'I knew,' she whispered; and although she continued bravely to smile, there was horror in her eyes.
'He is so clever! But I was right!'
A nameless but chill foreboding possessed my mind. I believe the others shared it. I was thinking of the man who had gone out to meet this menace, and had come to his end, alone against many, in that damnable house in Kharga. But, Petrie now ringing for cock- tails, we all tried to show a bold front to our troubles. Yet even as I raised my glass I seemed to detect, like a sort of patrol, the approach of something; not as a memory, but as words spoken eerily, to hear a bell-like voice:
'I am so lonely, Shan....'
For days and nights, for weeks, I had lain in her power... the witch-woman; daughter of this fiend incarnate, Dr. Fu Manchu. 'She is evil, evil...' Rima had said. And I knew it for truth. Much as we had all suffered, I felt that worse was to come. I could hear the cheery, familiar roar of London's traffic beneath me; sometimes, dimly, I could catch snatches of conversation in the adjoining apartment, occupied by an enthusiastic Amer- ican traveller and his wife.
Everything was so safe, so normal. Yet I knew, I could not venture to doubt, that some climax in the incredible business which had blotted out a month of my life and had brought Sir Lionel Barton to the edge of eternity, was creeping upon us.
7
'Thank goodness that part of the business is over,' said Weymouth. 'There were no official formalities, as the Pasha is still indisposed. He was all silk mufflers and fur collar. He has only one secretary with him. The other members of his suite are staying at the Platz over the way. He's safe indoors, anyhow. '
'Safe?' Mrs Petrie echoed and laughed unhappily. 'After what I have told you. Superintendent?'
Weymouth's kindly face looked very grim, and he exchanged a troubled glance with Petrie; then:
'She never used to be wrong, doctor,' he confessed. 'Honestly, I don't know what to make of it. I sent a man around directly I got the news. But of course the shop was closed and locked. I don't know what to make of it,' he repeated. The woman was rapidly becoming a nightmare to me, but if the Doctor in person has appeared on the scene...'
He spread his hands in a helpless gesture; and we were all silent for some time. Then Weymouth stood up:
'It's very nice of you, Mrs. Petrie,' he said, 'to ask me to dine with you. I have one or two little jobs to do downstairs, first--and I'm going to have another shot to get a look at Mr. Solkel. It isn't really my case.' He smiled in the awkwardly boyish manner which made the man so lovable. 'But I've been retained as a sort of specialist, and Yale is good enough to be glad. '
'I suppose,' said Petrie, as Weymouth made for the door, 'there are detectives on duty in the hotel? '
'Five, with Fletcher in charge. That should be enough. But I'm worried about Mr. Solkel. His official description doesn't corre- spond with yours, Greville. For one thing, they tell me he wears glasses, is in delicate health, and keeps to his room constantly. However....'
He went out.
Petrie stared hard in my direction.
'There's absolutely no doubt,' he said slowly, 'that Madame Ingomar's campaign has opened well, for her. Her astonishing indiscretion, I can only ascribe to'--he paused, smiling, and glanced at his wife--'a sudden and characteristically Oriental infatu- ation.'
She flushed, glancing at him, and:
'Nayland Smith once said that about me!' she replied.
'I'm glad he did!' Petrie returned. 'But if the daughter is anything like the father, I confess even now I don't envy Swazi Pasha's chances. Just check up on madame's record, and you will see what I mean. Apart from certain mysterious movements last year, in such widely divided places as Pekin, Turkestan, Siberia, and the northern provinces of India, we may take if for a fact that Professor Zeitland fell a victim to this Chinese she-devil. He stood in her way. He knew something about Lafleur's Tomb which she wanted to know. Having learned it, it became necessary that he should be blotted out. This duly occurred, according to schedule. Barton was next in her path. He served her purpose and escaped by a miracle. She got what she wanted--the contents of the tomb. If we could even guess the importance of these, we might begin to understand why she stuck at nothing to achieve her end.'
He paused to light a fresh cigarette, and then:
'I believe poor old Smith knew,' he went on. 'He was the one man in the world she had really to fear. And he...' the sentence remained unfinished.
'That she regarded Swazi Pasha as an obstruction,' I said, 'she was good enough to tell me herself.'
Petrie glanced at his wife, whose expres- sive eyes registered a deep horror; then:
'I said a while ago,' he added, 'that I don't give very much for his chances. Self- ishly, I can find it in my heart to wish that he had chosen another hotel. Karamaneh has lived in the storm centre too long to want any further experiences.'
This, then, was the atmosphere which surrounded us all that evening in a London hotel; this the shadow under which we lay.
During dinner--which was served in Petrie's sitting-room, for Weymouth had had no opportunity of dressing:
'I suppose,' said I, 'that Mr. Solkel is receiving suitable attention?'
Weymouth nodded.
'He hasn't gone out,' he replied. 'But I hear that a new wardrobe trunk was delivered and taken up to his room this afternoon. This suggests that he is leaving shortly. If he goes out he will be followed. If he rings for anything, the waiter will be a Scotland Yard man.'
Weymouth had secured a small room right up under the roof, for London was packed. But I drew a great sense of security from his presence in the building. At his wife's request, Petrie had abandoned a programme for the evening, arranged earlier, and had decided to remain at home.
When we said good night to our host and hostess, Weymouth came along to my room. Pausing in the corridor, he stared at the door of Number 41; but not until we had entered my adjoining apartment and lighted our pipes, did he speak; then:
'Swazi Pasha has cancelled an engage- ment to dine with the Prime Minister to- night, owing to the delay in Paris,' he said. 'He's not going out and is receiving no one. Even the Press have been refused. But Yale's job starts tomorrow. The Pasha has four public appointments. '
'You feel fairly confident, then, of his safety to-night? '
'Perfectly,' Weymouth replied grimly. 'I feel so confident about it that I'm going to patrol the hotel in person! You turn in, Greville. You're not really fit yet. Good night.'
8
Sleep was a difficult problem. Apart from a morbid and uncontrollable apprehension, I was intensely strung up by reason of the fact that Rima was due in the morning. I tried reading, but simply couldn't concentrate upon the printed page.
The jade-green eyes ofFah Lo Suee began to haunt me, and in the dialogue of the story I was trying to read I seemed to hear her voice, speaking the lines in that bell-like, hypnotic voice.
I relived those ages of horror and torment in the green-gold room: I saw again the malignant dwarf-- 'A hashishin,' Weymouth had told me. 'They belong to the Old Man of the Mountain--Sheikh Ismail.' I heard the creature's dying shrieks; I saw the dacoit return, carrying his bloody knife....
Throwing down the magazine disgust- edly, I began to pace my room. I contem- plated another whisky-and- soda, but realized in time that it would be a poor cure for insomnia. The after-theatre rush was subsiding. Piccadilly was settling down into its nightly somnolence. That inner circle of small, expensive streets containing the exclu- sive dance clubs would be full of motor traffic now, for London's night life is highly centralised, the Bohemia of Soho impinging on the white-shirted gaiety ofMayfair; two tiny spots on the map; sleepless eyes in a sleeping world.
I wondered if Petrie and his wife were awake--and I wondered what Weymouth was doing. This curiosity about Weymouth grew so intense that I determined to ring and find out. It was at this moment that I first heard the sound.
It was difficult to identify. I stood still, listening--all those doubts and surmises centred now upon my mysterious neighbour, Mr. Solkel. What I heard was this:
