“I can try, sir. Pether knows him better than I do, but I didn’t bother to bring him along. Let me see . . .” He chewed imaginary gum, staring up at the ceiling, then: “Sam Pak is a small, old, very wrinkled Chinaman. He might be any age up to, say, a hundred. He has a voice like a tin whistle, and speaks pidgin English.”
“Stop!” snapped Nayland Smith. “Detective-sergeant Fletcher of K Division retired some years ago didn’t he?”
“He did, sir,” Gallaho replied, rather startled. “He’s landlord of the George and Dragon in Commercial Road. I happen to know him well.”
“Get through to the George and Dragon,” Nayland Smith directed. “Find out if Fletcher is home, and if so ask him to come on the line.”
“Very good, sir. . . . Now?”
“You might as well; I want to think. You can use the telephone in the lobby.”
“Very good, sir.”
Inspector Gallaho went out, carrying his tumbler, and:
“You know,” said Nayland Smith, turning and staring at Sterling, “I have an idea that I know Sam Pak. I believe he is a certain John Ki, who disappeared from Chinatown some years ago. He was one of Fu Manchu’s people, Sterling. I should like to be sure.”
Sterling had lighted his pipe and had dropped back into the big armchair, but his mood was far from restful. He sat there, clutching the arms, watching Sir Denis pacing up and down the carpet. Suddenly:
“On your word of honour, Sir Denis,” he said, “do you think she’s alive?”
Nayland Smith turned and fixed an unflinching gaze upon the speaker.
“On my word of honour,” he replied, “I do.”
“Thank God!” Sterling murmured. “You’re a rock of refuge!”
“He’s well on the run,” Sir Denis continued, grimly, the cold grey-blue eyes alight with suppressed excitement. “He has doubled back to his riverside haunts. He’s finding it difficult to raise funds. The police of Europe are on his tail. He’s a cornered rat, and dangerous. The Mandarin Prince has become the common criminal. I wonder if it’s to be his fate, Sterling, that having threatened the safety of nations, he is to fall. That would be poetic justice, indeed. In the past, he has shown them scant mercy.”
Sterling watched the speaker fascinatedly. He radiated vitality; the force within him vibrated through one’s nerves. Only a man who had known Dr. Fu Manchu, as Sterling knew him, could have doubted that the Chinaman’s fate was sealed. But knowing, and appreciating, the genius of the great Eastern physician, Sterling, with optimism crying out for recognition in his heart, was forced to admit that the betting was even. Sir Denis Nayland Smith would have been an impossible adversary for any normal man to pit himself against, but Dr. Fu Manchu was not a normal man. He was a superman, Satan materialized, and one equipped with knowledge which few had ever achieved: a cold, dominating intellect, untrammelled by fleshly ties, a great mind unbound by laws of man.
The silence which fell was only broken by faint ringings of a telephone bell and the distant rumbling of the voice of Inspector Gallaho. Nayland Smith walked up and down. Sterling smoked, and clutched the arms of the chair. Then, Gallaho, still carrying his glass which now was empty, returned.
“I’ve found him, sir,” he reported, “and by great good luck, got him on the ‘phone.”
CHAPTER
12
LONDON RIVER
A constable patrolling the Embankment pulled up and stared suspiciously at a pair of dangerous-looking loafers, possibly sailors, of a type rarely seen in the Westminster area; very dark-skinned fellows wearing greasy caps and smoking cigarettes. To that lurching walk that belongs to the sea, a certain furtive quality seemed to have been added. Some of these foreign sailormen had other jobs when they were ashore, and the officer didn’t like the way in which this pair kept staring up towards a certain lighted window in a block of expensive residential flats.
A strong westerly breeze had sprung up, driving banks of fog before it, so that in certain areas, temporarily, the night was clear enough. Such a lucidity prevailed now in this part of Westminster. The face of Big Ben was clearly visible, no great distance away, and the many lighted windows of New Scotland Yard. But whereas most of the windows in the block of flats were shaded, that one which seemed to interest the pair of watchers, a large, bay window, had neither curtains nor blinds drawn.
From time to time a man, apparently tall and thin, who might have been in evening dress, appeared in this window. One would have supposed that he was pacing up and down the room to which it belonged. He was smoking a pipe.
Yes, the officer was certain, it was this window or this man, or both, that the loafers were watching. He determined upon action. Quickly retracing his steps:
“What are you two up to?” He demanded, gruffly.
The shorter of the pair started and turned. He had deep-set, very bright eyes, and a truculence of manner which the constable regarded as suspicious. His companion grasped his arm, and:
“Leitak sa’ida,” he said.
The officer could not be expected to know. that the man had wished him good-night in Arabic.
The pair moved off slouchingly.
“Don’t hang about here,” the constable continued, following them up. “Gei a move on.”
“Khatrak!” replied the taller man.
The constable watched them lurching away, unaware that the word meant “good-bye”. They did not loiter again, but went on their way. The officer, retracing his steps, glanced up at the lighted window. The tall man smoking a pipe became visible for a moment, then turned and disappeared.
As the two foreign sailormen whose language was presumably Arabic proceeded on their way:—
“Comedy interlude with policeman?” snapped the taller. “Do you think Fay looks the part?”
“I should never have suspected it wasn’t you up there, Sir Denis,” the other replied. “But, except the constable, did you notice anyone watching?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A man apparently asleep on the stone steps nearly opposite my window, with a tray of matches on the pavement before him.”
“Good God! Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Then we’ve thrown them off this time?”
“I think so, Sterling. We must be careful how we join Gallaho and Forester. This is a case where a return of the fog would be welcome. Is there anyone behind?”
Sterling glanced back.
“No, not near enough to count.”
“Good. This way, then.”
He gripped Sterling suddenly, pulling him aside.
“Duck under here! Now, over the wall!”
A moment later they stood at the foot of some stone steps. A dinghy lay there, occupied by one rower, a man who wore the uniform of the River Police. As the pair appeared:
“Careful how you come aboard, sir,” he said; “those lower steps are very slimy.”
However, they embarked without accident, and ten minutes later were inside the dingy little office of the River Police depot. Chief Detective-inspector Gallaho was leaning against the mantelpiece chewing phantom gum, his bowler worn at that angle made famous by Earl Beatty in the Navy. Forester, a thick-set man who looked more like a Mercantile skipper than a police officer, stood up as the hang-dog couple entered.
“Do you think you’ve covered your tracks, sir?” he asked, addressing Sir Denis.
“I hope so,” snapped the latter. “But anyway, we have to go on now. Too much valuable time has been wasted already.”
Big Ben chimed the hour. A high pall of fog still overhung the city, and the booming notes of the big clock seemed to come from almost directly overhead.
“Eleven o’clock. Is it fairly clear down-river, Inspector?”