Emperor Fu-Manchu (13 page)

The lama did the talking.

“Where did you come from and where are you going?” the man in charge wanted to know.

“From Yung Chuan,” the Buddhist priest told him. “Are you a member of the faith, my son?”

“Never mind about that—”

“But it’s more important than anything else.”

“Who’s the boy?”

“My pupil. I am returning to my monastery in Burma, and I am happy to say that I bring a young disciple with me.”

The man, who evidently had special orders of some kind, looked from face to face.

“Who owns this car?”

“A good friend in Yung Chuan, and one of the faith. I have outstayed my leave and am anxious to return.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“Li Tao-shi. He has found the Path. Seek it, my son.”

The man made a rude noise and waved the car on.

When they had gone a safe distance, the driver slowed down and turned a grinning face to his passengers.

“Good show, McKay!” he said. “You remembered your lines and never fluffed once. I don’t know why those fellows were so alert, but it’s just possible that the Master has sent out special orders. We’re getting into the danger zone, now. Here’s a crossroads. One way leads to a marsh as far as I can make out. Which way do we turn, Jeanie?”

The “disciple” hesitated. “I think we take the road to the marsh. Except in rainy weather it’s quite passable. Then we should come to the main road to Lung Chang—if you think it’s safe for us to use a main road.”

“I don’t. But is there any other way?”

“Not for a car. By water, yes. Otherwise, we have to walk.”

Nayland Smith pulled reflectively at the lobe of his ear. “If we drive to the high road, how far is it from there to Lao Tse-Mung’s house?”

“About five miles,” Moon Flower answered.

“But from here, walking?”

“About the same, if I don’t lose my way.”

“Then, as two experienced pedestrians, I think you and McKay must walk. If stopped again, you know the story, McKay. Stick to it. We must separate for safety.”

He raised the wizard walkie-talkie to his ear, adjusted it and listened, then. “Hullo, is that Sun Shao-Tung?” he said. “Yes. Nayland Smith here. Tell Lao Tse-Mung I have Yueh Hua and McKay with me. We’re about five miles from the house and they are proceeding on foot. First, I must know if my Ford was noted by the Master when he arrived at the garage. It was? And what explanation was offered for its disappearance?” He listened attentively. “Ford used for collecting gardening material? Good. Had been sent into Chungking for repairs? Would be returned later by mechanic? Excellent. We’ll be on our way.” He turned to Tony.

“Did you follow, McKay?” he rapped.

“Yes, I did. Fu-Manchu has given orders for all ranks to look out for a Ford car. That’s why we were held up. There must be more Fords in Szechuan than I suspected, or we shouldn’t have slipped through so easily. You’re right about breaking up the party, Sir Denis.”

“I suspected this, McKay. I shall have to hang onto the briefcase. A missionary lama from Burma can’t very well carry one. But, for safety, you take the Chinese manuscript.”

The leather case was taken from its hiding place in the car and the mysterious manuscript tucked into a large pocket inside Tony’s ample garment, which resembled a long-sleeved bathrobe.

When the parting took place, Moon Flower looked wistfully after the old Ford jolting away on the unpaved road. Tony knew what she was thinking and shared her feeling. Nayland Smith was an oasis in a desert, a well of resource. He put his arm around a slim waist concealed by the baggy boy’s clothes.

“Come on, my lad,” he said gaily, and kissed her. “We have faced worse things and survived.”

Moon Flower clung to him, her blue eyes raised to his, and the blue eyes were somber.

“I am not afraid for us, Chi Foh,” she assured him. “I am thinking about my father.”

“We’ll get him out, sweetheart. Don’t doubt it.”

“I don’t dare to doubt it. But I feel, and you must feel, too, that this awful man, Dr. Fu-Manchu, is drawing a net around all of us. He has dreadful authority, and strange powers. I understand now that it was he who killed the Russian. But
how
did he kill him?”

