he touched his head—”is nothing. Just get me on to the pavement. It wasn’t your car that hit me, sir.”
We lifted him out of the traffic-way, seating him against the railings of a house veiled in darkness. Our driver bent over him.
“If you can bear it, mate,” he said, “give us the news. Have you sighted the Packard? We’re Scotland Yard. This is Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”
The man looked up at Smith. Obviously, he was in great pain, but he spoke calmly.
“I followed BXH 77 to this spot, sir. Having identified the number, I passed the car and signalled to the driver to pull up—”
“What happened?” snapped Smith.
“He ran me down!”
“Where did he go?”
“First left, sir—two houses beyond.”
“How long ago?”
“Less than two minutes.”
We were in one of those residential backwaters which are to be found north of Regent’s Park. Reduction and slowing of traffic had so dimmed the voice of London that when the man ceased speaking an almost complete silence fell. Black night cloaked us and in it I could hear no sound of human activity.
“You have done a good job, constable,” said Smith rapidly, “and you won’t lose by it.” He thrust a torch into my hand. “There’s a house behind there, somewhere. Find it, Kerrigan, and phone for an ambulance. Just call ‘police’ and mention my name. Sorry. No other way. Understand how you feel. But I must push on.”
“Turning to the left is a dead-end, sir,” the Yard driver cried back over his shoulder as he sprang to the wheel. “You can’t go wrong, Mr. Kerrigan, in following on foot.”
“Ah!” cried Smith. “Good! We’ve got ’em!”
He jumped in and the Yard car was off again, leaving me standing beside the injured man.
“So that’s Nayland Smith,” he muttered. “I wish we had a few more like him.” He looked up. “Sorry to be a nuisance, sir. I’m fairly new to this district, but I think the gate of the house is just along to your right. The Regent Canal runs behind: that’s why the next turning leads nowhere.”
“I suppose there’s no call-box near?”
“No, sir. But I must stick it till you find a phone.”
CHAPTER IV
THE HOUSE IN REGENT’S PARK
Up to the moment that I discovered the gate not one pedestrian passed that way.
I groped along a neglected gravel drive bordered by dripping shrubberies and presently found myself before the porch of a house to which it led. There I pulled up. An estate agent’s bill, announcing that “this desirable residence” was for sale, occupied the centre panel of the door. I had found an empty house.
Muttering savagely, I turned away. I suppose I had gone a dozen paces before it occurred to me that there might be a caretaker. I swung about to retrace my steps. As I did so I faced that wing of the ugly Victorian building which lay to the right of the entrance—and I saw a chink of light shining from a long French window.
Wondering why I had not seen it before, I pressed through wet bushes, crossed a patch of lawn and reached the lighted window. It proved to be one of three which opened on to a verandah and I stepped up with the intention of rapping on the glass. Just in time, I checked my hand.
I stood there, suddenly dizzy, my heart leaping furiously.
Heavy velvet curtains were draped inside the windows one of which was slightly ajar, and the disarranged draperies had created that chink through which light shone. I could see right into the room, and beyond an open door into a furnished lobby. It was from this lobby that the light came.
Standing there, looking back, so that I suspected it to have been she who had opened the window, was a girl wearing a hooded cape. The hood, thrown free, revealed a mass of gleaming, bewilderingly disordered curls, a pale lovely face; great eyes, blue in the dusk with the dark blue of lapis lazuli, were turned in my direction.
Ardatha . . . Ardatha whom I adored, who once had loved me, whom I had torn from the clutches of the Chinese doctor; Ardatha, for whom I had searched, desperately, during many weary months ~ who, when I had found her, had tricked me, used me, played upon my love so that I had betrayed my friend: Ardatha!
Yet, throwing discretion to the winds and forgetful of the injured man who depended upon me, I was about to spring into the room, when—a second time I checked.
Slow, dragging footsteps and a sound resembling that of a rubber-shod stick became audible from somewhere beyond the comer of the veranda.
I grew suddenly cool, master of myself; my brain ceased to buzz like a nest of wasps: I could think clearly and quickly. A swift calculation told me that I had just time to leap into cover behind a holly bush before the one who walked so laboriously reached the angle of the house. I achieved my objective and threw myself flat on sodden turf.
Holding my breath, I watched. Water dripped from the leaves on to my head. I lay not three paces from the veranda. Quite distinctly I saw Ardatha draw the curtain and look out. Those dragging footsteps passed an unseen comer, and I knew that someone was approaching the window.
At that moment, in my new clarity of mind, I grasped a fact hitherto unsuspected: The turning into which BXH 77 had been driven communicated with the back premises of this house, probably with a garage. I had blundered into the enemy’s headquarters!