The Island of Fu-Manchu (16 page)

Immediately, as the door closed behind me, I became aware of an indescribably fusty atmosphere. I had stepped out of the Panama of today into a crypt in which were preserved age-old memories of the Panama which had seen rack, death by fire, Spanish swords countering English; or into an even earlier Panama worshipping strange gods, a city unknown to the Inquisition or to the England of Francis Drake.

It seemed at first glance that the bulk of Zazima’s offerings were displayed in the window. There were some carpets on the walls and some faded charts and prints. A few odds and ends lay about the untidy place. But it was upon the face of the proprietor, for such I assumed the old man in the high-backed chair to be, that my attention was focused.

He was, as I have indicated, yellow and wrinkled, with fragments of scanty hair and beard clinging, colourless, to the parchment of his skin. He sat cross-legged upon the cushions, and for one moment, looking into his sunken eyes, a vague apprehension touched me. I had met a strangely penetrating glance. When I spoke I was staring over his head.

“You have some attractive wares for sale.”

I glanced back at him. He was nodding, and I saw now that he held a common clay pipe in his left hand, and that the peculiar odour of the place was directly traceable to the tobacco he was smoking.

“Yes, yes!” he thrust the stem of the pipe into an apparently toothless mouth. “As you say. But business is very slack, Mr. Kerrigan.”

I don’t know if it was the perfect English in which he addressed me, or his knowledge of my name that more greatly surprised me; but I can state with certainty that his confirmation of my hopes that here indeed was a link with Ardatha made my heart beat even faster than it was already beating.

“Why do you call me Mr. Kerrigan?”

“Because that is your name.” He smiled with a sort of naïve cunning. “Of course, I was expecting you.”

“But how did you know me?”

“By three things. The first: your appearance, of which I had been advised; the second: your behaviour. Those two things, conjoined to the third, assured me of your identity.”

“And what was the third?”

“I could see your heart beating under your coat when you looked up and read the name Zazima.”

“Indeed?”

Without the clay pipe, the aged philosopher might have been the immortal Barber of Baghdad.

“Yes, it is true. I cannot think why you have been so long in coming.”

“How was I to know you were in Panama? I have been searching in Colon and Cristobal.”

“But why in Cristobal? I, Zazima, have been here in Panama for forty years.”

“This I did not know.”

I was beginning now to wonder about the nationality of Zazima, and I decided that he was some kind of Asiatic, certainly a man of culture. Behind him, on the wall, hung a piece of Moorish tapestry, faded, worn, but from a collector’s point of view, probably of great value; and I saw Zazima as an Eastern oracle, sitting there, cross-legged, inscrutable.

He removed the clay pipe from his shrunken lips, and: “Recite to me the message which the lady delivered,” he said, “since here is some mystery. I know you bear it in your memory, for I have lived and loved myself.”

Doubtful, always suspecting treachery, for if I had learned anything during my association with Nayland Smith it had been that the power of the Si-Fan was everywhere, I hesitated. I have had occasion before to refer to a sort of lowering of temperature, a sense of sudden chill, which subconsciously advised me of the presence of Fu-Manchu. I knew others who had shared this experience. And as I stood there, watching the strange old man in the high-backed chair, I became aware of just that sensation.

No doubt I betrayed myself: for Zazima spoke again. He spoke gently, as one who seeks to soothe a nervous child.

“Those who oppose the Master fight with the elements. You are in no danger. If you are sensible in this, my humble shop, of a greater presence, have no fear. Beneath my roof you are safe. Danger is to the lady you love. Tell me, if you please, what message she sent to you.”

A moment more I hesitated, and then:

“She told me,” I said, “that I should have news of her at the shop of Za—. There, her words were cut off.”

I watched Zazima closely. His sunken eyes were closed; he seemed to be in a state of contemplation. I decided that the Moorish tapestry covered a doorway. But presently those piercing eyes regarded me again.

“We who work for the Master, work unafraid. The lady’s message, Mr. Kerrigan, should have run ‘at the shop of Zazima in Panama: look for the head in the window’. I sorrow to learn that you have sought in vain. However, it is not too late.”

