Daughter of Fu-Manchu (7 page)

“The murder of Barton?”

Weymouth nodded.

“Precisely. It’s more than strange, and it’s very horrible.”

“Yet surely there’s hope in it,” I exclaimed excitedly. “This man belonged to the enemy. He has been strangled. It is just possible…”

“By heavens! It is!” he took me up. “After all he didn’t die at the hands of his own friends.”

“One thing is fairly certain,” I said; “he came by the same route as the woman—by Lafleur’s Shaft. What isn’t certain is when a way was forced through.”

“Nor
why
a way was forced through,” Weymouth added. “What in heaven’s name were they after? Is it possible”—he lowered his voice, staring at the procession of hideous, giant apes which marched eternally round the walls of the chamber—“that there was something in this tomb beyond…” He nodded in the direction of the sarcophagus.

“Quite possible,” I replied, “but lacking special information to the contrary the first thing any excavator would do would be to open the mummy case.”

“This seems to have been done.”

“What!” I cried. “What!”

“Look for yourself,” Weymouth invited, a curious expression in his voice.

He directed a ray on one end of the sarcophagus; whereupon:

“Good God!” I cried.

The wooden rivets had been removed, the lid raised and then replaced! Two wedges prevented its falling into its original position, leaving a gap of an inch or more all around…

I stared in utter stupefaction, until:

“Have you any idea why that should be done?” Weymouth asked.

I shook my head. “Unless to make it easier to lift again,” I suggested.

“If that was the idea,” Weymouth went on quickly, “we will take advantage of it.” He turned to Ali. “Hold the light—so. Now, Greville, get a grip with me, here. Don’t move to any other part of the lid if you can avoid it—there may be fingerprints. And now… see if we can raise it.”

In a state of such excitement as I cannot describe, I obeyed. Simultaneously we lifted, steadily. It responded to our efforts, being lighter than I had supposed…

I fixed a half-fearful gaze upon its shadowy interior.

It appeared to contain a dull, gray mass, irregular in contour, provokingly familiar yet impossible to identify in that first dramatic moment. The very unexpectedness of its appearance destroyed my reasoning powers, temporarily defeating recognition.

When we had the lid at an angle of about forty-five:

“Hold it!” I called. “I’ll take the other end.”

“Right!” Weymouth agreed.

“Now!”

We lifted the lid bodily and laid it on the floor.

I could not have believed that that night of mystery and horror had one more thrill for my jaded nerves. Yet it was so, and it came to me then—an emotion topping all the others; such a thing as no sane man could have conjured up in his wildest imaginings…

Amazed beyond reasonable articulation, I uttered a sort of strangled cry, staring—staring—down into the sarcophagus.

Overstrain and the insufferable atmosphere of the place may have played their parts. But I must confess that the procession of apes began to move about me, the walls of the tomb to sway.

I became aware of a deadly sickness, as I stared and stared at the gray-white face of
Sir Lionel Barton,
lying in that ancient coffin wrapped in his army blanket!

CHAPTER FOUR

“B
etter turn in, Greville,” said Dr. Petrie rapidly. “Lie down at any rate. Can’t expect you to sleep. But you’ve had enough for one night.
Your
job is finished for the moment.
Mine
begins.”

How the others had reacted to our astounding discovery I am quite unable to relate. I was in no fit condition to judge.

Petrie half supported me along the sloping passage, and administered a fairly stiff peg from his flask which enabled me with Ali’s aid to mount the ladders. I was furious with myself. To have to retire when the most amazing operation ever attempted by a surgeon was about to be performed—the restoring of a dead man to life!… But when at last I dropped down on my bed in the tent, I experienced a moment of horrible doubt—a moment during which I questioned my own sanity.

Ali Mahmoud’s expression, as he stood watching me anxiously, held a certain reassurance, however. That imperturbable man was shaken to the depths of his being.

“Effendim,” he whispered, “it is Black Magic! It is Forbidden this tomb!” He grasped an iron ring which he wore upon his right hand, and pronounced the
takbîr,
being a devout Moslem. “Everyone has told me so. And it is true!”

“It would seem to be,” I whispered. “Go back. You will be wanted.”

I had always loved the chief, and that last glimpse of his gray-white face, under the astounding circumstances of our discovery, had utterly bowled me out. The things I had heard of Dr. Fu-Manchu formed a sort of dizzy background—a moving panorama behind this incredible phantasy. There was no sanity in it all—no stable point upon which one could grasp.

Was Sir Lionel dead, or did he live? Dead or alive, who had stolen his body, and why? Most unanswerable query of all—with what possible object had he been concealed in the sarcophagus?

A thousand other questions, equally insane, presented themselves in a gibbering horde. I clutched my head and groaned. I heard a light footstep, looked up, and there was Rima standing in the opening of the tent.

“Shan, dear!” she cried, “you look awful! I don’t wonder. I have heard what happened. And truly I can’t believe it even now! Oh, Shan, do you really, really think—”

She fell on her knees beside me and grasped my hand.

“I don’t know,” I said, and scarcely knew my own voice. “I have had rather a thick time, dear, and I, well… I nearly passed out. But I saw him.”

“Do you think I could help?”

“I don’t know,” I replied wearily. “If so, Petrie will send for you. After all, we’re quite in his hands. I don’t want you to hope for too much, darling. This mysterious ‘antidote’ seems like sheer lunacy to me. Such things are clean outside the scope of ordinary human knowledge.”

“Poor, old boy,” said Rima, and smoothed my hair caressingly.

