Professor Hoffmeyer presented an impressive figure. His sufferings in Nazi prison camps had left indelible marks. The dark glasses protected eyes seared by merciless lights. The silk gloves which he never removed concealed hands from which the fingernails had been extracted. He stooped much, leaning upon a heavy ebony cane.
Now he advanced almost noiselessly and took Mrs. Frobisher’s left wrist between a delicate thumb and forefinger, slightly inclining his head.
“It is not how do
Mrs. Frobisher looked up at the massive brow bent over her, and tried, not for the first time, to puzzle out the true color of the scanty hair which crowned it. She almost decided that it was colorless; entirely neutral.
Professor Hoffmeyer stood upright, or as nearly upright as she had ever seen him stand, and nodded.
“You shall come to see me on Wednesday, at three o’clock. Not for the treatment, no, but for the consultation. If some other engagement you have, cancel it. At three o’clock on Wednesday.”
He bowed slightly and went out.
Professor Hoffmeyer ruled his wealthy clientele with a rod of iron. His reputation was enormous. His fees were phenomenal.
He proceeded, now, across a luxurious central salon where other patients waited, well-preserved women, some of them apparently out of the deep-freeze. He nodded to a chosen few as he passed, and entered an office marked “Private.” Closing the door, he pulled out a drawer in the businesslike desk—and a bookcase filled with advanced medical works, largely German, swung open bodily.
The professor went into the opening. As the bookcase swung back into place, the drawer in the desk closed again.
Professor Hoffmeyer would see no more patients today.
The room in which the professor found himself was a study. But its appointments were far from conventional. It contained some very valuable old lacquer and was richly carpeted. The lighting (it had no visible windows) was subdued, and the peculiar characteristic of the place was its silence.
Open bookcases were filled with volumes, some of them bound manuscripts, many of great age and all of great rarity. They were in many languages, including Greek, Chinese, and Arabic.
Beside a cushioned divan stood an inlaid stool equipped with several opium pipes in a rack, gum, lamp, and bodkins.
A long, carved table of time-blackened oak served as a desk. A high-backed chair was set behind it. A faded volume lay open on the table, as well as a closely written manuscript. There were several other books there, and a number of curious objects difficult to identify in the dim light.
The professor approached a painted screen placed before a recess and disappeared behind it. Not a sound broke the silence of the room until he returned.
He had removed the gloves and dark glasses, and for the black coat worn by Professor Hoffmeyer had substituted a yellow house robe. The eyes which the glasses had concealed were long, narrow, and emerald-green. The uncovered hands had pointed fingernails. This gaunt, upright, Chinese ascetic was taller by inches than Professor Hoffmeyer.
And his face might have inspired a painter seeking a model for the Fallen Angel.
This not because it was so evil but because of a majestic and remorseless power which it possessed—a power which resided in the eyes. They were not the eyes of a normal man, moved by the desires, the impulses shared in some part by us all. They were the eyes of one who has shaken off those inhibitions common to humanity, who is undisturbed by either love or hate, untouched by fear, unmoved by compassion.
Few such men occur in the long history of civilization, and none who has not helped to change it.
The impassive figure crossed, with a silent, catlike step, to the long table, and became seated there.
One of the curious objects on the table sprang to life, as if touched by sudden moonlight. It was a crystal globe resting on a metal base. Dimly at first, the outlines of a face materialized in the crystal, and then grew clear. They became the features of an old Chinese, white-moustached, wrinkled, benign.
“You called me, Doctor?”
The voice, though distant, was clear. A crinkled smile played over the parchment face in the crystal.
“You have all the reports?”
The second voice was harsh, at points sibilant, but charged with imperious authority. It bore no resemblance to that of Professor Hoffmeyer.
“The last is timed six-fifteen. Shall I give you a summary?”
“Proceed, Huan Tsung. I am listening.”
And Huan Tsung, speaking in his quiet room above a shop in Pell Street, a room in which messages were received mysteriously, by day and by night, from all over Manhattan, closed his wise old eyes and opened the pages of an infallible memory.
This man whose ancestors had been cultured noblemen when most of ours were living in caves, spoke calmly across a system of communication as yet unheard of by Western science . . .
“Excellency will wish to know that our Burmese agent was recognized by Nayland Smith in the grillroom and followed by two F.B.I, operatives. I gave instructions that he be transferred elsewhere. He reports that he has arrived safely. His notes of the conversation at the next table are before me.” They contain nothing new. Shall I relate them?”
“No. I shall interview the woman personally. Proceed.”
“Nayland Smith visited the deputy commissioner and has been alone with him more than two hours. Nature of conversation unknown. The Greek covering his movements was intercepted and questioned, but had nothing to disclose. He is clumsy, and I have had him removed.”
“You did well Huan Tsung. Such bunglers breed danger.”
“Mai Cha, delivering Chinese vase sent by club secretary for repair, attired herself in the black garment she carries and gained a gallery above the library where Michael Frobisher talked with a medical friend. She reports that Frobisher has had sight of our agent at Palling Waters. Therefore I have transferred this agent. Mai Cha retired, successfully, with price of repairs.”
“Commend Mai Cha.”
“I have done so, Excellency. She is on headquarters duty tonight. Excellency can commend her himself.”
“The most recent movements of Frobisher, Nayland Smith, and Dr. Craig.”
“Frobisher awaits his wife at the Ritz-Carlton. Nayland Smith is covered, but no later report has reached me. Dr. Craig is in his office.”
“Frobisher has made no other contacts?”
“None, Excellency. The stream flows calmly. It is the hour for repose, when the wise man reflects.”
“Wait and watch, Huan Tsung. I must think swiftly.”
“Always I watch—and it is unavoidable that I wait until I am called away.”
Moonlight in the crystal faded out, and with it the wrinkled features of the Mandarin Huan Tsung.
Complete silence claimed the dimly lighted room. The wearer of the yellow robe remained motionless for a long time. Then, he stood up and crossed to the divan, upon which he stretched his gaunt body. He struck a silver bell which hung in a frame beside the rack of opium pipes. The bell emitted a high, sweet note.
Whilst the voice of the bell still lingered, drowsily, on the air, draperies in a narrow, arched opening were drawn aside, and a Chinese girl came in.
She wore national costume. She was very graceful, and her large, dark eyes resembled the eyes of a doe. She knelt and touched the carpet with her forehead.
“You have done well, Mai Cha. I am pleased with you.” The girl rose, but stood, head lowered and hands clasped, before the reclining figure. A flush crept over her dusky cheeks. “Prepare the jade pipe. I seek inspiration.” Mai Cha began quietly to light the little lamp on the stool.
* * *
Although no report had reached old Huan Tsung, nevertheless Nayland Smith had left police headquarters.
He was fully alive to the fact that every move he had made since entering New York City had been noted, that he never stirred far without a shadow.
