During a general mix-up which took place there, a big sedan drew in before the private door of the Huston Building, and three men came out and entered it. One of them carried a heavy roll of office carpet on his shoulder.
Huan Tsung had successfully covered the retirement of Dr. Fu Manchu.
When Martin Shaw stepped from a taxi, paid the driver, and saw the yellow cab driven away, he unbuttoned his topcoat to find his key. Someone was walking rapidly towards him; the only figure in sight. It was midnight.
Holland, whilst still some distance away, recognized the chief technician, and moderated his pace. The screaming alcoholic had just been removed in charge of two patrolmen, and would, no doubt, receive his appropriate medicine in the morning. By the time Holland reached the door, Shaw had already gone in, and was on his way up.
Shaw half expected that Dr. Craig would be still at work, and even when he didn’t see him at his desk, was prepared to find him in the laboratory. Then he noted that the drawing board was missing and the safe unlocked. Evidently, Craig had gone.
Whoever took the next (four-to-eight) duty usually slept on a couch in the office. But Regan seemed to have made no preparations.
Shaw went up the three steps and unlocked the steel door.
“Here we are, Regan!” he called in his breezy way. “Get to hell out of it,man!”
There was no reply. Everything seemed to be in order. But where was Regan?
Then, pinned to the logbook lying on a glass-topped table, Shaw saw a sheet of ruled paper. He crossed and bent over it.
A message, written shakily in Regan’s hand, appeared there. It said:
Mr. Shaw—
Had a slight accident. Compelled to go for medical treatment. Don’t be alarmed. Will report at 4 a.m. for duty.
J. J. Regan
“Slight accident?” Shaw muttered.
He looked keenly about him. What could have happened? There was nothing wrong with any of the experimental plant. He quickly satisfied himself on that score. So unlike Regan not to have timed the message. He wondered how long he had been gone. The last entry in the log (almost illegible) was timed eleven-fifteen.
He was hanging his coat up when he noticed the bloodstains.
They were very few—specks on white woodwork. But, stooping, he came to the conclusion that others had been wiped from the tiled floor below.
Regan, then, must have cut himself in some way, been unable to staunch the bleeding, and gone to find a surgeon. Shaw decided that he had better notify Dr. Craig. The laboratory phone was an extension from the secretary’s office. He reopened the door, went down the steps, and dialled from Camille’s room.
There was no answer to his call.
Shaw growled, but accepted the fact philosophically. He would repeat the call later. He went back to his working-bench in the laboratory and was soon absorbed in adjusting an intricate piece of mechanism in course of construction there. He walked in an atmosphere vibrant with a force new to science. His large hands were delicate as those of a violinist . . .
He called Craig’s number again at one o’clock, but there was no reply. He tried Regan’s, with a similar result. Perhaps the injury was more serious than Regan had supposed. He might have been detained for hospital treatment.
Shaw tried both numbers again at two and then at three o’clock. No answers.
He began to feel seriously worried about Regan; nor could he entirely understand the absence of Craig. He knew how determined Craig had been to complete the valve detail that night, he knew he was spending the week-end away; and he felt sure that Morris Craig wasn’t the man to waste precious hours in night spots.
In this, Shaw misjudged Craig—for once. At almost exactly three o’clock, that is, whilst Shaw was vainly calling his number, Morris Craig leaned on a small table, feasting his eyes on Camille, who sat facing him.
“Say you are happy,” he whispered.
That she was happy, that this new wonderland was real and not a mirage, seemed to him, at the moment, the only thing that mattered— the one possible excuse for his otherwise inexcusable behavior.
Camille smiled, and then lowered her eyes. She knew that she had been dancing—dancing for hours, it seemed to her. Even now, a band played softly, somewhere on the other side of a discreetly dim floor. Yes—she was happy. She was in love with Morris, and they were together. But how could she surrender herself to all that such an evening should mean, when she had no idea how she came to be there?
She knew that she had set out to keep an appointment made for her by Mrs. Frobisher. Had she kept it? Apart from a vague recollection of talking to Morris in the office—of some sudden terror—the rest of the night remained a blank up to the moment when she had found herself here, in his arms, dancing . . .
“Yes—I am happy, Morris, very happy. But I think I must go home now.”
It was nearly half past three when they left.
In the little lobby of her apartment house, between swing doors and the house door, Craig held her so long that she thought he would never let her go. Every time she went to put her key in the lock, he pulled her back and held her again. At last:
“I shall be here for you at nine in the morning,7 he said.
“All right. Good night, Morris.”
She opened the door, and was gone. He watched her, through glass panels, as she hurried upstairs. Then he went out, crossed the street, and waited to see a light spring up in her room. When one did, he still waited—and waited.
At last she came to the window, pulled a drape aside, and waved him good night.
He had dismissed the taxi. He wanted to walk, to be alone with this night, to relive every hour of the wonder that had come into his life with Camille’s first kiss.
When, at Central Park West, he decided to walk across the Park, two tired and bored detectives who had been keeping the pair in sight ever since they had left the night club, exhaled selfpitying sighs . . .
Chapter XV
At ten past four, Martin Shaw dialled Regan’s number. No reply. Then he tried Craig’s. No reply. Following a momentary hesitation, he called police headquarters.
He had no more than begun to explain what had happened when he heard the clang of the elevator door as someone slammed it shut. Laying the phone down on Camille’s desk, he ran out into Craig’s office. He arrived just as Nayland Smith burst in.
“Sir Denis! What’s this?”
Nayland Smith was darting urgent glances right and left.
“Where’s Regan?” he rapped.
“Hasn’t shown up—”
“What!”
“Had an accident some time before I returned. Left a note.”
Nayland Smith’s challenging stare was almost frightening.
“You mean the place was empty when you arrived at twelve?”
“Just that.”
“And you did nothing about it?”
“Why should I?” Shaw demanded. “But when he didn’t appear at four o’clock, it was different. I have police headquarters on the line right now “
“Tell them I’m here. Then hang up.”
Shaw, upon whom this visitor had swept as a typhoon, went back and did so.
“I know,” a voice replied. “We’re on the job. Stand by.”
When Shaw rejoined him:
“Your handyman, Sam, was got away by a ruse,” said Smith. “He wisely called the police, too—from Philadelphia. I came straight along. Someone wanted this place vacated tonight—and Craig played right into the enemy’s hands—”
“But where is the Doctor? I have been calling him—”
“You’d be surprised!” Smith snapped savagely. “At the present moment, he’s wandering about Central Park, moon-struck! One of two men looking after him got to a phone ten minutes ago.”