Her touch was thrilling, yet soothing; and I resigned myself very gladly to those gentle fingers. There is nothing so healing as the magnetism of human sympathy. And after a while:

“I think a cigarette might be a good idea, Rima,” I said. “I’m beginning to recover consciousness!”

She offered me one from a little enamelled case which I had bought in Cairo on the occasion of her last birthday—the only present I had ever given her. And we smoked for a while in that silence which is better than speech; then:

“I saw something queer,” said Rima suddenly, “while you were away with Mr. Weymouth. Are you too weary—or do you want me to tell you?”

Her tone was peculiar, and:

“Yes—tell me what you saw,” I replied, looking into her eyes.

“Well,” she went on, “Captain Hunter came along after you had gone. Naturally, he was as restless as any of us. And after a while— leaving the hut door open, of course—I went and stood outside to see if there was any sign of your return…”

She spoke with unwonted rapidity and I could see that in some way she had grown more agitated. Of course I had to allow for the dreadful suspense she was suffering.

“You know the path, at the back of the small hut,” she continued, “which leads up to the plateau.”

“The path to Lafleur’s Shaft?”

Rima nodded.

“Well, I saw a woman—at least, it looked like a woman—walking very quickly across the top! She was just an outline against the sky, and I’m not positive about it at all. Besides, I only saw her for a moment. But I can’t possibly have been dreaming, can I? What I wondered, and what I’ve been wondering ever since is: What native woman—she looked like a native woman—would be up there at this time of night?”

She was sitting at my feet now, her arm resting on my knees. She looked up at me appealingly.

“What are you really thinking?” I asked.

“I’m thinking about that photograph!” she confessed. “I believe it was—Madame Ingomar! And, Shan, that woman terrifies me! I begged Uncle not to allow her to come here—and he just laughed at me! I don’t know why he couldn’t see it… but she is dreadfully evil! I have caught her watching you, when you didn’t know, in a way…”

I bent down and rested my head against her tangled curls.

“Well?” I said, my arm about her shoulders.

“I thought you… found her attractive. Don’t get mad. But I knew, I
knew,
Shan, that she was dangerous. She affects me in the same way as a snake. She has some uncanny power…”

“Irish colleens are superstitious,” I whispered.

“They may be. But they are often wise as well. Some women, Shan—bad women—are witches.”

“You’re right, darling. And it was almost certainly Madame Ingomar that you saw!”

“Why do you say so?”

Then I told her what had happened in the tomb, and, when I had finished:

“Just as she disappeared,” Rima said, “I heard footsteps—quick, padding footsteps—on the other side of the wâdi. I called out to Dr. Petrie, but the sound had died away… I’d had one glimpse of him, though—a man running.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Yes.”

Rima looked up at me reflectively, and:

“Do you remember an Arab who came into camp some days ago and insisted that he must see Uncle?”

I nodded.

“I think I know the man you mean—the chief asked me to find out what he wanted?”

“Yes.”

“A gaunt-faced fellow—steely piercing eyes? Spoke very queer Arabic and denied all knowledge of English. Told me quite bluntly he had nothing whatever to say
to me,
but must see Sir Lionel. I finally told him to go to the devil. Why, good heavens, Rima… that was the evening before the tragedy!”

“Well,” said Rima in a very low voice, “this was the man I saw running along the ridge tonight!”

“I don’t like the sound of it,” I admitted. “We have trouble enough already. Did he see you?”

“He couldn’t have done. Besides, he was running at tremendous speed.”

Even as she spoke the words, my heart seemed to miss a beat. I sprang up. Rima clutched me, her beautiful eyes widely opened.

Racing footsteps were approaching the tent!

I didn’t know what to expect. My imagination was numb. But when the flap was dragged aside and Ali Mahmoud unceremoniously burst in, I was past reprimand, past any comment whatever.

“Effendim! Effendim! Quick, please. They tell me not to disturb Forester Effendim and Captain Hunter… His camp bed!”

“What! The chief’s?”

“I am ordered to carry it up to the mouth of the old shaft!”

“Ali Mahmoud!”

Rima sprang forward and grasped the headman’s shoulders.

“Yes! Yes!” His eyes were gleaming madly. “It is true, lady! It is Black Magic, but it is true.”

Of all the queer episodes of that nightmare business there was none more grotesque, I think, than this of Ali and I carrying Sir Lionel’s camp bed up the steep path to that gaunt and desolate expanse upon which Lafleur’s Shaft opened. As we had come out of the chief’s tent, I had heard the voices of Jameson Hunter and Forester in the big hut.

I was literally bathed in perspiration when we reached our goal. Dropping down upon the light bed, I stared out over that prospect beneath me. Right at my feet lay the Sacred Valley of Der-el-Bahari; to the right the rugged hills and ravines of this domain of the dead. Beyond, indicated by a green tracing under the stars, the Nile wound on like a river of eternity. For a few moments I regarded it all, and then Rima’s fingers closed over my own.

A lantern stood at the mouth of Lafleur’s Shaft.

We began to descend—to where a group awaited us.

Never, to the end of everything, shall I forget that moment when Weymouth and Dr. Petrie lifted Sir Lionel, still swathed in his worn army blanket, and laid him on the camp bed. Ali Mahmoud, who possessed the lean strength of a leopard, had carried him up the short ladder on his shoulders. But the effort had proved dangerously exhausting to the sufferer. Anxiety was written deeply upon Petrie’s face as he bent over him.