Smith was too highly excited for ordinary conversation, but he threw out short, staccato remarks.
'I have followed Fu-Manchu from Hongkong,' he jerked. 'Lost him at Suez. He got here a boat ahead of me. Eltham has been corresponding with some mandarin up-country. Knew that. Came straight to you. Only got in this evening. He—Fu-Manchu—has been sent here to get Eltham. My God! and he has him! He will question him! The interior of China—a seething pot, Petrie! They had to stop the leakage of information. He is here for that.'
The car pulled up with a jerk that pitched me out of my seat, and the chauffeur leaped to the road and ran ahead. Smith was out in a trice, as the man, who had run up to a constable, came racing back.
'Jump in, sir—jump in!' he cried, his eyes bright with the lust of the chase; 'they are making for Battersea!'
And we were off again.
Through the empty streets we roared on. A place of gasometers and desolate waste lots slipped behind and we were in a narrow way where gates of yards and a few lowly houses faced upon a prospect of high blank wall.
'Thames on our right,' said Smith, peering ahead. 'His rathole is by the river as usual. Hi!'—he grabbed up the speaking-tube—'Stop! Stop!'
The limousine swung in to the narrow sidewalk, and pulled up close by a yard gate. I, too, had seen our quarry—a long, low bodied car, showing no inside lights. It had turned the next corner, where a street lamp shone greenly, not a hundred yards ahead.
Smith leaped out, and I followed him.
'That must be a cul de sac,' he said, and turned to the eager-eyed chauffeur. 'Run back to that last turning,' he ordered, 'and wait there, out of sight. Bring the car up when you hear a police-whistle.'
The man looked disappointed, but did not question the order. As he began to back away, Smith grasped me by the arm and drew me forward.
'We must get to that corner,' he said, 'and see where the car stands, without showing ourselves.'
Chapter 3 THE WIRE JACKET
I suppose we were not more than a dozen paces from the lamp when we heard the thudding of the motor. The car was backing out!
It was a desperate moment, for it seemed that we could not fail to be discovered. Nayland Smith began to look about him, feverishly, for a hiding-place, a quest in which I seconded with equal anxiety. And Fate was kind to us—doubly kind as after events revealed. A wooden gate broke the expanse of wall hard by upon the right, and, as the result of some recent accident, a ragged gap had been torn in the panels close to the top.
The chain of the padlock hung loosely; and in a second Smith was up, with his foot in this as in a stirrup. He threw his arm over the top and drew himself upright. A second later he was astride the broken gate.
'Up you come, Petrie!' he said, and reached down his hand to aid me.
I got my foot into the loop of chain, grasped at a projection in the gatepost and found myself up.
'There is a crossbar on this side to stand on,' said Smith.
He climbed over and vanished in the darkness. I was still astride the broken gate when the car turned the corner, slowly, for there was scanty room; but I was standing upon the bar on the inside and had my head below the gap ere the driver could possibly have seen me.
'Stay where you are until he passes,' hissed my companion, below. 'There is a row of kegs under you.'
The sound of the motor passing outside grew loud—louder—then began to die away. I felt about with my left foot; discerned the top of a keg, and dropped, panting, beside Smith.
'Phew!' I said—'that was a close thing! Smith—how do we know—'
'That we have followed the right car?' he interrupted. 'Ask yourself the question: what would any ordinary man be doing motoring in a place like this at two o'clock in the morning?'
'You are right, Smith,' I agreed. 'Shall we get out again?'
'Not yet. I have an idea. Look yonder.'
He grasped my arm, turning me in the desired direction.
Beyond a great expanse of unbroken darkness a ray of moonlight slanted into the place wherein we stood, spilling its cold radiance upon rows of kegs.
'That's another door,' continued my friend—I now began dimly to perceive him beside me. 'If my calculations are not entirely wrong, it opens on a wharf gate—'
A steam siren hooted dismally, apparently from quite close at hand.
'I'm right!' snapped Smith. 'That turning leads down to the gate. Come on, Petrie!'
He directed the light of the electric torch upon a narrow path through the ranks of casks, and led the way to the further door. A good two feet of moonlight showed along the top. I heard Smith straining; then—
'These kegs are all loaded with grease!' he said, 'and I want to reconnoiter over that door.'
'I am leaning on a crate which seems easy to move,' I reported. 'Yes, it's empty. Lend a hand.'
We grasped the empty crate, and between us, set it up on a solid pedestal of casks. Then Smith mounted to this observation platform and I scrambled up beside him, and looked down upon the lane outside.
It terminated as Smith had foreseen at a wharf gate some six feet to the right of our post. Piled up in the lane beneath us, against the warehouse door, was a stack of empty casks. Beyond, over the way, was a kind of ramshackle building that had possibly been a dwelling-house at some time. Bills were stuck in the ground-floor window indicating that the three floors were to let as offices; so much was discernible in that reflected moonlight.
I could hear the tide, lapping upon the wharf, could feel the chill from the river and hear the vague noises which, night nor day, never cease upon the great commercial waterway.
'Down!' whispered Smith. 'Make no noise! I suspected it. They heard the car following!'
I obeyed, clutching at him for support; for I was suddenly dizzy, and my heart was leaping wildly— furiously.
'You saw her?' he whispered.
Saw her! yes, I had seen her! And my poor dream-world was toppling about me, its cities, ashes and its fairness, dust.
Peering from the window, her great eyes wondrous in the moonlight and her red lips parted, hair gleaming like burnished foam and her anxious gaze set upon the corner of the lane—was Karamaneh… Karamaneh whom once we had rescued from the house of this fiendish Chinese doctor; Karamaneh who had been our ally; in fruitless quest of whom,—when, too late, I realized how empty my life was become—I had wasted what little of the world's goods I possessed;—Karamaneh!
'Poor old Petrie,' murmured Smith—'I knew, but I hadn't the heart—He has her again—God knows by what chains he holds her. But she's only a woman, old boy, and women are very much alike—very much alike from Charing Cross to Pagoda Road.'
He rested his hand on my shoulder for a moment; I am ashamed to confess that I was trembling; then, clenching my teeth with that mechanical physical effort which often accompanies a mental one, I swallowed the bitter draught of Nayland Smith's philosophy. He was raising himself, to peer, cautiously, over the top of the door. I did likewise.
The window from which the girl had looked was nearly on a level with our eyes, and as I raised my head above the woodwork, I quite distinctly saw her go out of the room. The door, as she opened it, admitted a dull light, against which her figure showed silhouetted for a moment. Then the door was reclosed.
'We must risk the other windows,' rapped Smith.
Before I had grasped the nature of his plan he was over and had dropped almost noiselessly upon the casks outside. Again I followed his lead.
'You are not going to attempt anything, singlehanded—against him?' I asked.
'Petrie—Eltham is in that house. He has been brought here to be put to the question, in the medieval, and Chinese, sense! Is there time to summon assistance?'
I shuddered. This had been in my mind, certainly, but so expressed it was definitely horrible—revolting, yet stimulating.
