But Dr. Malcolm retained his suavity.
“Pugnacity highly developed. You appear to feel no gratitude for your restored power of speech?”
He poured a vivid blue liquid from a beaker into a phial. The phial he placed in a leather case.
“No. I’m waiting for the later symptoms to develop.”
Dr. Malcolm reclosed his case.
“You will wait in vain. The first injection I administered was intended merely to paralyze the muscles of articulation.”
“Thanks. It did.”
“A second counteracted it.”
“Truly ingenious.”
“But,” Dr. Malcolm went on, “my duties in your case were not nearly so dangerous as in the case of the policeman, Moreno. I was subject to exposure throughout the time I remained in the hospital.”
“So I gather,” said Smith.
This man’s cool audacity fascinated him.
“Of course”—Dr. Malcolm locked his leather case—”Circle 7-0300 is the number of a well-known hotel. I don’t live there.” He showed strong white teeth in a smile. “Mat Cha was most convincing as the girl who had been robbed, I thought?”
“I thought so too.”
Nayland Smith glanced about him. The place proved to be more extensive than he had supposed at that strange awakening. It was a big cellar. Much of it was unlighted—a dim background of mystery.
“We had several key men in the crowd, of course. The police officer was an intruder. But I did my best with him.”
(“So did I!” Nayland Smith was thinking.)
“When you succeeded in knocking me out, I was indebted to this officer—and to a pair of our people placed to cover such a possibility—for your recapture.”
“Yes, you were,” said Smith conversationally. “All the luck lay with you.” As Dr. Malcolm picked up his case: “Must you be going?”
“Yes. I am leaving you now. I regret the incivility of putting you under constraint. You will have noted, since you are fully restored, that your arms are lightly attachéd to the bench upon which you sit. These thin lines, however, are quite unbreakable, except by a wire-cutter. A preparation invented by my principal. I bid you good night. Sir Denis. It is improbable that we meet again.”
“Highly improbable,” Smith murmured. “But lucky, once more, for you! By the way, how long have I been here?”
Dr. Malcolm paused.
“Nearly twenty-four hours—”
“What!”
“Not actually in this cellar, but under my care, elsewhere. You have been suitably nourished, and I assure you there will be no ill effects.”
Dr. Malcolm merged into the background. His white coat, ghostlike, marked his progress for a while and then became swallowed up. An evidently heavy door was opened—and closed.
Twenty-four hours!
Nayland Smith satisfied himself that he was indeed helpless. The slender, flexible threads, like strands of silk, which confined his arms were steel-tough. The bench was clamped to the floor. He peered into surrounding gloom. One light on the wall behind him afforded sole illumination. Outside its radius lay shadows ever increasing to complete blackness.
Somewhere in this blackness, almost defying scrutiny, objects were stacked against a further wall. Specks of color became discernible, vague forms.
Intently Smith stared into the darkness, picking out shapes, dim lines.
At last he understood.
He was looking at a pile of Chinese coffins . . .
The sound made by a heavy, unseen door warned him of the fact that someone had entered the cellar.
Long before a tall figure came silently out of the shadows, Nayland Smith knew who had entered. The quality of the atmosphere had changed, become charged with new portent.
Wearing a dark, fur-collared topcoat and carrying a black hat in one long, yellow hand, Nayland Smith’s ancient adversary faced him.
A tense, silent moment passed.
“I confess that I had not expected to meet you. Sir Denis.”
The words were spoken softly, the sibilants marked.
Nayland Smith met the regard of half-closed eyes.
“I, on the contrary, had hoped to meet you, Dr. Fu Manchu.”
“Your star above mine. The meeting has taken place. If it is not as you had foreseen it, blame only that blind Fate which disturbs our foolish plans. Because our destinies were woven on the same loom, perhaps I should have known that you would be here—to obstruct me when the survival of mankind is at stake.”
He stepped aside, and brought a rough wooden box. Upon this he sat down.
“You are compelled to remain seated,” he explained. “Courtesy forbids me to stand.”
And those words were a key to open memory’s door. Nayland Smith, in one magical glimpse, lived again through a hundred meetings with Dr. Fu Manchu, through years in which he had labored to rid the world of this insane genius. He saw him as an assassin, as a torturer, as the most dangerous criminal the law had ever known; but always as an aristocrat.
“You honor me,” he said drily. “How am I to die?” Dr. Fu Manchu fully opened his strange eyes and fixed a gaze upon Smith which few men could have hoped to sustain.
“That rests with you. Sir Denis,” he replied, and spoke even more softly than he had spoken before.
* * *
It is at least possible that the disappearance of Nayland Smith might have gone onto the unsolved list if any detective officer other than George Moreno (already back on duty) had been assigned to a certain post that night.
The shop of Huan Tsung, for which Smith had set out the night before, was being kept under routine observation. And at ten o’clock Moreno relieved a man who had been on duty since six. Chinatown was Moreno’s special stamping-ground, and his orders were to make a record of all visitors and to note particularly any movements of the the mysterious proprietor.
The small and stuffy room from which he operated put up a blend of odors uniquely sick-making. It was one of several in the house commanding an excellent view of part of the Asiatic quarter, and this was not the first time it had been used for police surveillance. But the dangerous days of tong wars seemed to be over. Chinatown was as gently mannered as Park Avenue.
He had been there for a long time when old Huan Tsung’s antique Ford was brought around to the front of the shop. Assisted by a yellow-complexioned driver of ambiguous nationality, and a spruce young shopman, the aged figure came out and entered the car. Huan Tsung wore a heavy, dark topcoat with a fur collar; the wide brim of a soft black hat half concealed his features. His eyes were protected by owlish spectacles.
The Ford was driven off. The shopman returned to the shop
Moreno knew that the journey would be kept under observation. But he doubted if any evidence of value would result. In all likelihood these drives were purely constitutional. The old man believed in the merit of night air.
After his departure, little more occurred for some time. Chinatown displayed a deadly respectability. Moreno, who had a pair of powerful glasses, began to grow restive. He learned that he could read even the smaller lettering on shop signs across the street. Faces of passers-by might be inspected minutely. But no one of particular interest came within range of the Zeiss lenses.
There were callers at Huan Tsung’s, Asiatic and Occidental, some, at least, legitimate customers; but none to excite suspicion . . .
A small truck drew up before the shop. The young Oriental opened a cellar trap and assisted a truckman to lower a big packing-case covered with Chinese lettering into the basement.
Evidently a consignment of goods of some kind. Moreno wondered vaguely what kind. Something uncommonly heavy.
The trap was reclosed. The truck went away.
Moreno, in the airless room, began to grow sleepy. Then, in a flash, he was wide awake.