The Island of Fu-Manchu (15 page)

Nayland Smith was tugging at one ear.

“There’s your secret submarine base, gentlemen. It will be my privilege to—”

“Who’s there?” cried Commander Ingles and glanced back over his shoulder.

He had been absorbed in study of the chart. Now, his lens clattered on to the table.

“I heard nothing,” snapped Nayland Smith.

“Nor did I. But, nevertheless, something
touched
me!”

“Touched you?” Barton began to chuckle. “Perhaps it was my story!”

“I insist that someone bent over my shoulder whilst I was examining the chart.”

We all sat perfectly still, listening. Commander Ingles was not a man whose self-possession is easily ruffled, but it was plain to see that he was disturbed.

The ceaseless voice of the city came up to us from the streets far below, dazzling sunshine shone in at the windows. Yet I, my brain working feverishly, became possessed of an uncanny sense that something, some supernormal thing, had joined our council. Then:

“Who opened that door?” Nayland Smith demanded sharply. Those with their backs to the door indicated turned in a flash. We all looked in that direction.

The door leading to my room was half-open—and, now, the marmoset, in Barton’s quarters beyond began to whistle shrilly!

Smith exchanged a swift glance with me and then sprang up. He reached the open door first but I was not far behind him. Everybody was up. As we dashed through to Sir Lionel’s room I saw at a glance that the outer door, that which led into the hotel corridor, was wide open.

Smith muttered something under his breath and went running out. We came behind in a pack.

The corridor outside was bare from end to end. Neither elevator was moving. Several of the party began to talk at once.

“Silence!” rapped Smith angrily. “I want to listen.”

Silence fell, save for the whistling chatter of the monkey, and we all listened.

We all heard it:

Pad, pad, pad…

Soft footsteps were moving along the corridor, far away to the left. But no living thing was visible.

“Rush to that staircase, Kerrigan!” cried Smith. “Bar the way of anything—visible or invisible.”

And as I dashed off, a conviction seized my mind that he, too, had grasped the possibility, hitherto incredible, which indeed I had regarded as inadmissible, that some thing—some thing which we could not see, had been amongst us and not for the first time.

I raced headlong to the end of the corridor, trusting to my considerable poundage to sweep anything from my path. However, nothing obstructed me.

Coming to the head of the staircase which forty floors below gave access to the foyer, I stood still breathing heavily and listening.

Smith’s snappy orders had followed me in my rush:—

“You, Barton—that way. Watch all the doors. If one opens, rush for it. Commander, cover both elevators. Allow no one and nothing to enter, whoever comes out…”

Fists clenched, I stood listening.

That sound of padded footsteps was no longer audible. No elevator was moving, and apart from a buzz of excited voices from our party along the passage, I could hear nothing; so that as I stood there the seeming insanity of the thing burst upon me, irresistibly. We were all victims of some illusion, some trick. Its object must have been to get us out of the apartment. As this idea seized me I turned from the head of the staircase and began to run back.

“Smith!” I shouted, “it’s a ruse! Someone should have stayed in the room.”

“Don’t worry.” Smith was standing there on guard. “I have stuck here and Barton’s door is locked.”

But we found no one and heard no one. The shadow had come—and gone.

Completely baffled, we reassembled in the sitting-room and resumed our places about the table. Nayland Smith solemnly deposited before Barton the ancient pistol, the silver bullet and the chart.

“You left them behind. I picked them up for safety.”

We stared rather blankly at one another for a moment, and then:

“It seems to me, gentlemen,” said John Hannessy, “that the experience which we have just shared calls for a consultation.”

Everybody was in tacit agreement with the speaker. Commander Ingles replied in his crisp way:

“I give my testimony here and now without hesitation, that something, something palpable, touched my shoulder at the moment that I called out. Something or someone we could not see was in the room at that time. We all know that a door was open which had not been open when this session began. We all know that the communicating doors were closed. And I think I am right”—he looked around—“in saying that we all heard the sound of soft footsteps outside.”

He paused suddenly, staring down at some notes on the table before him. His silence was so unexpected, and his expression so strange, that:

“What’s wrong?” growled Barton, leaning forward. “What have you found there?”

