How we should have fared, and how that singular episode would have ended, I cannot say. It was solved by the appearance of a member of one of the most efficient organisations in the world: a British-Egyptian policeman, his tarbush worn at a jaunty angle, his blue tunic uncreased as though it had left the tailor’s only that morning. His khaki breeches were first class, and his very boots apparently unsoiled by the dust. He elbowed his way into the crowd—aloof, alone, self-contained, all powerful.
I had seen the same calm official intrusion on the part of a New York policeman, and I had witnessed it with admiration in London. But never before had I welcomed it so as at the appearance of this semi-military figure that night on the outskirts of Cairo.
Gesticulating Egyptians sought to enlist his sympathy and hearing. He was deaf. It dawned upon me that the casual onlookers had been deceived as completely as ourselves. We were regarded as the slayers of the poor old mendicant. But the appearance of that stocky figure changed everything.
As we reached Barton:
“Is the case safe?” snapped Nayland Smith, glancing down at the Negro, now rapidly getting to his feet.
“It is,” the chief replied grimly. “That’s what they were after.”
Sir Denis nodded shortly and turned to the police officer.
“Your car, sir?” asked the latter. “What’s the trouble?”
“Remains to be investigated! You turned up at the right moment. My name is Nayland Smith. Have you been advised?”
The man started—stared hard, and then:
“Yes, sir.” He saluted. “Two days ago. Carry on, sir. I’ll deal with all this.”
“Good. You’re a smart officer. What’s your name?”
“John Banks, sir, on special duty here to-night.”
“I’ll mention you at headquarters....”
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH
A MASKED WOMAN
“I am not prepared to believe,” said Sir Lionel, walking up and down the big room reserved for him at Shepheard’s “that even Dr. Fu Manchu could have had a stock of dead men waiting on the road from Heliopolis.”
“Neither am I,” said Nayland Smith. “We may have avoided earlier traps. Those three old fellows, Petrie—” turning to the Doctor—”who seemed so reluctant to get out of your way, you remember, and the cart laden with fodder. I don’t suggest for a moment, Barton, that that poor old beggar was killed to serve the purpose; but Petrie here is of opinion that he died either from enteritis or poisoning, and the employment of a body in that way was probably a local inspiration on the part of the agents planted at that particular stage of our journey. He was pushed out, to the best of my recollection, from a shadowy patch of waste ground close beside the cafe. Where he actually died, I don’t suppose we shall ever know, but—” tugging at the lobe of his left ear—”it’s the most extraordinary trick I have ever met with, even in my dealings with...”
He paused, and Rima finished the sentence:
“Dr. Fu Manchu.”
There came an interval. The shutters of the window which overlooked the garden were closed. Muted voices, laughter, and a sound of many footsteps upon sanded paths rose to us dimly. But that group in the room was silent, unticlass="underline"
“Only he could devise such a thing,” said the chief slowly,” and only you and I, Smith, could go one better.”
He pointed to a battered leather suitcase lying on a chair and began to laugh in his own boisterous fashion.
“I travel light, Smith!” he cried, “but my baggage is valuable!”
None of us responded to his mood, and Sir Denis stared at him very coldly.
“When is Alt Mahmoud due in Cairo?” he asked.
That queer question was so unexpected that I turned and stared at the speaker. The chief appeared to be quite taken aback; and:
“Hell do well if he’s here with the heavy kit in four days,” he replied. “But why do you ask, Smith?”
Nayland Smith snapped his fingers irritably and began to walk up and down again.
“I should have thought. Barton,” he snapped, “that we knew one another well enough to have shared confidences.”
“What do you mean?”
“Simply what I say. If it conveys nothing—forget it!”
“I shan’t forget it,” said the chief loweringly, his tufted brows drawn together. “But I shall continue to conduct my own affairs in my own way.”
“Good enough. I’m not going to quarrel with you. But I should like to make a perfectly amiable suggestion.”
“One moment,” Petrie interrupted. “We’re all old friends here. We’ve gone through queer times together, and after all—there’s a common enemy. It’s useless to pretend we don’t know who that common enemy is. You agree with me, Smith? For God’s sake, let’s stand four square. I don’t know all the facts. But I strongly suspect—” turning to Sir Denis—”that you do. You’re the stumbling block, Barton. You’re keeping something up your sleeve. Lay all the cards on the table.”
The chief gnawed his moustache, locked his hands behind him, and stood very upright, looking from face to face. He was in his most truculent mood. But at last, glancing aside from Petrie:
“I await your amiable suggestion. Smith,” he growled.
“I’ll put it forward,” said the latter. “It is this: A Bibby liner is leaving Port Said for Southampton tomorrow. I suggest that Rima secures a berth.”
Rima jumped up at his words, but I saw Petrie grasp her hand as if to emphasise his agreement with them.
“Why should I be sent home. Sir Denis?” she demanded. “What have I done? If you’re thinking of my safety, I’ve been living for months in remote camps in Khorassan and Persia, and you see—” she laughed and glanced aside at me—”I’m still alive.”
“You have done nothing, my dear,” Sir Denis returned, and smiled in that delightful way which, for all his seniority, sometimes made me wonder why any woman could spare me a thought while he was present. “Nor,” he added, “do I doubt your .courage. But while your uncle maintains his present attitude, I don’t merely fear—I know—that all of us, yourself included, stand in peril of our lives.”
There was an unpleasant sense of tension in the atmosphere. The chief was in one of his most awkward moods— which I knew well. He had some dramatic trick up his sleeve. Of this I was fully aware. And he was afraid that Sir Denis was going to spoil his big effect.
Sir Lionel, for all his genius, and despite his really profound learning, at times was actuated by the motives which prompt a mischievous school-boy to release a mouse at a girl’s party.
Incongruously, at this moment, at least from our point of view, a military band struck up somewhere beneath; for this was a special occasion of some kind, and the famous garden was en fete. None of us, however, were in gala humour; but:
“Let’s go down and see what’s going on, Shan,” said Rima. She glanced at Sir Lionel. “Can you spare him?”
“Glad to get rid of him,” growled the chief. “He’s hand and hoof with Smith, here, and one of’em’s enough...”
And so presently Rima and I found ourselves crossing the lobby below and watching a throng entering the ballroom from which strains of a dance band came floating out.
“What a swindle, Shan!” she said, pouting in a childish fashion I loved. “I’m simply dying for a dance. And I haven’t even the ghost of a frock with me.”