“Quick, tell me”—my hand shot out in supplication—“where is she? Where can I find her?”

“It is not for me to answer, Mr. Kerrigan.”

He alighted from the chair. I cannot state that he stood up—for I realized at this moment that he was a dwarf. Clay pipe in hand he passed me, crossed to the window, pulled aside the folds of the Chinese carpet, and straining forward reached the box which contained the shrivelled head. With this he returned.

“It is twenty dollars,” he said; “which is a stupid price.”

“But”—I shrank back—“I don’t want the thing!”

“The lady’s message should have concluded with these words: ‘Look for the head in the window. Buy it!’”

I stared down at him suspiciously. Was I becoming involved in a cunning web spread by Dr. Fu-Manchu? For of the fact that the Chinese Doctor, if not present in person, dominated this scene I was convinced. Yet—for now I was cool enough—I saw that I must trust Zazima. Ardatha had asked me to seek him out. Dark, sunken eyes watched me; and I thought that there was an appeal in them.

“As you say, it is a stupid price.”

I handed twenty dollars to Zazima, and he surrendered to me my strange purchase.

“Have you nothing else to tell me?”

“Nothing. I have sold you the head. A great Chinese philosopher has written: ‘When the cash is paid words cannot restore it’. The matter is concluded.”

I turned to go. Zazima had reseated himself on the high-backed chair.

“Do not open the box,” he added softly, “until you are alone.”

And he seemed to speak as one who is prompted.

A
s I sat outside a café which Sergeant Abdy had recommended to me, I was far from easy in my mind. Having first wrapped my strange possession in a newspaper, I had bought a cheap attaché case which now stood on the table before me; it contained the shrivelled head. A halt for refreshment had proved to be imperative, and in any case I had to wait for a train. My luncheon dispatched, I lingered over an iced drink.

It was cool beneath the awning. Before me rose ranks of royal palms seeming to mount guard along the tiled paths. Coloured boys had given up pestering me to have my shoes cleaned, to buy post-cards, tickets for bull-fights, and other things which I didn’t want. Dark-eyed señoritas transported me in spirit to Spain as they moved on jutting iron balconies of ancient stone houses.
Coches
rattled lazily along the cobbled streets. It was pleasantly hot and the sky looked unreally blue.

But I had much to think about.

I could not fail to remember that the most delicate operation in the murders due to the Snapping Fingers was that of introducing the unknown agent of death. Suppose (I argued) I carry in the mahogany box such an agent; suppose I am being used, cunningly, to destroy my friends and myself!

It was not outside the bounds of possibility. In Zazima’s shop I had been acutely aware of a hidden presence. Against this was the indisputable fact that Ardatha had directed me to go there—that I had been expected.

Ardatha! What had my journey availed? I knew no more than I had known before I had set my eyes on the strange dwarf called Zazima. And there was something else. As I had come out into the cobbled, sloping street, carrying my purchase, an idea had been strong upon me that I was watched—not by someone inside the shop, but by someone
outside
, that this person was following me at a distance. So strong did this conviction become that as I turned into Sixth Street I paused for a moment and then turned back.

I almost fell over a slim, sallow-faced man who was on the point of rounding the corner!

Muttering an apology, he hurried on; but his appearance had set me a problem. Where had I seen that sallow face before? A wide-brimmed hat had somewhat obscured his features, but nevertheless I knew that this was not the first time I had seen him.

Abstractly selecting a cigarette from my case, I watched a
coche
which slowly approached, hood up, for the noonday sun was hot. In any more objective mood I might well have failed to note the passenger; but now his sallow features imprinted themselves upon my passive brain with medal-like accuracy. He had removed the wide-brimmed hat and lay back in the shadow of the hood; but I knew him, knew him for a spy—for the man who had followed me as I left Zazima’s shop.

More, that fugitive memory was trapped. He was the man who had been with Ardatha in the foyer of the Regal Athenian!

“The carriage clattered past at some little distance from the café, and turned into a side street just beyond an ancient church whose huge iron-studded doors probably dated back to the days when Drake met the Spaniards in Nombre de Dios Bay.

