Daughter of Fu-Manchu (6 page)

“Lafleur cut a shaft into a long zigzag passage belonging to another burial chamber, which he thought would lead him to the Tomb of the Black Ape. It led nowhere. It was abandoned in 1909. Sir Lionel started from a different point altogether and seems to have hit on the right entrance.”

“Ah!” said Weymouth. “Then my next step is clear.”

“What is that?”

“I want you to take me down your excavation.”

“Good enough,” said I, “shall we start now?”

“I think it would be as well.” He turned to Forester. “I want Greville to act as guide and I want you and Petrie to look after Miss Barton in our absence.”

“We shall need Ali,” I said, “to go ahead with lights.”

“Very well. Will you please make the necessary arrangements?”

Accordingly I relieved Ali Mahmoud of his sentry duties and had the lanterns lighted. They were kept in the smaller hut. And presently Weymouth and I were on the ladders…

The first part of our journey led us down a sheer pit of considerable depth. At the bottom it gave access to a sloping passage, the original entrance to which had defied all our efforts to discover it.

This was very commonplace to me, but I don’t know how that first glimpse of the pit affected Weymouth. The night was black as pitch. Dawn was very near. Outlined by the light of the lanterns Ali carried, that ragged gap far below, to reach which we had been at work for many months, looked a likely enough portal to ghostly corridors.

An indescribable smell which characterizes the tombs of Upper Egypt crept up like a hot miasma. Our ladders were fairly permanent fixtures sloping down at easy gradients from platform to platform. The work had been fenced around; and, as we entered the doorway, watching the Arab descending from point to point and leaving a lantern at each stopping place, a sort of foreboding seemed to grab me by the throat.

It was unaccountable, or so I thought at the time, but it was well founded, as events were soon to show. I glanced at Weymouth. The big man was looking doubtfully at the ladders, but:

“It’s safe enough,” I said, “even for your weight. The chief is as heavy. I’ll lead the way.”

And so we set out, descending slowly. When at last the rubble-covered floor of the tunnel was beneath our feet, Weymouth paused, breathing deeply.

“That’s the way to the original entrance,” I said, pointing, “up the slope. But it’s completely blocked fifteen yards along. There must be a bend, or a series of bends, because where it originally came out heaven only knows. However, this is our way.”

I turned to where the shadowy figure of Ali waited, a lantern swinging in either hand so that the light shining up onto his bearded face lent it an unfamiliar and mask-like appearance. I nodded; and we began to descend the tunneled winding slope. At a point just before we came to the last bend, Ali paused and held up one of the lanterns warningly.

“There’s a pit just in front of us, Weymouth,” I explained. “It doesn’t lead anywhere but it’s deep enough to break one’s neck. Pass to the left.”

We circled cautiously around the edge of this mysterious well, possibly designed as a trap for unwary tomb robbers. Then came the sharp bend, and here Ali left one of his two lanterns to light us on our return journey. The gradient became much steeper.

“We were starting on a stone portcullis which the chief believed to be that of the actual burial chamber,” I explained, as we stumbled on downward in the wake of the dancing lantern. “He had a system of dealing with these formidable barriers which was all his own. Probably a few hours’ work would have seen us through. Here we are!”

Ali paused, holding the lantern above his head… And, as he did so he uttered a loud cry.

I pushed past Weymouth in the narrow passage and joined the headman. He turned to me in the lamplight. His face was ghastly.

“Good God!” I clutched the Arab’s arm.

A triangular opening, large enough to admit a man, yawned in the bottom left-hand corner of the portcullis!

Ali raised his lantern higher. I looked up at a jagged hole in the right top corner…

“What does this mean?” Weymouth demanded hoarsely.

“It means,” I replied, in a voice as husky as his own, “that someone has finished the job… and finished it as Sir Lionel had planned!”

The Tomb of the Black Ape was extraordinary.

Whilst structurally it resembled in its main features others with which I was familiar, it was notable in its possession of an endless fresco of huge black apes. There were no inscriptions. The sagging portcullis, viewed from the interior of the chamber, created an odd hiatus in the otherwise unbroken march of the apes.

