“You’re with the Huston Electric, aren’t you?” said someone almost at his elbow.
Sam turned. A personable young man, of Latin appearance, had mounted the next stool and was smiling at him amiably. Sam stared.
“What about it?” he inquired.
“Oh, nothing. Just thought I’d seen you there.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Newspaper story. I’m a reporter.”
“Is that so?”
Sam eyed the reporter from head to heels, without favor.
“Sure. Laurillard’s my name—Jed Laurillard. And I’m always out for a good story.”
“Well, well,” said Sam.
“Push that back and have the other half. Just going to order one myself.”
“That’s fine. My name’s Sam.”
“Sam what?”
“Sam.”
“I mean, what’s your other name?”
“Tim.’
“Your name is Sam Jim?”
“You got it the wrong way around. Jim Sam.”
“I never heard of it before. How do you spell it?”
“S-a-m. I got an uncle the same name.”
For the decimal of a second, Laurillard’s jaw hardened. Then the hard line relaxed. He slapped Sam on the back and laughed, signalling the barman.
“You’re wasting your time,” he declared. “You ought to be in show business.”
Sam grinned, but made no reply. The second bourbon went the way of the first, apparently meeting with even less obstruction.
“This new thing Huston is bringing out,” Laurillard went on. “Breaking into the news next week, isn’t it?”
Sam held up his empty glass and appeared to be using it as a lense through which to count the bottles in the bar.
“Is it?” he said.
“You ought to know.” Laurillard signalled the barman again. “If I could get the exact date it would be worth money to me.”
“Would it? How much?”
“Well”—speculatively, he watched Sam considering his third drink—”enough to make it worth, say, fifty bucks to you.”
Sam looked at Laurillard over the top of his spectacles and finished his drink. He made no other reply. Laurillard caught the barman’s eye and glanced aside at Sam’s glass. It was refilled.
For some time after the fourth, the barman, who was busy, lost count.
“You know what I’m talking about?” Laurillard presently inquired. “This new lighting system?”
“Sure.”
“Some English scientist working on it.”
“Sure.”
“Well, when the story breaks it’s going to be big. Science news is a dollar a word these days. Hurt nobody if I got it first. You’re a live guy. I spotted you first time I was up there. Never miss one. It’s my business—see?”
Sam emptied his glass and nodded.
“Suppose you made a few inquiries. No harm in that. I could meet you here tomorrow. Any time you say.”
“What you wanna know, exac—xactly?” Sam inquired.
His glance had become oblique. Laurillard signalled the barman and leaned forward confidentially.
“Get this.” He lowered his voice. “I want to know when the job will be finished. That gives me a lead. It’s easy enough.”
A full glass was set before Sam.
“Goo’ luck,” he said, raising it.
“Same to you. What time tomorrow, here?”
“Same to you—mean, same time.”
“Good enough. I must rush. Hard life, reporting.”
Laurillard rushed. Outside, he looked in through the window and saw Sam raising the drink to his lips, sympathetically watched by the barman. What happened after that he didn’t see. He was hurrying to the spot where his car was parked.
He had some distance to go, but less than twenty minutes later the doorbell jangled in that Chinatown shop where a good looking young Oriental labored tirelessly with India ink and brush. He laid his brush aside and looked up.
“Mr. Huan Tsung?” said Laurillard.
“Mr. Huan Tsung not in. You call before?”
Laurillard seemed to be consulting his memory, but, after a momentary pause, he replied.
“Yes.”
“How many time?”
“Seven.”
“Give me the message.”
Laurillard leaned confidentially forward.
“The man from Huston Electric is taken care of. He’s too drunk to go far. What’s better, I’ve sounded him—and I think he’ll play. That’s why I came to see you.”
“I think,” was the cold reply, “that you are a fool.” The young Oriental spoke now in perfect English. “You have exceeded your instructions. You are new to the work. You will never grow old in it.”
“But—”
“I have no more to say. I will put in your report.” He scribbled a few lines in pencil, took up his brush, and went on writing.
Laurillard’s jaw hardened, and he clenched his gloved hands. “Good-bye,” said the industrious scribe. Laurillard went out.
In his report concerning Sam he had stated, quite honestly, what he believed to be true. But evidently he was mistaken.
Not three minutes had elapsed before the doorbell jangled again. A man came lurching in who walked as if on a moving deck. He wore a short leather jacket and a cap with a long peak. His eyes, seen through spectacles, were challenging. He chewed as he talked, using the gum as a sort of mute.
“Say—have you got a pipe-cleaner?” he inquired.
The young Oriental, without laying his brush down, slightly raised his eyes.
“Nohab.”
“What’s the use of a joint like this that don’t carry pipe-cleaners?” Sam demanded. He looked all around, truculently. “Happen to have a bit of string?”
“No string.”
Sam chewed and glared down awhile at the glossy black head bent over the writing. Then, with a parting grunt, Sam went out.
The young Chinese student scribbled another note in pencil.
* * *
Camille sat quite still in her room for so long after Craig had gone that she lost all count of time.
He had not quite shut the door, and dimly she had become aware that he was calling Regan. She heard the sound of voices when Regan came out of the laboratory; then heard the laboratory door closed.
After which, silence fell.
The work she had come here to do grew harder every day, every hour. There were times when she rebelled inwardly against the obligations which bound her. There were other times when she fought against her heart. There was no time when her mind was otherwise than in a state of tumult.
It could not go on. But where did her plain duty lie?
The silence of the place oppressed her. Often, alone here at night—as she was, sometimes—she had experienced something almost like terror. True, always Shaw or Regan would be on duty in the laboratory, but a locked iron door set them apart. This terror was not quite a physical thing. Camille was fully alive to the fact that spies watched Morris’s work. But it wasn’t any attempt from this quarter which dismayed her.
A deeper terror lay somewhere in the subconscious, a long way down.
Who was Dr. Fu Manchu?
She had heard that strange name spoken, for the first time, by Morris. He had been talking to Nayland Smith. Then—she had received a warning from another source.
But, transcending this shadowy menace, fearful as the unknown always must be, loomed something else—greater.
That part of Camille which was French, and therefore realist, challenged the wisdom of latter-day science, asked if greater and greater speed, more and more destructive power, were leading men to more and greater happiness. Her doubts were not new. They had come between her and the lecturers at the Sorbonne. She had confided them to a worthy priest of her acquaintance. But he, poor man, had been unable to give her guidance in this particular spiritual problem.
If God were a reality—and Camille, whilst not a communicant, was a Christian in her bones—surely such experiments as men of science were making today must anger Him?