I was closely covered. What was the purpose of this espionage?

The link with Ardatha was established; its implications horrified me. My anxiety to examine the head grew so intense that for a moment I thought of hiring a room in the restaurant merely for that purpose.

Sergeant Abdy’s reappearance induced wiser councils. He dropped down on a chair facing me.

“Checked up on Zazima,” he reported. “Nothing against him. He has contacts in the Chinese quarter, and it’s suspected some of his stock is stolen and the rest smuggled. If so, he’s clever. But he’s never given any trouble…”

* * *

Both Nayland Smith and Sir Lionel were out when I returned, but Smith had left a message which read:

“Back for late dinner. Don’t go out until I join you.”

I passed through the foyer with its arcades and lighted show cases, and for all my distracted frame of mind could not fail to notice that I was an object of interest to a number of visitors lounging about in a seemingly aimless fashion. Indeed, it did not call for a newspaper training to see, as Smith had seen, that Colon was a hotbed of foreign agents, each watching the other, but all bent upon some common purpose.

What was the purpose?

I wondered if this gateway of a sea lane which joined two oceans was normally beset spies. That remark of Smith’s, “The Panama Canal has two ends,” recurred to me again and again.

One graceful brunette seemed bent on making my acquaintance: she was tall, slender, but despite her light brown skin, the colour of which might have been due to sun-bathing, she had that swaying carriage which betrays African ancestry. Her brilliant amber eyes, shaded by long curling lashes, fixed upon me, she conveyed so frank an invitation that I found it embarrassing. As I stepped into the elevator:

“Who is that dark girl?” I asked the man.

“Oh, that’s Flammario, the dancer from the Passion Fruit Tree.”

“Does she live here?”

“No, sir; and if you think she’s man-hunting—you’re wrong. Did you check up on the emeralds? That girl is a good little business woman. I guess she owns about half the town.”

This information made Flammario’s behaviour even more hard to understand. But by the time that I reached the apartment, I had dismissed her from my mind: someone else occupied it exclusively.

I set the carved wooden box on the table in the sitting-room and stared through the glass at that dreadful exhibit.

Who had he been, this old man who had met death by decapitation? What tragedy of the Peruvian woods was locked up in my strange possession, and, paramount thought, why had Zazima forced the thing upon me?

The idea that this fragment of dreadful mortality formed a link with Ardatha was one I was anxious to dispel; yet I clung to it. Lighting a cigarette, I considered the relic, and suddenly an idea occurred to me. I wondered that it had not occurred to me before.

The reason for so roundabout a method was not clear, but Zazima may have known himself to be spied upon. That someone else had been concealed at the back of his shop I had felt quite certain, some servant of Fu-Manchu—possibly the Doctor himself. I must suppose that the hidden watcher had good reason for remaining hidden. The answer to the problem must be that vital information of some sort was hidden in the box!

I anticipated no difficulty in opening it; the front was secured by a catch similar to that of a clock face. Yet, I hesitated; I loathed the idea of touching that little shrivelled head mounted upon a block of some hard black wood. I peered in through the glass, expecting to find a note there. But I could see nothing. The box was decorated with carving, some kind of native work, and I thought it possible, noting the thickness of the wood, that part of the base might conceal a secret drawer. Another possibility was that the head was hollow; that if I took it out I should find something hidden inside.

Conquering revulsion, I was about to open the glass front and examine that shrivelled fragment of a long-dead man when abruptly I desisted.

I had heard a rap, short but imperative, at the outer door!

Hastily I placed the shrivelled head with its mahogany casket in a bureau. I was anxious that none of the staff should see it: I mistrusted everyone where Dr. Fu-Manchu was concerned. As I locked the bureau and slipped the key into my pocket, the rapping on the outer door was repeated, this time more insistently. I thought it might be Barton, but I could not imagine why he did not ring the bell.

Swift dusk was falling; and as I opened the door the lights in the passage outside had not yet been switched up.

A woman stood here.

Because of the darkness, because she was graceful and slender, a pang of
joy
stabbed me. For a moment I thought… Ardatha. Then, the visitor spoke: