The Island of Fu-Manchu (20 page)

“A balcony just below,” he reported, “running outside those rooms we have already seen. And, hello!—a stair up to it from the garden!”

He turned and ran to the door.

“You understand, Kerrigan?” he cried. “Fu-Manchu’s thugs got here before us! The man Cabot, who had Ardatha locked in that room below, bolted up here to save himself. What he had planned to do he has done: forced a way through this window, dropped on to the balcony below and, unless the police catch him—made a clean get-away!”

We were running along the lower passage now, making for the staircase.

A theory to account for the remarkable behaviour of Flammario at the moment that Smith and I had entered the loft had just begun to form in my mind as we ran down the stairs, across, and out through the kitchen to the back porch. The balcony from which the fugitive had made his escape ran along this side of the house. As we came into the darkness there, Smith, a pace ahead of me, pulled suddenly and grasped my wrist with a grip that hurt.

A high, piercing shriek, followed by gurgling, sobbing sounds split the silence frightfully.

As that dreadful cry died away I heard a shout, a sound of running footsteps. The police were closing in. Two paces forward we moved hesitantly, and there, half in shadow and half silhouetted against a silver curtain of moonlight, I saw Flammario. She stood at the foot of the steps leading down from the balcony. Her cloak had slipped: she looked like a sculptured Fury.

Hearing us, she turned in our direction. I could see the glitter of her amber eyes. Then, stepping into the shadows at her feet she retrieved the sable cloak, and threw it about her shoulders.

“I reckon that balances our account, Lou,” she panted.

Captain Beecher raced up to join us, followed by two other police officers, as a ray from Smith’s torch shone fully down upon a man who lay there. He was prone, but in falling had twisted his head sideways, as if at the moment that death came he had looked swiftly behind him. Staring eyes held a question which had been horribly answered.

It was the man of Panama.

His fingers were embedded in the turf on which he lay, and the hilt of a dagger decorated with silver which glittered evilly in the light, protruded squarely from between his shoulder-blades.

Police Captain Beecher glanced from the dead man to the fur-wrapped figure of Flammario, whose tawny eyes regarded him contemptuously.

“So we have you on the books at last!”

“Forget it!” rapped Smith; “she won’t run away. The girl, the girl who was captive here, has been carried off. She must not be smuggled out of Colon. Advise the port. Hold all outgoing shipping till further orders. Spare no efforts.”

But what with frustrated hopes and new fears, such a cloak of misery had descended upon me that I could not think consistently. There was movement all about; the issuing of rapid orders; men hurrying away. And presently, reaching me as if from a distance, came Smith’s words:

“Take care of Flammario. After all, she has done her best for us. Return straight to the hotel.”

A hand touched my arm. I looked into brilliant amber eyes. “Drive me back, please,” said Flammario, “or I shall be late for my show.”

Of what she said to me on the way back, this red-handed murderess, I recollect not one word. I know that her arms were about me. I presume it was a normal gesture employed whenever she found herself alone in a man’s company. I think, just before we reached the side entrance to The Passion Fruit Tree, that she kissed me on the lips, that I started back. She laughed huskily. I would have left her at the door, but:

“You have lost your girl friend,” she said; “you must want a drink.” I think in her half-savage way she was trying to be sympathetic. “Go through there to the bar. If you wait, I have drink with you.”

As she ran towards her dressing-room, I opened the back door to the bar. It was true that suddenly, and only at that moment, did I realize how badly I needed a stiff brandy and soda. The barman turned swiftly, but recognizing me, allowed me to pass.

There was no one in the bar; and he had just placed my drink before me when the lights went out.

Morbid curiosity induced me to walk out on to the balcony. A subdued, excited hum of conversation rose from below: evidently there had been other arrivals. Then, to the muted strains of the unseen band, Flammario entered.

She stood there picked up by the lime and slowly began to dance—her lips set in the eternal, voluptuous smile of the African dancers of all time, the smile which lives for ever upon the painted walls of Ancient Egypt.

“
S
mith!” I said, “he’s not dying.”

“Thank God, no.”

He and I stood looking down at Sir Lionel Barton where he lay livid, his breathing scarcely perceptible. I turned to a man wearing a white jacket who stood at the front of the bed.