Commander Ingles looked round from face to face, and I saw that he held a sheet of paper in his hand.

“Just this… I will read out what is written here:

“‘FIRST NOTICE’—”

“What!” snapped Smith, and was on his feet in a moment.

“I will repeat: ‘FIRST NOTICE.

“‘The Council of Seven of the Si-Fan is aware of the aims of an expedition led by Sir Lionel Barton and Sir Denis Nayland Smith. In view of the fact that the Council is in a position to negotiate with the Government of the United States regarding a matter of first importance, this is a warning, both to the Government of the United States and to Sir Denis Nayland Smith and those associated with him. The mobility of the United States Navy is seriously threatened, but the Council is in a position to nullify the activities both of a certain eastern neighbour and also those of a western power. This is to notify all whom it may concern, that you have two weeks in which to decide. An advertisement in a daily newspaper consisting of the words “Negotiate. Washington” will receive prompt attention.

“‘President of the Seven’.”

“
B
etter luck today, Kerrigan,” said Nayland Smith.

“Thanks,” I replied. “I can do with it.”

Cristobal!—I was at last in Cristobal (or more exactly in Colon) where I had confidently expected to meet Ardatha again. Yet for two days and the greater part of one night I had combed the towns and their environs without success. Recollections of how that last conversation with Ardatha had been abruptly terminated, haunted my mind. Had Fu-Manchu detected her in the act of phoning to me—and changed his plans?

The essential clue had been partially lost as the line was disconnected, but at least I knew that news of her was to be had at the shop of someone whose name began with Z. Although Z is comparatively unusual as the index letter of a surname, my quest had led me nowhere.

I sat beside Smith in a cane rocking-chair on the terrace of the hotel. An avenue of mast-like coconut palms stretched away before us to the gate. The hotel was crowded; even at this early hour nearly all the chairs were, occupied. There were elderly men studying guide books, younger men reading newspapers, but looking up whenever a new arrival passed along the terrace: one kindly old lady there was who made a point of conversing with everybody; and there were several very pretty women who all seemed to be travelling alone. The major languages of Europe were represented.

“Never in a long government career,” said Smith, glancing at a dark-eyed Spanish girl who seemed willing to be talked to, “have I met with so many political agents in any one building.”

“How do you explain it?”

“I explained it a long time ago when I mentioned the fact that the Panama Canal has two ends. Kennard Wood, as you know, found indisputable evidence pointing to a plot by a certain power to close the Canal at an opportune moment. We sit on a potential front line, Kerrigan. All the advance units are here.”

“And I spend my time looking for Ardatha!”

“Why not? She is a most valuable ally. I am concerned about her almost as deeply as you are. A link with the enemy is not lightly to be broken.”

“Utterly fantastic, Smith, but true, that her safety, her very existence, may depend on the life of that wretched little animal—”

“The Doctor’s marmoset? Yes, Barton says the creature cannot last much longer unless he can discover something it will consent to eat. As it is reasonable to suppose that Fu-Manchu knows now of our capture, what has puzzled me is the Doctor’s silence—”

“And our immunity!”

“That is less surprising. I know from experience that a cessation of hostilities usually follows the delivery of a Si-Fan ultimatum until the date has expired. We may hope for another week’s safety.”

Nevertheless, I had suffered wakeful hours, hours when I had lain listening for soft footsteps, for the coming of that Shadow which had been amongst us in New York. And I had known, on many a sleepless night, the dread of The Snapping Fingers.

“If I could only find that accursed shop!” I exclaimed. “I am beginning to despair.”

But Smith was plunged in sudden reflection; I doubted if he had heard me. And I was looking about aimlessly at the varied types of humanity represented on the terrace, when he jerked:

“Did Ardatha state expressly that Z was to be found in Cristobal?”

“Why, yes—that is, let me think.”

To recall the exact words—to recall almost any words Ardatha had spoken to me since our strange reunion in London—was not difficult.

“Smith!” I spoke excitedly, “I believe I have been wasting precious time. She said that they were setting out for Cristobal, but then added, ‘When you reach Panama’!”