“God knows! But it’s pretty certain that his purpose was to get this thing I have in my pocket. For the moment, though, we’re holding the cards.”

“But he holds my father, a clever man and a man of strong character, helpless in his hands. Dr. Fu-Manchu is not an ordinary human being. He’s a devil-inspired genius. Sir Denis is our only hope. And he has tried for years to conquer him. Alone, what could you and I do?”

Tony laughed, but not mirthfully. “Very little, I admit. Fu-Manchu has a vast underground organization behind him, and, at present anyway, the support of the government of China. We have nothing but our wits.”

Moon Flower forced a smile. “Don’t let me make you gloomy, Chi Foh. You mustn’t pay too much attention to my moods. I don’t expect us to overthrow Dr. Fu-Manchu. I only pray we may be able to get my father back alive.”

Tony hugged her affectionately and kissed her hair, which she had cut short when Nayland Smith had decided that a lama priest couldn’t travel in the company of a girl.

They set out on the path to Lung Chang.

It was a crazy path, bringing them through places along embankments crossing flooded paddy fields, and sometimes wandering among acres of opium poppies which had become a major crop since all restrictions had been removed. The collective authorities reaped a rich harvest from the sale of opium; the growers struggled to live.

The few peasants they met paid little attention to the lama priest and the boy who trudged on their way, except for one or two who were Buddhists. These respectfully saluted Tony, and he gave them a sign of hand which Nayland Smith had taught him.

They were in sight of a village which Moon Flower recognized, not more than a mile and a half from their destination, before anything disturbing happened. The day had been hot and they had pushed on at a good pace. They were tired. They had reached a point at which there was a choice of routes; they could either take the main road or a detour which would lengthen their journey.

“Should we risk the main road?” Tony asked. “Is it used much?”

“No,” Moon Flower said. “But we would have to pass through the village. I think this is a county line, and there may be a police post there.”

“Then I think we must go the long way, Moon Flower. Where will that lead us to?”

“To a gate in part of Lao Tse-Mung’s property, nearly half a mile from the house. It is locked. But there’s a hidden bell-push which rings a bell in the house. We have to cross the main road at one point, but the path continues on the other side.”

“Then let’s go.”

They resumed their tramp. At a point where the path threatened to lose itself in a plantation of young bamboo, their luck deserted them. The thicket proved to border the road and as there was no sound of traffic they stepped out from the path onto a narrow, unpaved highway. And Moon Flower grasped Tony’s arm.

A dusty bicycle lay on a bank, and sitting beside the cycle, smoking a cigarette, they saw a man in khaki police uniform.

Moon Flower suppressed a gasp. The policeman, however, looked more startled than they did as he got to his feet, dropping his Chinese cigarette, which Tony knew from experience tasted like a firecracker. It was getting toward dusk and their sudden appearance out of the shadow bordering the road clearly had frightened him. The man grew very angry. He snatched up his cigarette.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

“We are trying to find our way to the river, which we have to cross. But we took the wrong path,” Tony told him.

“And where are you going, then?”

“I have to return to my monastery in Burma. I am taking this young disciple with me.”

“If you come from Burma, show me your papers, your permit to enter China.”

Tony fumbled inside the loose robe. In an interior pocket he had all the necessary credentials which had been sent at top speed by Lao Tse-Mung to Chungking before the party set out, how obtained Tony could only guess. Lao Tse-Mung was a clever man.

He handed the little folder to the police officer, wondering if the man could read. Whether he could or not, evidently he recognized the official forms. They authorized the bearer to enter China and remain for thirty days. There was still a week to go. Tony wondered why the smoke of his cigarette, drooping from a corner of his coarse mouth, didn’t suffocate him.

The man handed the passport back, clearly disappointed.

“Who is this boy?” he asked roughly. “Has he any official permit to travel?”