“You are sure, doctor?”

Dr. Andrews nodded and his smile was reassuring.

“He’s had an emetic and I’ve washed him out with permanganate of potassium,” he replied. “Also, I’ve poured coffee down his throat—very strong. Fortunately he has a constitution like a bullock. Oh, he’ll be all right. I have given him a shot of atropine. We’ll have him round before long.”

“But how,” I said, looking about from face to face, “did this happen? What of the police officer on duty outside?”

“Went the same way!” replied Dr. Andrews; “but not for the same reason; nor is he responding so well.”

“How do you account for that?”

“You see”—the doctor took up a tumbler from a side-table—“this contains whisky, and also (I have tested it) a big shot of opium. In other words. Sir Lionel Barton has swallowed a narcotic and I have thoroughly washed him out. But the sergeant of police smoked a drugged cigarette.”

“What!”

“Yes,” snapped Smith. “I have the remains of the packet: they are all drugged.”

“But surely he could taste it?”

“No.” The physician shook his head. “Indian hemp was used in this case, and the brand of cigarette was of a character which—” he shrugged his shoulders—“would disguise almost anything.”

“But where could the man have obtained these cigarettes?”

“Don’t ask me, Kerrigan,” said Smith wearily. “As well ask why Barton, alone in these apartments, permitted someone to drug his whisky.”

“But was he alone here when you returned?”

“He was found alone. I was recalled from police headquarters, and from there I phoned you. They had discovered the police sergeant unconscious in the corridor. Naturally the management came in here, and found Barton.”

“Where was he?”

“In an armchair in the sitting-room, completely unconscious, with that glass beside him.”

“And?”

“Yes! We have lost our hostage, Kerrigan. The marmoset has gone.”

“But, Smith!” I cried, desperately, “it doesn’t seem humanly possible!”

“Anything is possible when one is dealing with Dr. Fu-Manchu. The fact which we have to face is that it has happened. Two men, fully capable of taking care of themselves, fully on the alert, are drugged. Someone, unseen by anybody in the hotel, gains access to these rooms, removes the cage containing the marmoset and lowers it out of the sitting-room window, which I found open, to someone else waiting in the garden below. At that late hour the garden would be deserted. In short, the rest of the matter is simple.”

“Thank God, old Barton has survived,” I said. “But heaven help us all—we are fighting a phantom… Ardatha!”

Smith leaned across the bed on which the unconscious man lay and grasped my shoulder.

“Fu-Manchu has recovered her. It may be an odd thing to say, when speaking of the greatest power for evil living in the world today, but for my part I would rather think of her with the Doctor than with—”

“Lou Cabot? Yes, I agree.”

“In taking no part in your conversation, gentlemen,” said Dr. Andrews, “I am actuated by a very simple motive. I don’t know what you are talking about. That there is or was someone called Dr. Fu-Manchu I seem to have heard, certainly. In what way he is associated with my two patients I do not know. But regarding Lou Cabot—I presume you refer to the proprietor of The Passion Fruit Tree—you touch upon familiar territory. I have had the doubtful honour of attending this man on more than one occasion.”

“You will attend him no more,” said Smith.

“What is that?”

“He’s dead,” I began.

Smith flashed a silent, urgent message to me, and:

“He died tonight, doctor, up at Santurce,” he explained, “under mysterious circumstances.”

“Good riddance!” murmured Dr. Andrews. “A more cunning villain never contrived to plant himself in the Canal Zone. The fellow was an agent for some foreign political. Doctors must not tell, but I heard strange things when he was delirious on one occasion.”

“Foreign government,” murmured Smith, staring shrewdly at the speaker. “Perhaps a foreign
power
, doctor, but not a government—yet.”

* * *

Several hours elapsed before Barton became capable of coherent speech. The man drugged with hashish cigarettes was causing Dr. Andrews some anxiety. Lying back in an armchair, visibly pale in spite of a sun-tan on a naturally florid skin, Barton stared at us. It was dawn, and to me a wretched one.

