The Drums of Fu-Manchu (17 page)

S
he sat in a deep, cushioned divan, a Renaissance reproduction, watching me with a half smile.

“You look frightened,” she said. “Do I frighten you?”

“No, Ardatha, it isn’t that you frighten me, although I admit your appearance was somewhat of a shock.”

She wore a simple frock and a coat having a fur-trimmed collar, which I recognised as that which I had seen in the car near Hyde Park corner. She had a scarf tied over her hair, and I thought that her eyes were mocking me.

“I am mad to have done this,” she went on, “and now I am wondering—”

I tried to conquer a thumping heart, to speak normally.

“You are wondering if I am worth it,” I suggested, and forced myself to move in her direction.

Frankly, I was terrified as I never could have believed myself to be terrified of a woman. My own wild longing had awakened some sort of response in Ardatha! I had called to her and she had come! But as the lover of a girl so complex and mysterious I had
little faith in Bart Kerrigan.

Tonight it was my part to claim her—or to lose her forever. Her eyes as well as her words told me that the choice was mine.

I offered her a cigarette and lighted it, then sat down beside her. My impulse was to grab her—hold her—never let her go again. But I took a firm grip upon these primitive urges, and then:

“I saw you at Victoria,” she said.

“What! How could you have seen me?”

“I have eyes and I can see with them.”

She lay back among the cushions, and turning, smiled up at me.

“I had no idea you had seen me.”

“That is why I am here tonight.” Suddenly, seriously: “You must go back! I tell you, you must go back. I came here tonight to tell you this.”

“Is that all you came for, Ardatha?”

“Yes. Do not suppose it means what you are thinking. I like you very much, but do not make the mistake of believing that I love easily.”

She spoke with a quiet imperiousness of manner which checked me. My emotions pulled me in various directions. In the first place, this beautiful girl of the amethyst eyes, who, whatever she did, whatever she said, allured, maddened me, was a criminal. In the second place, unless the glance of those eyes be wildly misleading, she wanted me to make love to her. But in the third place, although she said her nocturnal visit had been prompted by friendship, what was her real motive? I clasped my knees tightly and stared aside at her.

“I am glad you are a man who thinks,” she said softly, “for between us there is much to think about.”

“There is only one thing I am thinking about—that I want you. You are never out of my mind. Day and night I am unhappy because I know you are involved in a conspiracy of horror and murder in which you, the real
you
, have no part. If I thought lightly of you and
merely desired you, then as you say I should not have thought. I should have my arms around you now, kissing you, as I want to kiss you. But you see, Ardatha, you mean a lot more than that. Although I know so little about you, yet—”

“Ssh!”

Swiftly she grasped my aim—and I seized her hand and held it. But the warning had been urgent, and I listened.

We both sat silent for a while. My gaze was set upon a strange ring which she wore. The clasp of her fingers gave me a thrill which passionate kisses of another woman could never have aroused.

Somewhere out there in the shadows I had detected the sound of a dull thud—of soft footsteps.

Releasing Ardatha’s hand, I would have sprung up, but:

“Don’t look out!” she whispered. “No! No! Don’t look out!”

I hesitated. She held me tightly.

“Why?”

“Because it is just possible—I may have been followed. Please, don’t look out!”

I heard the sound of a distant voice out over the canal; splashing of water… nothing more. I turned to Ardatha. There was no need for words.

She slipped almost imperceptibly into my arms, and raised her lips…

F
or a long time after Ardatha had gone—I don’t know how long a time—I knelt there by my open window staring out over the canal. She had trusted herself to me. How could I detain her—how could I regard her as a criminal? Indeed I wondered if ever I should be able so to regard her again.

The fear burning in my brain was fear solely for her safety.

Always I had found it painful to imagine her in association with the remorseless murder group controlled by Dr. Fu-Manchu, but now that idea was agony. I dared not imagine what would happen if her visit to me should be discovered, if the double part which she played came to the knowledge of the Chinese doctor… and I could not forget that queer sound down by the waterside, those soft footsteps.

Ardatha suspected that she might have been followed. Perhaps her suspicions were well founded!

I stared out intently into misty darkness. I listened but could hear nothing save the lapping of water. From where had she come—to where had she gone? I knew little more about her than I had ever
known, except that she was anxious to save me from some dreadful fate which obviously she believed to be pending.

One thing I had learned: Ardatha was of mixed Oriental and European blood. On her father’s side she descended from generations of Eastern rulers; petty chieftains from a Western standpoint, but potentates in their own land. Her murderous hatred of dictatorships was understandable. Practically the whole of her, family had been wiped out by General Quinto’s airmen…

Silence!—and in the silence another idea was born. The watcher in the night perhaps had a double purpose. Satisfied that I was fully preoccupied, he might have given some signal which meant that Nayland Smith was alone!

Most ghastly idea of all—this may have been the real purpose of Ardatha’s visit!

I tried in retrospect to analyse every expression in the amethyst eyes; and I found it hard, in fact impossible, to believe treachery to be hidden there. I thought of her parting kiss. My heart even now beat faster when I recalled it. Surely it could not have been a Judas kiss?

