He turned down a passage he had not explored before and played the bright beam of his flashlight along the walls. From somewhere beyond them he could hear the careful scraping sounds of his own men at work, searching the underground storehouses and dungeons for— He was not even quite sure what he and they were supposed to look for. Maybe it would be in packing cases left openly among the old garrison supplies, or maybe it would be in brass-bound trunks in some secret place.
Tsing-fu Shu probed the walls with his narrow fingertips, and cursed. He had nothing to go on but one slender clue, and it wasn’t enough. The scraping, scratching noises of his work crew trying to find some hidden compartment in the thick stone walls sounded aimless, futile. Fortunately they could not be heard by the tourists who even now were tramping and gawking overhead, oohing and ahing at the spectacular view from the battlements. Strange, he thought, how the pulsation of the drums made itself felt even through the massive walls.
The stone was slippery beneath his searching fingers, but it was as solid as mountain rock. It did not swing inward at his touch, as he daily — and nightly — prayed it would, nor were there any rings to pull or bolts to slide back and reveal a hidden chamber. He went on with his search, slowly and meticulously, letting his prying fingers wander over every flaw in the smoothness and investigating each protuberance and crack.
Time wore on. The drums still pulsed and Tsing-fu Shu still searched. But now the monotonous rhythm was beginning to pound at his nerves. He began to think of the sound as coming from a great, bloody heart beating within the Walls, for he had read Poe as a student in the States, and it was becoming unbearable. His irritation and frustration rose. Two weeks of nothing! The fat one in Peking would be most displeased.
He turned a corner into another corridor and cursed again, this time out loud. He was back again in a part of the dungeons he had searched only the day before, and he had not even realized where his steps were leading him. A thousand curses on this devil’s labyrinth.
It was enough for this day, he decided. He had workmen for this sort of thing; let them work. His job was to use his brains, to get more information — somehow, from somewhere.
Dr. Tsing-fu Shu, sub-chief of a very specialized branch of Chinese Intelligence, walked briskly toward a light glowing at the far end of the passage. It opened into a cavernous room piled high with ancient boxes. His men were at work among them, forcing open the crates and rummaging busily through them. Another man was emerging from what was apparently a hole in the floor.
Ah! A trapdoor! Tsing-fu’s flagging interest flickered back to life and he strode toward the trap. His man climbed up and lowered the door with a savage crash.
“Restrain yourself,” Tsing-fu reproved him. “I have said repeatedly that there must be no unnecessary noise.”
“Bah! Those peasants up there will think they are hearing ghosts!” the man said contemptuously, and spat.
“Nevertheless you will obey my orders whatever they may be,” said Tsing-fu Shu, and his voice was an icicle. “If you will not be quiet, as I ask, then you will be quietened. Do you understand?”
He stared at the other man with slits of eyes whose heavy lids reminded his enemies of a hooded snake. The fellow lowered his gaze.
“I understand, sir,” he said humbly.
“Good!” The Doctor recovered something of his spirit. He liked to see fear in a man, and he saw it now. “The trapdoor was a disappointment, I assume?”
The man nodded. “It is nothing but a cistern. Disused for many years.”
“How many?” Tsing-fu asked sharply. “Five? Ten? More?” It was important to know, for the cache was said to have been hidden in 1958 or perhaps 1959.
“More. Fifty years, a hundred. It is hard to say. But it is certain that no one has so much as been down there in at least a dozen years.” The man’s smooth, yellow-tinted face crinkled with distaste and his big hands brushed at his tunic. “The place is a nest of cobwebs and ratholes, but even the spiders and rats have long since left. It is foul down there, and it is dead. And there is no hiding place. Sir.”
Tsing-fu nodded with satisfaction. The news was not pleasing to him but he knew he could trust Mao-Pei’s report. The man was a surly devil but he was expert at his task. And he was pleased that the fellow had remembered to call him, Sir. Tsing-fu was not the sort of sub-chief who enjoyed having his subordinates call him Comrade. Even his Work Group Captain.
“I would have thought so,” he said. “I am sure that what we seek will be in a more subtle hiding place. When you and your men have finished with these boxes here — and I am sure you will find nothing in them — then you will start on the floors and walls of the east wing. Tonight we will go back to the cannon galleries and finish with them.”
He left the work group then and went down yet another passage to the large room he had converted into a temporary office for himself. His mind picked at his problem as he walked. There were other dungeons in this vast building besides the ones he and his men were searching, but they were open to tourists during the day and heavily bolted at night. That had also been the case at the time the treasure was hidden. And the men who had hidden the cache would surely have chosen a place that they could easily return to without interruption. Therefore…
Tom Kee was waiting for him in the makeshift office that had once been occupied by the keeper of the store house. He folded his newspaper as Tsing-fu entered and rose to his feet in a stretching, catlike movement.
“Ah” Tsing-fu greeted him. “You are back. You have arranged for more supplies!? Good. You did not perhaps discover the reason for that incessant drumming I hear even down here?”
Tom Kee’s lean face twisted into a sneering smile. “I did, sir. Those misbegotten blacks down there are drumming to drive away the spirit of a djuba that appeared last night. There is a story about it in the paper that may interest you.”
“So?” Tsing-fu took the proffered newspaper. “But you must not talk about them in that way, Tom Kee. Misbegotten blacks! Tch! We are all people of color, you must remember that. We are all friends.” He smiled gently and glanced at the headlines. “Think of them as our black brothers,” he added, “our allies against the world of Whites.”
“Oh, I always do,” Tom Kee said, and grinned. His grin was no more pleasant than his smile.
Dr. Tsing-fu read the newspaper account with growing interest. It was an incredible tale of the supernatural and of bravery far beyond the call of duty. An unspeakable monster, it seemed, had risen apparently from the sea and fought a hideous battle upon the cliff top of Cap St. Michel. In the darkness it had been impossible for Dog Patrol Squad Number Nine to examine the area with any great thoroughness, but while they were making their preliminary investigation the duty dog gave signs of detecting a scent. It then led Squad Nine toward a small mountain cave.
“On arrival at the cave,” the story said, “the dog began to bristle as if in some strange presence. The patrolmen, ever mindful of their own safety, urged the dog to enter the cave. The noble beast attempted to do so. At that very moment the hideous cry of the djuba was heard and the dog ran from the cave as if pursued by demons. A moment later it was lured back again by unknown means and shortly afterwards the unearthly cries began once more. The guard dog screamed as if attacked by fiends. It emerged from the cave at great speed, yelping bitterly, and the men of the patrol group could see dreadful slash wounds upon its body that could only have been inflicted by some frightful beast. They then made every effort to enter the cave but were repelled by some inexplicable force. The dog, it was thought at the time, ran away. In spite of heroic attempts to make entry, and the use of all possible means to smoke out the presence within the cave…”