No clue, not even the most slender, as to the whereabouts of Ardatha had been picked up. Flammario had forced a confession from the hunchback Paulo. The agents of the Si-Fan had intercepted him as he had returned with the news for which she was seeking. In this way, by less then twenty minutes, the Si-Fan had anticipated our visit to the villa occupied by Lou Cabot, the circumstances of whose death the authorities had agreed to hush up in the interest of the vastly more important inquiry being carried out by Nayland Smith.

“I must be getting old,” said Barton weakly. “At any rate, I feel damned sick. Definitely, I refuse to drink any more coffee.”

“Very well,” said Smith, “but whisky is taboo until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! It’s tomorrow already,” growled Barton. His blue eyes were rapidly regaining their normal fire. “Naturally you want to know how I came to make such an infernal ass of myself. Well, I can’t tell you.”

“What do you mean, you can’t tell us?”

“I mean I don’t know. I had just mixed myself a final and was going out to make sure that the police officer you were kind enough to allot to me (whose presence I had discovered earlier) was awake, when I thought I heard that damned padding sound.”

“You mean the soft footsteps we have heard before?”

“Yes. Now let me give you the exact facts. I assure you they are peculiar. I had been to take a look at that blasted marmoset. He was asleep. I opened the door of my own room on to the main corridor, and glanced along to see if the police officer was awake. He was. He sang out, and I wished him good-night; but he is a garrulous fellow and he held me in conversation for some time.”

“Your door remaining open?” suggested Smith.

“Yes—that’s the point.”

“Was the sergeant smoking?”

“He smoked all the time.”

“Was his manner normal?”

“Undoubtedly. Never stopped talking.”

“And you heard no unusual sound?”

“None whatever. I came in, sat down, lighted a pipe and was about to take a drink—when I
saw
something. I want to make it clear, Smith, that I saw this before I took the drink and I want to add that it was not a delusion and that I was very wide awake.”

“What did you see?”

Barton stared truculently at Smith as he replied:

“I saw
a green hand
!”

“A green hand!” I echoed.

Smith began to pace up and down restlessly, tugging at the lobe of his left ear.

“I saw a human hand floating in space—no arm, no body. It was sea green in colour. It was visible for no more than a matter of ten seconds; then it vanished. It was over by the door, there—”

“What did you do?” snapped Smith.

“I ran to the spot. I searched everywhere. I began to wonder if there was anything wrong with me. This prompted the idea of a drink, so I sat down and took one. The last thing I remember thinking is that this hotel sells the world’s worst whisky.”

“You mean that you fell asleep?”

“No doubt about it.”

Smith kept up that restless promenade.

“A green hand,” he muttered, “And those padding footsteps! What
is
it? What in heaven’s name
is
it?”

“I don’t know what it is,” growled Barton, “but I thank God I’m alive. It’s Fu-Manchu—of that I am certain. But there’s no love lost between us. Why didn’t he finish me?”

“That I think I can answer,” Smith replied. “Several days have yet to elapse before his First Notice or ultimatum expires. The Doctor has a nice sense of decorum.”

“I gather that he has recaptured the girl Ardatha. You have my very sincere sympathy, Kerrigan. I don’t know what to say. I, alone, am responsible and I lost your hostage.”

I bent down and shook his hand, as he lay back in the armchair.

“Not a word. Barton,” I said, “on that subject. Our enemy uses mysterious weapons which neither you nor I know how to counter.”

“Death by The Snapping Fingers,” murmured Smith. “The green hand and the Shadow which comes and goes, but which no one ever sees. How did Fu-Manchu get here? Where did he hide? How does he travel and where has he gone?” He pulled up in front of me. “You have to make a quick decision, Kerrigan. As you know, my plans are fixed. Tomorrow we leave for Port au Prince.”

“I know,” I groaned; “and I know that it would be useless for me to remain behind.”

O
nly my knowledge that in war-scarred Europe many thousands suffered just as I was suffering held me up during the next few days. Although I know I dreamed of her every night, resolutely in the waking hours I strove to banish all thought of Ardatha from my mind. As I saw the matter, we had lost every trick so far. In a mood of deadly, useless introspection I remained throughout the journey to Haiti. For the time all zest for the battle left me; and then it returned in the form of a cold resolution. If she were alive I would find her again; I would face the dreadful Chinese doctor who held her life in his hands, and accept any price which he exacted from me for her freedom—short of betraying my principles.