Together we marched down the slope of the quiet, suburban avenue; to take pause before a small, detached house displaying the hatchet boards of the Estate Agent. Here we found unkempt laurel bushes and acacias run riot, from which arboreal tangle protruded the notice--"To be Let or Sold."
Smith, with an alert glance to right and left, pushed open the wooden gate and drew me in upon the gravel path. Darkness mantled all; for the nearest street lamp was fully twenty yards beyond.
From the miniature jungle bordering the path, a soft whistle sounded.
"Is that Carter?" called Smith, sharply.
A shadowy figure uprose, and vaguely I made it out for that of a man in the unobtrusive blue serge which is the undress uniform of the Force.
"Well?" rapped my companion.
"Mr. Slattin returned ten minutes ago, sir," reported the constable. "He came in a cab which he dismissed--"
"He has not left again?"
"A few minutes after his return," the man continued, "another cab came up, and a lady alighted."
"A lady!"
"The same, sir, that has called upon him before."
"Smith!" I whispered, plucking at his arm--"is it--"
He half turned, nodding his head; and my heart began to throb foolishly. For now the manner of Slattin's campaign suddenly was revealed to me. In our operations against the Chinese murder-group two years before, we had had an ally in the enemy's camp--Karamaneh the beautiful slave, whose presence in those happenings of the past had colored the sometimes sordid drama with the opulence of old Arabia; who had seemed a fitting figure for the romances of Bagdad during the Caliphate--Karamaneh, whom I had thought sincere, whose inscrutable Eastern soul I had presumed, fatuously, to have laid bare and analyzed.
Now, once again she was plying her old trade of go-between; professing to reveal the secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu, and all the time--I could not doubt it--inveigling men into the net of this awful fisher.
Yesterday, I had been her dupe; yesterday, I had rejoiced in my captivity. To-day, I was not the favored one; to-day I had not been selected recipient of her confidences--confidences sweet, seductive, deadly: but Abel Slattin, a plausible rogue, who, in justice, should be immured in Sing Sing, was chosen out, was enslaved by those lovely mysterious eyes, was taking to his soul the lies which fell from those perfect lips, triumphant in a conquest that must end in his undoing; deeming, poor fool, that for love of him this pearl of the Orient was about to betray her master, to resign herself a prize to the victor!
Companioned by these bitter reflections, I had lost the remainder of the conversation between Nayland Smith and the police officer; now, casting off the succubus memory which threatened to obsess me, I put forth a giant mental effort to purge my mind of this uncleanness, and became again an active participant in the campaign against the Master --the director of all things noxious.
Our plans being evidently complete, Smith seized my arm, and I found myself again out upon the avenue. He led me across the road and into the gate of a house almost opposite. From the fact that two upper windows were illuminated, I adduced that the servants were retiring; the other windows were in darkness, except for one on the ground floor to the extreme left of the building, through the lowered venetian blinds whereof streaks of light shone out.
"Slattin's study!" whispered Smith. "He does not anticipate surveillance, and you will note that the window is wide open!"
With that my friend crossed the strip of lawn, and careless of the fact that his silhouette must have been visible to any one passing the gate, climbed carefully up the artificial rockery intervening, and crouched upon the window-ledge peering into the room.
A moment I hesitated, fearful that if I followed, I should stumble or dislodge some of the larva blocks of which the rockery was composed.
Then I heard that which summoned me to the attempt, whatever the cost.
Through the open window came the sound of a musical voice--a voice possessing a haunting accent, possessing a quality which struck upon my heart and set it quivering as though it were a gong hung in my bosom.
Karamaneh was speaking.
Upon hands and knees, heedless of damage to my garments, I crawled up beside Smith. One of the laths was slightly displaced and over this my friend was peering in. Crouching close beside him, I peered in also.
I saw the study of a business man, with its files, neatly arranged works of reference, roll-top desk, and Milner safe. Before the desk, in a revolving chair, sat Slattin. He sat half turned toward the window, leaning back and smiling; so that I could note the gold crown which preserved the lower left molar. In an armchair by the window, close, very close, and sitting with her back to me, was Karamaneh!