Low down in the corner of one wall was a square opening which I surmised must lead to an antechamber such as is sometimes found. The place contained absolutely nothing so far as I could see except a stone sarcophagus, the heavy lid of which had been removed and laid upon the floor. Within was a perfectly plain wooden mummy case, apparently of sycamore, its lid in position.

I was defeated. Either the mummy case was the least valuable object in the burial chamber, and everything else had been looted, or the thieves had been interrupted in the very hour of their triumph!

I hope I have made the scene clear, Ali standing almost as still as a statue, holding his lantern aloft; Weymouth a dim figure at one end of the sarcophagus, and I facing him from the other; the black apes marching eternally around us. Because this was the scene, deep there in the Egyptian rock, upon which eerily a
sound
intruded…

“What’s that?” Weymouth whispered.

We stood listening, reduced to that frame of mind which makes sane men believe in ghosts.

And, as we listened, the sound grew nearer.

It was made by soft footsteps…

Weymouth recovered himself first; and:

“Quick,” he whispered to Ali, “through the opening!”

He pointed to that square gap which I have mentioned and which I supposed to communicate with an antechamber.

“Quiet!” he added. “Not a sound!”

Led by Ali, we crossed the chamber, and as the headman stooped and disappeared only a dim and ghostly light shone out to guide us.

“Go on!” Weymouth urged.

I ducked and entered. Weymouth followed.

“Cover the lantern!”

Ali began to speak rapidly in Arabic, but:

“Cover the lantern!” Weymouth repeated angrily. “Be quiet!”

Ali threw something over the lantern and we found ourselves in utter darkness.

In a low tone, the headman began to speak again, but:

“Silence!” Weymouth ordered.

Ali Mahmoud became silent. He was one of the bravest men I have ever known, but now his broken tones spoke of fear. Partially, I had gathered what he wanted to say. My recognition only added to the horror of the situation.

That quiet shuffling had ceased. The air was indescribably stuffy, as one finds in such places. I knelt, resting my shoulder against the side of the opening, hoping that I might have some view of the outer chamber if anyone carrying a light should enter it.

Hard breathing in my ear told of Weymouth’s nearness.

Of the size or shape of the place in which we were hiding I had formed no impression whatever.

Then, they began to advance again… soft footsteps.

“Whoever comes,” Weymouth whispered, “don’t stir!”

There was absolute silence. I found myself listening to the ticking of my wrist watch. A minute passed.

Then dawned a dim light. It outlined the triangle beside the portcullis.

The light increased. I recognized it as the ray of an electric lamp. And in some strange way this discovery was a relief. I suppose, without recognizing the fact, I had been in the grip of superstitious fear. God knows
what
I had expected! But the approaching threat became less horrible at the moment I realized the presence of modern science in its equipment.

Weymouth’s breathing had ceased to be audible.

A figure appeared in the opening… a fan of white light spread itself across the floor.

The figure stooped and entered… I saw an Arab woman robed in shapeless black, her pose furtive. She held a flash-lamp, casting its ray all about the burial chamber. This was anomaly enough. But I was less concerned with it than with the hand that held the torch…

A delicately slender hand it was, nurtured in indolence—an unforgettable hand, delicious yet repellant, with pointed, varnished nails: a cultured hand possessing the long, square-jointed thumb of domination; a hand cruel for all its softness as the velvet paw of a tigress.

My breath came sharply. Weymouth’s fingers gripped my shoulder.

Had he seen what I had seen? Did he understand?

The woman crossed in the direction of the sarcophagus. I saw that she wore loose slippers—that her ankles were of that same dull ivory as the chaste, voluptuous hand.

She disappeared. Only by those shadows which the torchlight cast could I judge of her movements. She went all but silently in those soft slippers, but I thought that she had stooped to examine the sarcophagus. Apparently she made no attempt to raise its wooden lid. The light grew brighter—ever brighter.

She was approaching the low entrance to that antechamber in which we crouched!

At the very threshold she paused.

The light of her lamp painted a white fan which extended to within a few inches of my knees, touching nothing but rugged floor. By sheer chance—as I thought, then—no one of us came within its radius.