Thanks to Ray Jenkins, who had influential and corruptible friends in Chungking, “he” had. Tony produced a certificate for travel, signed by a member of the security bureau, authorizing Lo Hung-Chang, age 14, to leave his native town of Yung Chuan, but to report to security police at the Burma frontier before leaving China.

The disappointed policeman returned the certificate. Evidently he could read.

“You have only seven days to reach the frontier,” he growled. “If it takes you any longer, look out for trouble.”

“If I have earned this trouble, brother,” Tony told him piously, “undoubtedly it will come to me, for my benefit. Have you not sought the Path?”

“Your
path is straight ahead,” the surly officer declared, furious because he had found nothing wrong. “You’ll have to walk to Lung Chang and then on to Niu-fo-tu to reach the river.” He dropped the last fragment of his stale cigarette and put his foot on it as Tony fumbled to return the certificate to his inside pocket. “You seem to have a lot of things in that pouch of yours. I have heard of lama priests getting away with pounds of opium that never saw the Customs. Turn out all you have there.”

Tony’s pulse galloped. He heard Moon Flower catch her breath. And he had to conquer a mad impulse to crush his fist into the face of the policeman. As he had done in jail at Chia-Ting, he reflected that Communist doctrines seemed to turn men into sadists. He hesitated. But only for a decimal of a second. He had money in a body belt, but carried nothing else, except the official papers which had been forged, and—the mystery manuscript.

He turned the big pocket out, handed the Chinese manuscript to the policeman.

If he attempted to confiscate it, Tony knew that no choice would be left. He would have to knock the man out before he had time to reach for the revolver which he carried. He watched him thumbing over the pages in fading light.

“What is this?” the policeman demanded.

Tony’s breath returned to normal.

“A religious writing in the hand of a great disciple of our Lord Buddha. A present from this inspired scholar to my principal. If you could understand it, brother, you would already be on the Path.”

“Brother” threw the manuscript down contemptuously. “Move on,” he directed, and turned to his bicycle.

Moon Flower breathed a long sigh of relief as he rode off. “I wonder if you can imagine, Chi Foh,” she said, “my feelings when you trusted that thing to him? I seemed to hear Sir Denis’s words, ‘the most powerful weapon against Fu-Manchu which I ever held in my hands.’ Did you realize that he might have orders to look for it?”

“Yes. But the odds against it were heavy. And if he had tried anything, I was all set to make sure he didn’t get away with it.”

They reached their destination without further trouble and found Nayland Smith anxiously waiting for them.

F
or two days they remained in Lao Tse-Mung’s house, apparently inactive, except that Nayland Smith spent hours alone, smoking pipe after pipe, deep in thought. Tony guessed that he was trying to discover a plan to rescue Dr. Cameron-Gordon and was finding it no easy thing to do.

With Moon Flower, Tony roamed about the beautiful gardens, and this brief interlude of peace was a chapter in his life which he knew he would always remember with happiness. Lao Tse-Mung had warned them all that Fu-Manchu was by no means satisfied with what he had seen and heard.

“My house will be watched. I shall be spied upon. If he discovers that you are here, none of us will be safe any longer. So never show yourselves at any point which is visible from the road. The entire property is walled, and the top of the walls are wired. But at places there are tall trees, which overlook the walls, and these trees I cannot wire.”

Lao Tse-Mung’s talented secretary, Sun Shao-Tung, had translated all the Russian letters in Skobolov’s briefcase, and Nayland Smith had been interested to learn from the correspondence that the research scientist employed at the hidden Soviet plant was not a Russian, but a German, Dr. von Wehrner. But even more exciting was a penciled note which Sir Denis deduced to be a translation of a code message:

“If hidden Ms. as reported secure at any cost. Proceed as arranged to governor’s villa to allay suspicion. Cancel further plans. Join plane at Huang-Ko-Shu.”

“I was right, McKay,” Nayland Smith declared. “This Chinese document is dynamite.”

Sun Shao-Tung had gone to work on the mysterious manuscript. He had worked far into the night, only to find himself baffled.