She, who, in my dreams, I always saw, was ever seeing, in an Eastern dress, with gold bands about her white ankles, with jewel-laden fingers, with jewels in her hair, wore now a fashionable costume and a hat that could only have been produced in Paris. Karamaneh was the one Oriental woman I had ever known who could wear European clothes; and as I watched that exquisite profile, I thought that Delilah must have been just such another as this, that, excepting the Empress Poppaea, history has record of no woman, who, looking so innocent, was yet so utterly vile.
"Yes, my dear," Slattin was saying, and through his monocle ogling his beautiful visitor, "I shall be ready for you to-morrow night."
I felt Smith start at the words.
"There will be a sufficient number of men?"
Karamaneh put the question in a strangely listless way.
"My dear little girl," replied Slattin, rising and standing looking down at her, with his gold tooth twinkling in the lamplight, "there will be a whole division, if a whole division is necessary."
He sought to take her white gloved hand, which rested upon the chair arm; but she evaded the attempt with seeming artlessness, and stood up. Slattin fixed his bold gaze upon her.
"So now, give me my orders," he said.
"I am not prepared to do so, yet," replied the girl, composedly; "but now that I know you are ready, I can make my plans."
She glided past him to the door, avoiding his outstretched arm with an artless art which made me writhe; for once I had been the willing victim of all these wiles.
"But--" began Slattin.
"I will ring you up in less than half an hour," said Karamaneh and without further ceremony, she opened the door.
I still had my eyes glued to the aperture in the blind, when Smith began tugging at my arm.
"Down! you fool!" he hissed harshly--"if she sees us, all is lost!"
Realizing this, and none too soon, I turned, and rather clumsily followed my friend. I dislodged a piece of granite in my descent; but, fortunately, Slattin had gone out into the hall and could not well have heard it.
We were crouching around an angle of the house, when a flood of light poured down the steps, and Karamaneh rapidly descended. I had a glimpse of a dark-faced man who evidently had opened the door for her, then all my thoughts were, centered upon that graceful figure receding from me in the direction of the avenue. She wore a loose cloak, and I saw this fluttering for a moment against the white gate posts; then she was gone.
Yet Smith did not move. Detaining me with his hand he crouched there against a quick-set hedge; until, from a spot lower down the hill, we heard the start of the cab which had been waiting. Twenty seconds elapsed, and from some other distant spot a second cab started.
"That's Weymouth!" snapped Smith. With decent luck, we should know Fu-Manchu's hiding-place before Slattin tells us!"
"But--"
"Oh! as it happens, he's apparently playing the game."--In the half-light, Smith stared at me significantly--"Which makes it all the more important," he concluded, "that we should not rely upon his aid!"
Those grim words were prophetic.
My companion made no attempt to communicate with the detective (or detectives) who shared our vigil; we took up a position close under the lighted study window and waited--waited.
Once, a taxi-cab labored hideously up the steep gradient of the avenue . . . It was gone. The lights at the upper windows above us became extinguished. A policeman tramped past the gateway, casually flashing his lamp in at the opening. One by one the illuminated windows in other houses visible to us became dull; then lived again as mirrors for the pallid moon. In the silence, words spoken within the study were clearly audible; and we heard someone--presumably the man who had opened the door--inquire if his services would be wanted again that night.
Smith inclined his head and hung over me in a tense attitude, in order to catch Slattin's reply.
"Yes, Burke," it came--"I want you to sit up until I return; I shall be going out shortly."
Evidently the man withdrew at that; for a complete silence followed which prevailed for fully half an hour. I sought cautiously to move my cramped limbs, unlike Smith, who seeming to have sinews of piano-wire, crouched beside me immovable, untiringly. Then loud upon the stillness, broke the strident note of the telephone bell.
I started, nervously, clutching at Smith's arm. It felt hard as iron to my grip.
"Hullo!" I heard Slattin call--"who is speaking? . . . Yes, yes! This is Mr. A. S. . . . I am to come at once ? . . . I know where--yes I . . . you will meet me there? . . . Good!--I shall be with you in half an hour . . . . Good-by!"