It moved, shining now directly upon the triangular opening beside the portcullis. I could see the woman’s body as a dim outline. She stooped and went out. I listened to the rubble moving beneath her slippered feet as she mounted the sloping passage. Weymouth’s breathing became audible again close to my ear. The sound receded… receded… and ceased; then:

“Quiet!” Weymouth whispered. “Don’t move until I give the word.”

My legs were aching because of the discomfort of my position, but I stuck to it, still listening intently.

Absolute silence…

“Ali,” Weymouth directed. “Uncover the light.”

Ali Mahmoud dragging his robe from the lantern, dim yellow light showed us the low-roofed, rough-hewn chamber in which we crouched.

“Effendim!” Ali exclaimed, in quivering tones. “I saw him when first we came in. Look!”

Face downwards upon a mound of rubbish in an angle farthest from the entrance, was a brown man naked except for his loincloth and dark turban knotted tightly about his head!

“He is cold,” Ali continued; “and as I knelt in the darkness I had to support my weight upon his dead body…”

On hands and knees I crawled out into the passage. I contrived to make no sound.

I looked to my left.

Ali’s lantern was just visible at the bend. Standing upright, I headed for it, stepping warily. At the corner I dropped to my knees again and stared up the slope. She was not in sight: I could trace the path beyond the wall to the next bend.

I proceeded…

In view of the ladders I pulled up. A vague light, moon rays on black velvet, broke the darkness. I thought perhaps it came down the shaft… but it began to fade.

I hurried forward. I reached our excavation and looked up. No one was on the ladders.

Hopelessly puzzled I stood, listening.

And in that complete stillness I heard it again… the sound of footsteps softly receding…

She had gone up the steep slope which led to the former entrance—but which now ended in an impassable mass of rock!

I had her!

Weymouth’s instructions were forgotten. I meant to make a capture! This woman was the clue to the mystery… It was she who had stolen the chief’s body—and even without the clue provided by Rima’s camera, I should have known her in spite of disguise.

Madame Ingomar!

Scrambling over irregular masses of stone, I had not gone five paces, I suppose, before a definite fact intruded itself. Whereas the air in the lower passage was fetid, almost unbreathable, here it was comparatively fresh.

I came to the angle, rounded it, and stopped… I shot the ray of a torch ahead, expecting a wall of rock.

An irregular opening, some five feet high, yawned, cavernesque, right of the passage!

Running forward, I climbed through, throwing the ray of my torch before me. This opening had been completed at some earlier time, closed up and camouflaged.

I stood in a shallow pit. A ladder rested beside me, rearing its length into the darkness above. All this I saw as I stared upward, intently.

Light in hand, I mounted the ladder… I found myself in a low tunnel. I stood still, listening, but could detect no sound. I pushed on, cautiously, the air growing ever fresher, until suddenly recognition came.

Switching off the light, I stared up to an opening where one pale star hung like a diamond pendant.

The passage ahead of me was empty. But I knew, now, where I stood, and I knew how the woman had escaped…

This was
Lafleur’s Shaft!

Weymouth nodded, looking very grim.

“We are dealing with a she-devil,” he said, “and I suppose she came to look for her servant.”

He shone a light upon the upturned face of the man we had found in that chamber. It was a lined, leering face, hideous now by reason of the fact that the man had died from strangulation. Between the brows was a peculiar, colored mark—how produced I could not imagine. But it appeared to have been seared in the yellow flesh, and then enamelled in some way.

“A Burman,” Weymouth went on, “and a religious Dacoit.”

He touched the mark with his finger, then stood still, listening. We all three listened, breathlessly—yet I dare swear no one of us knew what he expected to hear.

I thought as I looked down at those distorted features that if the slanting eyes were opened, this might well be a twin brother of the malignant creature who had followed me to Cairo.

“What does it all mean?” I asked.

“It means that our worst suspicions were correct,” Weymouth replied. “If ever I saw one, this is a servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu! This carries me back, Greville, to a scene in Sir Lionel’s house late in 1913—the death of the Chinaman, Kwee. It may be a coincidence but it’s an odd one. Because Kwee met his death when he was engaged on the same duty which I presume brought this yellow demon here.”