No sound could I detect anywhere about me. The Grand Canal was deserted, the moon partly veiled; but my thoughts had me restlessly uneasy. I must make sure that Nayland Smith was safe.

Quietly opening my door I walked along and switched up the light in the sitting room.

It presented exactly the same appearance as when I had left it. I moved on to Smith’s closed door. I listened intently but could hear nothing. However, he was a deep, silent sleeper, and I was not satisfied. Very gently I moved the handle. The door was unlocked. Inch by inch I opened it, until at last, having made hardly any sound, I could creep in.

The room was in darkness, save for a dim reflection through the
slats of the shutters. Yet I was afraid to switch on the light, for I had no wish to disturb him. I crept slowly forward in the direction of the bed, and my eyes growing accustomed to the semidarkness, by the time that I reached it a startling fact had become evident:

The bed was empty! It had never been slept in!

I switched on the bedside lamp and stared about me distractedly.

He had not undressed!

I crossed to the shuttered window. The shutters were not fastened but just lightly closed. I pushed them open and stared out. I could see across to the landing stage. The ledge was not more than four feet above the pavement, as was the case in my own room. Why, I asked myself desperately, had he of all men, he, marked down as Enemy Number One by Dr. Fu-Manchu, exposed himself to such a risk?

And where was he?

I pressed the night porter’s bell, crossed to the sitting room and threw the door open. In less than a minute, I suppose, the porter appeared.

“Can you tell me,” I asked, “if Sir Denis Nayland Smith has gone out tonight?”

“No sir, he has not gone out.”

The man looked surprised—in fact, startled.

“But I suppose he could have gone out without being seen?”

“No sir. After midnight, except on special occasions, the door is locked. I open it for anyone returning late.”

“And do you remain in the lobby?”

“Yes sir.”

“Did anyone return late tonight?”

“No sir. There are few people in the hotel at the moment and all were in before eleven o’clock.”

“When you came on duty?”

“When I came on duty, yes sir.”

“You mean that it is quite impossible for Sir Denis to have gone out without your seeing him?”

“Quite impossible, sir.”

Although his room exhibited no evidence whatever of a struggle, one explanation, a ghastly one, alone presented itself to my mind.

He had been overcome, carried out by way of the window and so to the landing stage! Those movements in the night were explained. My lovely companion’s coolness under circumstances calculated to terrify a normal girl assumed a different aspect…

My friend, the best friend I should ever have, had been fighting for his life while I clung to the lips of Ardatha!

A
police officer was an almost unendurably long time in reaching the hotel. When at last he arrived, a captain of Carabinieri, he brought two detectives with him. His English was defective but fortunately for me one of the men spoke it well.

When I had made the facts clear and a search of the room had taken place:

“I fear, sir,” said the English-speaking detective, “that your suspicions are confirmed. I am satisfied that your friend did not leave by the front door of the hotel. As he evidently did not go to bed, however, there is a possibility, is there not, that he left of his own free will?”

“Yes.” I grasped gladly at this straw. “There is! Why had I not thought of that?”

There was a brief conference an Italian between the three, and then:

“It has been suggested,” the detective went on, “that if Sir Denis Nayland Smith, for whom a bodyguard had been arranged by order of Colonel Correnti, had decided to go out for any reason, he would probably have awakened you.”

“I was not asleep,” I said shortly.

Where did my duty lie? Should I confess that Ardatha had been with me?

“It makes it all the more strange. You were perhaps reading or writing?”

“No. I was thinking and staring out of the window.”

“Did you hear any suspicious sounds?”

“Yes. What I took to be footsteps and a faint scuffling. But I heard no more.”

“It is all the more curious,” the man went on, “because we have two officers on duty, one in a gondola moored near the steps, and the other at the back of the hotel. Before coming here I personally interviewed both these officers and neither had seen anything suspicious.”

The mystery grew deeper.

“My own room was lighted,” I said. “Are my windows visible from the point of view of the man in the gondola?”

“We will go and see.”

We moved along to my room. My feelings as I looked at the divan upon which Ardatha had lain in my arms I find myself unable to describe… One of the detectives glanced out of the window and reported that owing to the wall of that little courtyard to which I have referred, this window would be outside the viewpoint of the man in the gondola.

“But the window of Sir Denis’ room—this he could see.”

Another idea came.

“The sitting room!”

“It is possible. Let us look.”

We looked—and solely because, I suppose, no one had attached any importance to the sitting room, it now immediately became evident that one shutter was open.

It had not been open when I had parted from Smith that night!

“You see!” exclaimed the detective, “here is the story: He was overcome, perhaps drugged, in his room, carried in here and lowered out through that window!”

“But”—I was thinking now of Ardatha—“how could the kidnappers have got him away without attracting the notice of one of your men?”

Another consultation took place. All three were becoming wildly excited.

“I must explain”—a half-dressed and bewildered manager had joined us—“that passing under the window of your own room, Mr. Kerrigan, it is possible—there is a gate there—to reach the bridge over the Rio Banieli—the small canal.”