Distinctly I heard the creak of the revolving office-chair as Slattin rose; then Smith had me by the arm, and we were flying swiftly away from the door to take up our former post around the angle of the building. This gained:
"He's going to his death!" rapped Smith beside me; "but Carter has a cab from the Yard waiting in the nearest rank. We shall follow to see where he goes--for it is possible that Weymouth may have been thrown off the scent; then, when we are sure of his destination, we can take a hand in the game! We . . ."
The end of the sentence was lost to me--drowned in such a frightful wave of sound as I despair to describe. It began with a high, thin scream, which was choked off staccato fashion; upon it followed a loud and dreadful cry uttered with all the strength of Slattin's lungs--
"Oh, God!" he cried, and again--"Oh, God!"
This in turn merged into a sort of hysterical sobbing.
I was on my feet now, and automatically making for the door. I had a vague impression of Nayland Smith's face beside me, the eyes glassy with a fearful apprehension. Then the door was flung open, and, in the bright light of the hall-way, I saw Slattin standing--swaying and seemingly fighting with the empty air.
"What is it? For God's sake, what has happened!" reached my ears dimly --and the man Burke showed behind his master. White-faced I saw him to be; for now Smith and I were racing up the steps.
Ere we could reach him, Slattin, uttering another choking cry, pitched forward and lay half across the threshold.
We burst into the hall, where Burke stood with both his hands raised dazedly to his head. I could hear the sound of running feet upon the gravel, and knew that Carter was coming to join us.
Burke, a heavy man with a lowering, bull-dog type of face, collapsed onto his knees beside Slattin, and began softly to laugh in little rising peals.
"Drop that!" snapped Smith, and grasping him by the shoulders, he sent him spinning along the hallway, where he sank upon the bottom step of the stairs, to sit with his outstretched fingers extended before his face, and peering at us grotesquely through the crevices.
There were rustlings and subdued cries from the upper part of the house. Carter came in out of the darkness, carefully stepping over the recumbent figure; and the three of us stood there in the lighted hall looking down at Slattin.
"Help us to move him back," directed Smith, tensely; "far enough to close the door."
Between us we accomplished this, and Carter fastened the door. We were alone with the shadow of Fu-Manchu's vengeance; for as I knelt beside the body on the floor, a look and a touch sufficed to tell me that this was but clay from which the spirit had fled!
Smith met my glance as I raised my head, and his teeth came together with a loud snap; the jaw muscles stood out prominently beneath the dark skin; and his face was grimly set in that odd, half-despairful expression which I knew so well but which boded so ill for whomsoever occasioned it.
"Dead, Petrie!--already?"
"Lightning could have done the work no better. Can I turn him over?
Smith nodded.
Together we stooped and rolled the heavy body on its back. A flood of whispers came sibilantly from the stairway. Smith spun around rapidly, and glared upon the group of half-dressed servants.
"Return to your rooms!" he rapped, imperiously; "let no one come into the hall without my orders."
The masterful voice had its usual result; there was a hurried retreat to the upper landing. Burke, shaking like a man with an ague, sat on the lower step, pathetically drumming his palms upon his uplifted knees.
"I warned him, I warned him!" he mumbled monotonously, "I warned him, oh, I warned him!"
"Stand up!" shouted Smith--"stand up and come here!"
The man, with his frightened eyes turning to right and left, and seeming to search for something in the shadows about him, advanced obediently.
"Have you a flask?" demanded Smith of Carter.
The detective silently administered to Burke a stiff restorative.
"Now," continued Smith, "you, Petrie, will want to examine him, I suppose?" He pointed to the body. "And in the meantime I have some questions to put to you, my man."
He clapped his hand upon Burke's shoulder.
"My God!" Burke broke out, "I was ten yards from him when it happened!"
"No one is accusing you," said Smith, less harshly; but since you were the only witness, it is by your aid that we hope to clear the matter up."