“That’s it!” snapped Smith, standing up. “Panama! Barton and I have our hands full, as you know, but in any case this is a job you can do better alone. I will notify the Zone police. An officer will meet you. The sooner you start the better, Kerrigan. I suspect that Z is in Panama.”

Indeed, I required no urging; ten minutes later I was on my way.

Storage tanks and other anachronisms left behind, my journey swept me straight into the jungle. Through dense shadows of tropical foliage, I could see, with my mind’s eye, Morgan and his leather-skinned fighting men marching on Panama. Alligators basked in the pools, unfamiliar birds flitted from branch to branch; and I saw here at last a curtain against which the drama of Dr. Fu-Manchu might fitly be played. On this, the Gold Road across the Isthmus, Spaniard and Buccaneer had clashed in many a bloody conflict.

Just beyond the mirror of the waters, beyond festoons of flowering vines, lay hundreds and hundreds of miles of primeval jungle, forest, and mountain, much of it untrodden by a white man’s foot; places never yet explored, inhabited by humans, beasts, birds and insects so far unclassified.

When the train (surely one of the strangest under Uncle Sam’s control) pulled into Panama, I was thinking that somewhere in the secret swamps beyond, Dr. Fu-Manchu had found the horror called the Snapping Fingers.

Sergeant Abdy of the Zone police met me, a man from the Middle West, but leather-skinned and truculent as any that followed Morgan in the days of the Gold Road.

“All the stores with phone numbers have been checked up, Mr. Kerrigan. I guess there’s not much news for you.”

My heart fell.

“You mean there are no names beginning with Z?”

“Just that, except for ‘Zone’. But listen—there’s the market stalls and the
playa
on the water front. We’ve done some. I broke away to meet you. I plan to explore that section. What I suggest is this: while I do the market—a bit late, now—you do the streets between water front and Central. They’re full of little stores. Meet me at the Marine Hotel.”

Further details were all agreed as we walked along together and Sergeant Abdy gave me my bearings. When we parted, I confess that the size of the job rather staggered me. Only by sheer good luck could I hope to find Z.

But Fate (I often think of the Arabs) has us in leading-strings. Parting from Sergeant Abdy, I set out more or less at random down a crooked, cobbled, narrow street which transported me in spirit to Clovelly in Devonshire. I doubt if I had proceeded twenty paces on my downward path before, on the corner of a shadowy courtyard, I saw above a shop, which appeared to be even more ancient than its neighbours, the name

I pulled up sharply, my pulse beating faster. Through a dirty, narrow-paned window I stared at some of the queerest objects ever assembled. There were two Voodoo masks of repellent appearance, some fragments of antique pottery, and a piece of grotesque mural decoration which might have come from a Yucatan temple. I saw a leather bowl filled with tarnished coins, backed by a partly unrolled Chinese carpet, which even my unpractised eye told me to be almost priceless. There were two cracked and battered tea chests, a number of lopsided and primitive wine bottles. But set right in front of the window, so that it was no more than an inch removed from the dirty glass, was the strangest exhibit of all.

It was a human head.

The head was that of a bearded old man, reduced by the mysterious art of Peruvian head-hunters to a size no greater than that of an average orange. The shrivelled features still retained the personality of the living man. One expected him at any moment to open those sunken lids, and to look out with tiny, curious eyes upon a giant world.

This repellent thing was mounted and set in a carved mahogany box, having a perfectly-fitting glass cover resembling a clock case. And as I stared at the ghastly relic, for my inspection of the window of Zazima had occupied only a matter of seconds, I became aware that from the black shadows of the shop beyond someone was watching me.

The face of the one who watched was so like that in the mahogany box, magnified, that horror touched me and I know that I bent forward and peered more closely into those dim shadows.

Faintly I could discern a bent old man sitting upon cushions piled upon a high-backed wooden chair. He wore a robe or dressing-gown. And as I peered in over the shrivelled head in the window, a thin hand was raised. I was invited to enter.

I opened the door of the shop. A bell jangled as I did so, and from an ancient church somewhere farther down the street a clock chimed the half hour.