He had some distance to go, but less than twenty minutes later the doorbell jangled in that Chinatown shop where a good looking young Oriental labored tirelessly with India ink and brush. He laid his brush aside and looked up.
“Mr. Huan Tsung?” said Laurillard.
“Mr. Huan Tsung not in. You call before?”
Laurillard seemed to be consulting his memory, but, after a momentary pause, he replied.
“Yes.”
“How many time?”
“Seven.”
“Give me the message.”
Laurillard leaned confidentially forward.
“The man from Huston Electric is taken care of. He’s too drunk to go far. What’s better, I’ve sounded him— and I think he’ll play. That’s why I came to see you.”
“I think,” was the cold reply, “that you are a fool.” The young Oriental spoke now in perfect English. “You have exceeded your instructions. You are new to the work. You will never grow old in it.”
“But—”
“I have no more to say. I will put in your report.” He scribbled a few lines in pencil, took up his brush, and went on writing.
Laurillard’s jaw hardened, and he clenched his gloved hands. “Good-bye,” said the industrious scribe. Laurillard went out.
In his report concerning Sam he had stated, quite honestly, what he believed to be true. But evidently he was mistaken.
Not three minutes had elapsed before the doorbell jangled again. A man came lurching in who walked as if on a moving deck. He wore a short leather jacket and a cap with a long peak. His eyes, seen through spectacles, were challenging. He chewed as he talked, using the gum as a sort of mute.
“Say—have you got a pipe-cleaner?” he inquired.
The young Oriental, without laying his brush down, slightly raised his eyes.
“Nohab.”
“What’s the use of a joint like this that don’t carry pipe-cleaners?” Sam demanded. He looked all around, truculently. “Happen to have a bit of string?”
“No string.”
Sam chewed and glared down awhile at the glossy black head bent over the writing. Then, with a parting grunt, Sam went out.
The young Chinese student scribbled another note in pencil.
* * *
Camille sat quite still in her room for so long after Craig had gone that she lost all count of time.
He had not quite shut the door, and dimly she had become aware that he was calling Regan. She heard the sound of voices when Regan came out of the laboratory; then heard the laboratory door closed.
After which, silence fell.
The work she had come here to do grew harder every day, every hour. There were times when she rebelled inwardly against the obligations which bound her. There were other times when she fought against her heart. There was no time when her mind was otherwise than in a state of tumult.
It could not go on. But where did her plain duty lie?
The silence of the place oppressed her. Often, alone here at night—as she was, sometimes—she had experienced something almost like terror. True, always Shaw or Regan would be on duty in the laboratory, but a locked iron door set them apart. This terror was not quite a physical thing. Camille was fully alive to the fact that spies watched Morris’s work. But it wasn’t any attempt from this quarter which dismayed her.
A deeper terror lay somewhere in the subconscious, a long way down.
Who was Dr. Fu Manchu?
She had heard that strange name spoken, for the first time, by Morris. He had been talking to Nayland Smith. Then—she had received a warning from another source.
But, transcending this shadowy menace, fearful as the unknown always must be, loomed something else— greater.
That part of Camille which was French, and therefore realist, challenged the wisdom of latter-day science, asked if greater and greater speed, more and more destructive power, were leading men to more and greater happiness. Her doubts were not new. They had come between her and the lecturers at the Sorbonne. She had confided them to a worthy priest of her acquaintance. But he, poor man, had been unable to give her guidance in this particular spiritual problem.
If God were a reality—and Camille, whilst not a communicant, was a Christian in her bones—surely such experiments as men of science were making today must anger Him?
In what degree did they differ from those which had called down a divine wrath on the Tower of Babel?
To what new catastrophe would this so-called Science lead the world? Morris Craig’s enthusiasm for research she understood. It was this same eager curiosity which had driven her through the tedium of a science training. But did he appreciate that the world might be poisoned by the fruits of his creative genius?
Often it had come to her, in lonely, reflective moments, that the wonderful, weird thing which Morris had created might be a cause of laughter in Hell . . .
What was that?
Camille thought she had heard the sound of a harsh, barking cough.
Before her cool brain had entirely assumed command, before the subconscious, troubled self could be conquered, she was out of her room and staring all around an empty office.
Of course, it was empty.
Regan, she knew, stood watch in the laboratory. The plant ran day and night, and a record was kept of the alternations (so far inexplicable) of that cosmic force which had been tapped by the genius of Morris Craig. But no sound could penetrate from the laboratory.
She opened the office door and called:
“Sam!”
There was no reply. She remembered, now, hearing Morris instructing the handyman to go somewhere with him.
A great urge for human sympathy, for any kind of contact, overcame her. She glanced at the switchboard. She would call Regan. He was a cynical English northcountryman who had admired her predecessor, Miss Lewis, and who resented the newcomer. But he was better than nobody.
Then she thought of her phone call, which had been interrupted earlier in the evening. A swift recognition of what it had meant, of what it would mean to make the same call again, swept her into sudden desolation.
What was she going to do? Her plan, her design for life, had not worked out. Something had gone awry.
She must face facts. Morris Craig had crossed her path. She could not serve two masters. Which was it to be? Once again—where did her duty lie?
Listening tensely, her brain a battlefield of warring emotions, Camille turned and went back to her room. Seated at her desk, she dialled a number, and went on listening, not to a distant ring but to the silence beyond her open door. She waited anxiously, for she had come to a decision. But for a long time there was no reply.
The silent office outside was empty. So that there was no one to see a figure, a dark silhouette against the sky, against those unwatching eyes which still remained alive in one distant tower dominating the Huston Building. It was a hulking, clumsy figure, not unlike that of a great ape. It passed along the parapet outside the office windows . . .
“Yes?” Camille had got through. “Nine-nine here.”
She had swung around in her chair, so that she no longer faced the open door.
“If you please.”
She waited again.
Silently the door had been fully opened. The huge figure stood there. It was that of a man of formidably powerful physique. His monstrous shoulders, long arms, and large hands had something unnatural in their contours,