Exerting a gigantic effort to regain control of himself, Burke nodded, watching my friend with a childlike eagerness. During the ensuing conversation, I examined Slattin for marks of violence; and of what I found, more anon.
"In the first place," said Smith, "you say that you warned him. When did you warn him and of what?"
"I warned him, sir, that it would come to this--"
"That what would come to this?"'
"His dealings with the Chinaman!"
"He had dealings with Chinamen?"
"He accidentally met a Chinaman at an East End gaming-house, a man he had known in Frisco--a man called Singapore Charlie--"
"What! Singapore Charlie!"
"Yes, sir, the same man that had a dope-shop, two years ago, down Ratcliffe way--"
"There was a fire--"
"But Singapore Charlie escaped, sir."
"And he is one of the gang?"
"He is one of what we used to call in New York, the Seven Group."
Smith began to tug at the lobe of his left ear, reflectively, as I saw out of the corner of my eye.
"The Seven Group!" he mused. "That is significant. I always suspected that Dr. Fu-Manchu and the notorious Seven Group were one and the same. Go on, Burke."
"Well, sir," the man continued, more calmly, "the lieutenant--"
"The lieutenant!" began Smith; then: "Oh! of course; Slattin used to be a police lieutenant!"
"Well, sir, he--Mr. Slattin--had a sort of hold on this Singapore Charlie, and two years ago, when he first met him, he thought that with his aid he was going to pull off the biggest thing of his life--"
"Forestall me, in fact?"
"Yes, sir; but you got in first, with the big raid and spoiled it."
Smith nodded grimly, glancing at the Scotland Yard man, who returned his nod with equal grimness.
"A couple of months ago," resumed Burke, "he met Charlie again down East, and the Chinaman introduced him to a girl--some sort of an Egyptian girl."
"Go on!" snapped Smith--"I know her."
"He saw her a good many times--and she came here once or twice. She made out that she and Singapore Charlie were prepared to give away the boss of the Yellow gang--"
"For a price, of course?"
"I suppose so," said Burke; "but I don't know. I only know that I warned him."
"H'm!" muttered Smith. "And now, what took place to-night?"
"He had an appointment here with the girl," began Burke
"I know all that," interrupted Smith. "I merely want to know, what took place after the telephone call?"
"Well, he told me to wait up, and I was dozing in the next room to the study--the dining-room--when the 'phone bell aroused me. I heard the lieutenant--Mr. Slattin, coming out, and I ran out too, but only in time to see him taking his hat from the rack--"
"But he wears no hat!"
"He never got it off the peg! Just as he reached up to take it, he gave a most frightful scream, and turned around like lightning as though some one had attacked him from behind!"
"There was no one else in the hall?"
"No one at all. I was standing down there outside the dining-room just by the stairs, but he didn't turn in my direction, he turned and looked right behind him--where there was no one--nothing. His cries were frightful." Burke's voice broke, and he shuddered feverishly. "Then he made a rush for the front door. It seemed as though he had not seen me. He stood there screaming; but, before I could reach him, he fell. . . ."
Nayland Smith fixed a piercing gaze upon Burke.
"Is that all you know?" he demanded slowly.
"As God is my judge, sir, that's all I know, and all I saw. There was no living thing near him when he met his death."
"We shall see," muttered Smith. He turned to me--"What killed him?" he asked, shortly.
"Apparently, a minute wound on the left wrist," I replied, and, stooping, I raised the already cold hand in mine.
A tiny, inflamed wound showed on the wrist; and a certain puffiness was becoming observable in the injured hand and arm. Smith bent down and drew a quick, sibilant breath.
"You know what this is, Petrie?" he cried.
"Certainly. It was too late to employ a ligature and useless to inject ammonia. Death was practically instantaneous. His heart . . ."
There came a loud knocking and ringing.
"Carter!" cried Smith, turning to the detective, open that door to no one--no one. Explain who I am--"
"But if it is the inspector?--"
"I said, open the door to no one!" snapped Smith.
"Burke, stand exactly where you are! Carter, you can speak to whoever knocks, through the letter-box. Petrie, don't move for your life! It may be here, in the hallway!--"