CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Your disappearance on the road from Monte Carlo,” Nayland Smith went on, “puzzled me extraordinarily. The guiding hand behind this business had ceased to be a matter of speculation: I knew that we were dealing with Dr. Fu-Manchu. But where you belonged in the scheme was not clear to me. I had urgent personal work to do, necessitating the bringing of pressure to bear on the French authorities. Therefore, I delegated to a local chief of police the task of tracing your movements step by step, on the night of your disappearance.
“This was undertaken with that admirable thoroughness which characterizes police work here, and involved a house-to-house inquiry along many miles of the Corniche road. In the meantime, working unremittingly, I had secured the powers which I sought. Petrie’s grave—a very hurried one—was reopened...”
“What!”
“Yes; it was a pretty ghastly task. In order to perform it in secrecy we had to close the place and post police upon the roads approaching it. However, it was accomplished at last, and the common coffin in which the interment had taken place was hauled up and laid upon the earth.”
“My God!” I groaned.
“I have undertaken some unpleasant duties, Sterling, but the sound of the screws being extracted and the thought that presently—”
He broke off and sat silent for a while.
“It was done at last,” he went on, “and I think I came nearer to fainting than I have ever been in my life. Not from horror, not from sorrow; but because my theory—my eleventh-hour hope—had proved to have a substratum of fact.”
“What do you mean, Sir Denis?”
“I mean that Petrie was not in the coffin!”
“Not in the coffin!... It was empty?”
“Not at all.” He laughed grimly. “It contained a body right enough. The body of a Burman. The mark of Kali was on his brow— and he had died from a shot wound in the stomach.”
“Good heavens! The Dacoit who—”
“Exactly, Sterling! Your late friend of the Villa Jasmin, beyond doubt. You will observe that Dr. Fu-Manchu finds uses for his servants—dead, as well as living!”
“But this is astounding! What does it mean?”
Quite a long time elapsed before Sir Denis replied:
“I don’t dare to hope that it means what I wish it to mean,” he said; “but—Petrie was not buried.”
I was literally breathless with astonishment, but at last:
“Whenever can so amazing a substitution have taken place?” I asked.
“The very question to which I next applied myself,” Nayland Smith replied. “Half an hour’s inquiry established the facts. The little mortuary, which, I believe, you have visited, is not guarded. And his body, hastily encased, as I have indicated, lay there throughout the night. The mortuary is a lonely building, as you may remember. For Dr. Fu-Manchu’s agents such a substitution was a simple matter.”
“What do you think?” I broke in.
“I don’t dare tell you what I think—or hope. But Dr. Fu-Manchu is the greatest physician the world has ever known. Come on! Let’s establish contact with the police boat.”
He stood up and began to walk rapidly down to the beach. We had about reached the spot where first I had set eyes upon Fleurette, when a boat with two rowers and two men in the stern shot out from shadow into moonlight and was pulled in towards us.
Sir Denis suddenly raised his arm, signalling that they should go about.
I watched the boat swing round and saw it melt again into the shadows from which it had come. I met the glance of eyes steely in the moonlight.
“An idea has occurred to me,” said Sir Denis.
I thought that he watched me strangely.
“If it concerns myself,” I replied, “count on me for anything.”
“Good man!”
He clapped his hand on my shoulder.
“Before I mention it, I must bring you up to date. Move back into the shadow.”
We walked up the beach, and then:
“I checked up on the police reports,” he went on. “That dealing with Ste Claire was the only one which I regarded as unsatisfactory. Ste Claire, as you probably know, was formerly an extensive monastery; in fact, many of the vineyards in this neighbourhood formerly yielded their produce to the Father Abbot. When the community dispersed, it came into the possession of some noble family whose name I have forgotten. The point of interest and the point which attracted me was this: The place is built on a steep hillside, opening into a deep cleft which we have just negotiated, rather less than a mile in length. The chief building, now known as a villa, but a reconstruction of the former monastery, is surrounded by one or two other buildings—and there is a little straggling street. It has been the property for the last fifteen years of a certain wealthy Argentine gentleman, regarding whose history I have set inquiries on foot.
“More recently, the lease was taken over by one Mahdi Bey, of whom I have been able to learn very little—except that he practised as a physician in Alexandria at one time, and is evidently a man of great wealth. He it was who closed Ste Claire to the public. However, the police in the course of their inquiries paid a domiciliary visit some time during yesterday afternoon. They were received by a major domo who apologized for the absence of his master, who is apparently in Paris.
“They were shown over the villa and the adjoining houses, occupied now, I gather, by dependents of the Bey. No information was obtained upon the subject of your disappearance.
“But, in glancing through the police report, bearing in mind that I was definitely looking for a place occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu, a process of elimination showed me that of all the establishments visited, Ste Claire alone remained suspect.
“The Argentine owner had built a number of remarkable forcing houses. The police, under my directions and unaware of the reasons for them, were ostensibly searching for an escaped criminal, which enabled them tactfully to explore the various villas en route. I noted in their report that they had merely glanced into these houses, nor did I come upon any account of the enormous wine cellars, enlargements of natural caves, which, I was informed, lay below the former monastery.
“The character and extent of Dr. Fu-Manchu’s new campaign dawned upon me suddenly, Sterling. I wonder if it has dawned upon you?”
“I’m afraid it hasn’t,” I confessed. “I have alternated between the belief that I was dead and the belief that I was delirious almost throughout the time that I have been in that house. But, knowing now that what I saw was not phantasy, I am still in doubt, I must confess, as to the nature of this ‘war’ which threatens.”
