Two men lifted him out, and supported him to a bench set before the opposite wall. He smiled grimly as he sat there. The deputy commissioner produced a flask.
“Thank God indeed, Sir Denis. It’s a miracle you weren’t suffocated,”
“Air holes bored in coffin. Never mind me. What of Dr. Fu Manchu?”
“Not a sign of him.”
Nay-land Smith sighed, and took a drink.
“Yet he left here little more than half an hour ago.
“What! But it’s impossible! No one has left this area during that time who wasn’t known to be a regular resident.”
Smith shot him a steely glance.
“What about Huan Tsung? Doesn’t he wear a wide-brimmed hat and a heavy, fur-lined coat?”
The deputy commissioner and Captain Rafferty exchanged worried looks.
“He does, and he certainly went out again,” said Rafferty. “He went twice to a house on lower Fifth. But he’s back.”
“He may be,” Smith rapped. “But he only went there once. It was Dr. Fu Manchu, dressed like him, who came back and Dr. Fu Manchu who has just slipped through your fingers again! Have this Fifth Avenue place raided—now . . . But already it’s too late.”
Chapter X
Manhattan danced on tirelessly; a city of a thousand jewelled minarets, and not one mueddin to call Manhattan to prayer.
An enemy, one who aspired to nothing less than dictatorship of the United States, was within the gates, watching Morris Craig’s revolutionary experiments. London, knowing the hazard, watched also. Washington, alive to the menace, had instructed the F.B.I. And the F.B.I., smelling out the presence of a further danger, in the formidable person of Dr. Fu Manchu, had sent for Nayland Smith.
But no hint of the desperate battle waging in their midst was permitted to reach the ears of those whose fate hung in the balance. That hapless unit, the Man in the Street, went about his affairs never suspecting that a third world war raged on his doorstep.
Nayland Smith called up Craig the next morning.
“Thought you might be worried,” he said. “Had a bit of a brush with the enemy, but no bones broken. Watch your step, Craig. This thing is coming to a head. Hope to look in later . . .”
The mantle of gloom which had enveloped Craig dropped from his shoulders. His problems no longer seemed insuperable. Clearly enough, opposition more dangerous than that of commercial rivalry was in the field against Huston Electric. His science-trained brain, which demanded tangible evidence before granting even trivial surmises, had fought against acceptance, not merely of the presence, but of the existence, of Dr. Fu Manchu.
Now he was converted.
Ignorant, yet, of what had happened to Nayland Smith, he must regard the attempt on Moreno as the work of some enemy unusually equipped. The mode of attack certainly suggested oriental influence.
If, then. Dr. Fu Manchu, what of the Soviet agent?
He might reasonably suppose, although Smith had never even hinted it, that Smith acted for the British government. Very well. Who was acting for the Kremlin?
Certainly, his discovery (for which, in his modest way, Craig claimed no personal credit) had called down the lightning. But, in his new mood, there was no place for misgiving. On the contrary, he was exultant, for by that night, he believed, his task would be completed.
When Camille came in, he turned to her with a happy smile.
“Just heard from Nayland Smith. Thank heaven the old lad’s okay”
“I am glad,” said Camille, and Craig listened to the harp notes in her fascinating voice. “I know you were worried.”
“I’m worried about you, too.”
She started; her eyes seemed to assume a deeper shade.
“Why—Dr. Craig?”
“You’re overdoin’ it, my dear. It simply won’t work, you know. Because I’m sure you’re not getting enough sleep.”
“Do I look such a wreck?” she smiled.
“You always look lovely,” he replied impulsively, and then regretted the words, for a faint flush tinged Camille’s cheeks, and so he added, “when you don’t wear those damned glasses.”
“Oh!” said Camille—and he watched for, and saw, that adorable little moue, like a suppressed dimple, appear on her lip. “As you told me you didn’t like them, I only wear them, now, when I am working.”
“I didn’t say anything of the kind. I said I preferred your eyes in the nude, so to speak. There’s only one other thing you might do to add to my joy.”
“What is that. Dr. Craig?”
“Well—must you hide the most wonderful hair that ever escaped captivity in Hollywood by pinning it behind your ears as if you wanted to forget it?”
Then Camille laughed, and her laughter rang true.
“Really, you are ridiculous! But very complimentary. You see, I know my hair is rather—well—flamboyant. It waves quite obstinately, and I don’t feel—”
“It’s a display entirely in order for the office of a stuffy physicist? Well—I’ll let you off. But there’s a proviso.”
“What is the proviso. Dr. Craig?”
“That you unloose the latent fires as from tomorrow, when we disport ourselves at Falling Waters.”
“Oh,” said Camille demurely. “Am I allowed to think it over?”
“Yes. But make up your mind by the morning.”
Camille crossed toward the door of her room, then paused, and turned.
“I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I quite forgot to mention what I really came to ask you. Dr. Craig.”
“Remembered now?”
“Yes. Mrs. Frobisher was speaking to me on the phone yesterday, and we discovered we both suffered from insomnia. She called me this morning to tell me she had arranged an appointment with Professor Hoffmeyer. Of course, I should never have dreamed of such a thing. But—”
“You can’t duck it as the boss’s wife has fixed it? Quite agree. He’ll probably prescribe six weeks at Palm Beach. But pay no attention.”
“What I wanted to ask you was if it would be all right for me to go along there at eight tonight?”
“Eight?”
“Yes. An unusual hour for a consultant. I suppose he is fitting me in when he has no other appointments.”
“Between the cocktails and the soup, I should guess. Certainly, Miss Navarre. Why ask?”
“Well”—Camille hesitated—”I know you plan to work late tonight, and I’m often wanted to take notes—”
“Forget it. Proceed from the learned professor’s straight to your sleeping-sack. We make an early start tomorrow morning.”
“That’s very kind of you. Dr. Craig, and I am grateful But when I took this appointment I knew what the hours would be. I shall certainly come back.”
Camille went into her room, quietly closing the door. All her movements were marked by a graceful composure.
* * *
At a quarter to eight, when Camille set out, Craig was crouched over his work, a formula like a Picasso landscape pinned to a corner of the board and a pen in his mouth.
“I expect to return in an hour. Dr. Craig.”
Craig raised his hand in a gesture of dismissal and said something that might have been “Go to bed.”
Camille pressed the button of the private elevator, and when it arrived, opened the door with her pass-key and went down to the thirty-second floor. She closed the door there—they were all self-locking—and crossed the big office, in which a light was always left on, to a similar door on the other side. She knew the second elevator would be below, for Regan had gone down at four o’clock, when Mr. Shaw had relieved him.
She pressed the button, and when the signal light glowed, unlocked the door and descended to the main floor. There was a small, dark lobby which opened directly onto the street, a means of private entry and exit used only by the laboratory and Michael Frobisher. At the moment that Camille stepped out of the elevator and as the door closed behind her, she knew that someone was in this lobby.