“But you say you recognized Huan Tsung?”
“Certainly. But he blandly assures me I am mistaken. He had the impudence to point out that to the Western eye, Chinese faces look much alike. Had he had the privilege of meeting me before, he said, such an honor couldn’t possibly have escaped his memory!”
“Do you mean to say he’s going to get away with it?”
“For the time being, I’m afraid he is. Mr. La Fosse of lower Fifth Avenue, who is undoubtedly in Fu Manchu’s employ, declares that he never even heard of such a person. Of course, the police will watch them closely, as astronomers watch a new comet. Their lines are tapped already.”
“And what about those damned injections? Do you feel no ill effects?”
“None whatever. You must accept the fact, Craig, that Dr. Fu Manchu has a knowledge of medicine which is generations ahead of anything known to Western science. And now, waste no more of my time. Listen—”
The big clock above the desk sounded its single note. Eight o’clock. The office door opened and Regan came in. His dour face wore an odd expression.
“I may be mistaken,” he said, “but I fancy I saw a pair of tough-looking lads loafing outside the private door, downstairs.”
Nayland Smith laughed. “Part of my bodyguard!”
“Oh,” said Regan. “That’s it, is it?”
“We are invested,” murmured Craig. “A beleaguered garrison. Look well to your armour, gentlemen, and let your swords be bright.”
Regan nodded unhumorously, and going up the steps, unlocked the laboratory door. Eerie vibrations invaded the office. His figure showed outlined for a moment against green light. Then the door was closed as he went in.
“I want to know,” rapped Nayland Smith, “when you will be finished.”
“Tonight.”
“Sure?”
“Perfectly sure.”
“I thought as much. Even allowing an hour for dinner?” Craig brushed his hair back, staring.
“I’m stopping for no dinner.”
Nayland Smith smiled again.
“Craig, I begin to agree with Dr. Fu Manchu, who informed me that you are what he described as ‘touched with genius.’ I don’t want you to confirm his diagnosis by dying young. I have booked a table at a quiet restaurant. Until you are dragged away from that desk, your abstraction is deplorable. And there are many important things I want to tell you.”
“Won’t they keep?”
“No. And by the way, I miss the invaluable Sam.”
“The said Invaluable has twenty-four hours’ leave. His mother is ill in Philadelphia. Result, that for the first time in days I can go out for a drink without being tailed by a shadow in a peaked cap!”
“Oh!” rapped Smith, and gave Craig a steely glance. “Sorry to hear it.”
The laboratory yawned again, and Shaw stepped out. He stood at the top of the steps for a moment, looking down. The chief technician had the heavy frame of an open-air man who has come indoors, a mass of unruly blond hair, and a merry eye. “Just off, Shaw?” Craig called. “You don’t know my masterful friend, Sir Denis Nayland Smith? On my right, Masterful Smith; on my left, Martin Shaw.”
Shaw came down and shook hands.
“Free man until midnight,” he said. “Then back to the bloody Juggernaut that lives in there!” He turned to Craig. “If you had that valve detail ready tonight, I believe I could fit up the transmuter in time for tests on, say, Monday.”
“Do you?” Craig replied, and grinned like a schoolboy. “Has no thought crossed the massive brain to file a will before that date?”
Shaw nodded. “It has. Doctor. Rests with you. But if we can keep the cork in when we really fill the bottle, well—”
He went out, giving an imitation of a man under heavy fire. As the office door closed:
“Our convoy awaits!” said Nayland Smith. “Let’s move.”
“Stop ordering me about,” Craig exclaimed in mock severity. “Oh, I give up the unequal contest.”
He called the laboratory.
“Reganhere.”
“I regret to state, Regan, that I am being forcibly removed to some restaurant to dine—”
“Good thing, too.”
“Repeat.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh, Well, I shall be back at nine. Want to see me before I go?”
“No, Doctor. Enjoy your dinner.”
Craig carried his drawing board, and his notes, across to the safe. When they were locked away, he glanced towards the door of Camille’s room.
“She’s out,” said Smith drily. “I passed her as I came in.”
* * *
They were already speeding along in a police car, two F.B.I, men following in another, when Camille faced Dr. Fu Manchu across the bizarre study.
“You have been here before,” the harsh voice had said. And, in a moment of cold horror, which seemed to check her heartbeats, Camille knew this to be true. Her dream had haunted her so persistently that she had spoken to Morris, warned him to change the safe combination, for in her wastebasket she had found those fragments of a tom-up note. And although she had spent hours trying to piece the fragments together, and had failed, she knew that the paper on which the note was written came from the Huston Electric office.
Now—the man, the inscrutable, dreadful face of the man, every detail surrounding him, told her that the dream had been no dream, but a memory recaptured in sleep.
She had come to the appointment with Professor Hoffmeyer wearing her dark-rimmed glasses. At this moment the incongruity of her appearance in such an environment struck her forcibly.
One angle of the room was occupied by shelves filled with volumes, some of them large and faded leather bindings. Then came the lacquer panel. This, she knew, masked an opening through which she had entered. Beyond it a curtain partly concealed a recess. There was an arched doorway in which a silk shaded lantern hung.
A cushioned divan rose like an island in a sea of rugs. There were two strangely shaped mediaeval chairs.
A long black table bore books, open manuscripts, jars which apparently contained specimens of some kind, and a mummied head mounted on a wooden base. The dim light of a green lamp just outlined a crystal globe eclipsed in shadow.
And behind the table, hands with attenuated nails crossed under his chin, was the Man . . .
“Please sit down.”
His half-closed eyes glanced sideways in the direction of the divan. He did not stir, otherwise.
Camille, fighting a desperate battle for calmness, for sanity, remained standing. She stared challengingly at the motionless figure. Her throat was dry, but when she spoke, her soft voice did not betray her.
“I came to consult Professor Hoffmeyer. Who are you?”
He remained immobile. When he replied, Camille could not see that the thin lips moved.
“I am accustomed to asking questions. Miss Navarre, not to answering them. But I must make a concession in the case of a fellow scientist—and one whose courage I respect. I am known as Dr. Fu Manchu.”
“Dr. Fu Manchu!” she whispered.
“I believe you have been warned against me. I regret that, like the straying husbands, I should be so misunderstood, that the world should think badly of me.”
“But what are you doing here? If Mrs. Frobisher knew—”
“If Mrs. Frobisher knew what? That Professor Hoffmeyer is Dr. Fu Manchu, or that Camille Navarre is employed by the intelligence service of an alien government? To which eventuality do you refer?”
“What do you say? What are you suggesting?”
“I suggest nothing. I ask a question. Mrs. Frobisher made the appointment for tonight because I told her to do so—”
“You meant—that Mrs. Frobisher knows—?”
“Mrs. Frobisher does not know anything. Few women do. But I believe that her husband might react unfavorably if he knew you to be an agent of Great Britain.”