“Its nature is painfully clear,” Nayland Smith rapped. “Somewhere in this place there are thousands—perhaps millions— of those damnable flies! The deaths of which we know were merely experimental. The cases were watched secretly, with great interest, by Dr. Fu-Manchu or his immediate agents. It was the duty of one of his servants—probably a Burman—to release one of these flies in the neighbourhood of the selected victim. I have learned that they seek shadow during the daytime, and operate at dusk and in artificial light. Directly there was presumptive evidence that the fly had bitten the selected subject, it was the duty of Fu-Manchu’s servant to place a spray of this fly-catching plant—the name of which I don’t know—where it would attract the fly.
“To make assurance doubly sure, the seductive leaves were sprayed with human blood! Vegetable fly-papers, Sterling— nothing less!”
“My God! It’s plain enough to me now.”
“Such experiments have apparently been carried out all over the world.
“That Dr. Fu-Manchu—or the Si-Fan, which is the same thing—has international agents, I know for a fact. This means that collections of these flies, which have been specially bred to carry the new plague and to spread it, exist at unknown centres in various parts of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia—also, doubtless, in the Continent of America.
“Of all those seeking it, Petrie alone discovered a treatment which promised to be successful! Dr. Fu-Manchu’s allies would, of course, be inoculated against the plague. But do you see, Sterling, do you see what Petrie did, and why he stood in the Chinaman’s way?”
I hesitated. I was beginning to grasp the truth, but before I could reply:
“The formula for ‘654’ would have been broadcast to the medical authorities of the world, in the event of a general outbreak. This would have shattered Fu-Manchu’s army.”
“Fu-Manchu’s army?”
“An army, Sterling, bred and trained to depopulate the white world! An army of flies—carrying the germ of a new plague; a plague for which medical science knows no remedy!”
I was awed, silenced.
“Police manned a boat in the neighbouring bay,” Nayland Smith went on; “I distrusted the sound of a motor. They told me that there was a little beach attached to Ste Claire. And in this again I recognized such a spot as Fu-Manchu would have chosen.
“At dusk, I waded ashore, ordering the boat to lie off in the shadow of the cliff. I was acting unofficially; I was outside the law if I should be wrong; but I had left a sealed envelope with the Chief of Police, telling him upon what evidence I had acted—if I should not return.
“I walked up the strip of sand, reached the pebbles, and had just come to the big boulders, when I saw a speedboat heading in! I took cover behind one of the boulders and waited.
“It came right in. The police had orders not to show themselves unless they received a prearranged signal. A man waded ashore through the shallow water, and the boat immediately set out again, and soon had disappeared around the headland.
“I watched him come through the gap between the boulders. He was wearing gum boots and went very silently. But I was rubber-shod, and could go silently too. I followed him. It was a difficult business, because of the fact that part of the path, more then than now, was bathed in moonlight. But it evidently never occurred to the man to look back.
“In this way, unconsciously, he led me to the foot of the steps, and I followed him, flight by flight, to the top. I was craning over the parapet when he opened the door; but, nevertheless, it took me nearly ten minutes to find how it worked.”
“Do you mean to say that you broke into that house alone?”
“Yes. It was a one-man job; two would have bungled it.”
I could find no words with which to reply. It was a privilege merely to listen to a man at once so clear-headed and so fearless.
“I was first attracted,” he went on, “by the long corridor at the end of which a green light burned. There was not a sound in the place, and so I explored this corridor first. I discovered a sliding door operated by one of the button controls, and I opened it.”
He paused—laughing shortly.
“I asked you to describe Fleurette particularly,” he went on, “because my first investigation led me to Fleurette’s bedroom!
“Yes, Sterling, the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I could see her in the reflected moonlight, one arm thrown over her head, and her face turned towards the window. Your description was that of an artist. I agree with you; she is beautiful. Yet it wasn’t her beauty which pulled me up, nor even the knowledge that I had made a mistake: it was something else.”
“What?” I asked eagerly.
“I knew her, Sterling! Yes! I know who she is, this mystery girl who has taken such a hold upon you.”
“But, Sir Denis, do you mean...”
“I understand your eagerness, and you shall hear everything later. I was anxious to learn the colour of her eyes. You see, they were closed; she was asleep. I retired without disturbing her. I next descended the stairs.”
“Good God! I wish I had your nerve!”
“Really, I had very little to fear.”
“You may think so—but please go on, Sir Denis.”
“My guide, of course, had disappeared, but I found a square space with corridors opening right and left. The trail of wet rubber boots gave me the clue. The imprint of fingers on a panel three feet from the floor enabled me to open the door. I found myself in that insane laboratory—”
“Insane is the word,” I murmured.
“It was empty. It was permeated by a dim, violet light. And as I entered—the door closed! I was particularly intrigued by a piece of mechanism resembling an ancient Egyptian harp.”
“I noticed it, also.”
“I determined to investigate more closely, but there was a black mark on the floor surrounding the table on which this piece of mechanism stood—”
“Say no more, Sir Denis! I have had the same experience.”
“Oh! Is that so? This rather checked me. I observed that such a mark ran entirely around the laboratory close to the wall: you may have failed to notice this? And I can only suppose that this system of checking intruders had been disconnected in relation to the doors because the unknown man, who had unwittingly acted as my guide, was expected.
“As the idea flashed across my mind, I had no more than time to duck when the man in question came out!
“A panel slid open on the left-hand wall, and a Chinaman, still wearing wet gum boots, closed the door behind him, crossed the laboratory, opened another door on the farther side, and disappeared.
“I waited for a while, listening to a sort of throbbing which alone disturbed the silence, and then I too ventured to open that door. Do you know what I found?”
“I can guess.”
“I found myself face to face with Dr. Fu-Manchu...”