congratulate you. Hepburn: imagination is so rarely allied with exact scientific knowledge.”
He peeled off the heavy topcoat and tossed it on a chair. Hepburn stared and smiled in his slow fashion.
Nayland Smith was dressed in police uniform!
“I was followed to headquarters,” said Smith, detecting the smile. “I can assure you I was not followed back. I left my cap (which didn’t fit me) in the police car. Bought the coat—quite useful in this weather—at a big store with several entrances, and returned here in a taxicab.”
Mark Hepburn leaned back on a glass-topped table which formed one of the appointments of the extemporized laboratory, staring in an abstracted way at Federal Officer 56.
“They must know you are here,” he said, in his slow dry way.
“Undoubtedly! They know I am here. But it is to their advantage to see that I don’t remain here.”
Hepbum stared a while longer and then nodded.
“You think they would come right out into the open like that?”
Nayland Smith shot out his left arm, gripping the speaker’s shoulder.
“Listen. You can hardly have forgotten the machine-gun party on the track when an attempt was made to hold up the special train? This evening I went out by a private entrance kindly placed at my disposal by the management. As I passed the corner of Forty-eighth Street, a car packed with gunmen was close behind me!”
“What!”
“The taxicab in which I was driving belonged to a group known as the Lotus Cabs. . . .”
“I know it. One of the biggest corporations of its kind in the States.”
“It may be nothing to do with them, Hepburn. But the driver was in the pay of the other side.”
“You are sure?”
“I am quite sure. I opened the door, which is in front of the Lotus Cabs, as you may remember, and crouched down beside the wheel. I said to the man: ‘Drive like the devil! I am a federal agent and traffic rules don’t apply at the moment.’“
“What did he do?”
“He pretended to obey but deliberately tried to stall me! In a jam, the gunmen close behind, I jumped out, wriggled clear of the pack, cut through to Sixth Avenue and chartered another cab.”
He paused and drew a long breath. Pulling out the time-worn tobacco-pouch he began to load his briar.
“This ink-shop of yours is somewhat oppressive,” he said. “Let’s go into the sitting-room.”
He walked out to a larger room adjoining, Hepburn following. Over his shoulder:
“Both you and I have got to disappear!” he snapped.
As he spoke he turned, pipe and pouch in hand. Hepburn met the glance of piercing steely eyes and knew that Nayland Smith did not speak lightly.
“The biggest prize which any man ever played for is at stake—the control of the United States of America. To his existing organization—the extent of which even I can only surmise—Dr. Fu Manchu has added the most highly efficient underworld which civilization has yet produced.”
Nayland Smith, his pipe charged, automatically made to drop the pouch back into his coat pocket, was hampered by the uniform, and tossed the pouch irritably on to a chair. He took a box of matches from the marble mantelpiece and lighted his briar. Surrounded now by clouds of smoke he turned, staring at Hepburn.
“You are rounding up your Public Enemies,” he went on, in his snappy, staccato fashion; “but the groups which they controlled remain in existence. Those underground murder gangs are still operative, only awaiting the hand of a master. That master is here . . . and he has assumed control. Our lives Hepburn”—he snapped his fingers—”are not worth that! But let us review the position.
He began to walk up and down, smoking furiously.
“The manuscript of Abbot Donegal’s uncompleted address was saturated with a preparation which you have identified, although its exact composition is unknown to you. His habit, of wetting his thumb in turning over the pages (noted by a spy, almost certainly that James Richet, the secretary who has escaped us) resulted in his poisoning himself before he reached those revelations which Dr. Fu Manchu regarded as untimely. The abbot may or may not recover his memory of those pages, but in is own intersts, and I think in the interests of this country, he has been bound to silence for a time. He is off the air. So much is clear, Hepburn?”
“Perfectly clear.”
“The gum of those stamps and envelopes, reserved for Dr. Prescott’s use at Weaver’s Farm, had been similarly treated. Prescott seems to have left he house and proceeded in the direction of the lake. He was, of course, under the influence of the drug. He was carried, as our later investigations proved, around the bank to the north end of the lake, and from there to the road, where a car was waiting. Latest reports regarding this car should reach headquarters to-night. It was, as suspected, undoubtedly proceeding in the direction of New York.”
“We have no clue to the person who tampered with the stationery at Weaver’s Farm,” Hepburn’s monotonous voice broke in.
“At the moment, none.”
Nayland Smith moved restlessly in the direction of one of the windows.
“Somewhere below there,” he went on, shooting out a pointing forefinger, “somewhere among those millions of lights, perhaps in sight from this very spot—Orwin Prescott is hidden!”
“I think you are right,” said Mark Hepburn, quietly.
