A dim, metallic sound, which might have been made by someone slightly shaking a sheet of thin metal. Next, a faint sibilance which oddly suggested paying out a line. Then came silence....
My brain was functioning at high pres- sure. Whereas, in the foggy stage that followed my dreadful experience, I should have been incapable of thinking consistently about anything, now a dozen theories sprang to my mind. I decided to stand still--and to listen.
The sound was renewed. It came from beyond the fireplace!
An electric radiator, which I had had no occasion to use, stood there. Stooping, I quietly placed it on the rug; and kneeling down I pressed my ear to the tiles of the recess in which it had rested.
Whispering!
And at this very moment a fact occurred to me... a startling fact!
My room was directly above Suite Number 5!
The connection defied me, but of one thing I was sure: these strange noises, which had temporarily ceased, portended some attempt on Swazi Pasha's apartments below.
I came to a swift decision. Walking silently in my slippers, I crossed to the door, opened it cautiously, and peeped out into the corridor. It was empty and dark save for one dim light at the end. Leaving my door ajar, I started for the staircase....
A sense of urgency possessed me--I must find Weymouth or Fletcher! The fate not only of a Turkish statesman but perhaps of Europe depended upon promptitude.
Silence everywhere as I hurried along the corridor to the staircase. I raced down in semi-darkness. I reached the corridor below, lighted only by one dim lamp just above the elevator shaft. I looked right. The corridor was empty. I looked left. There was no one.
Hesitant, I stood debating my course. I might ring for the lift-man. I might race on down into the lobby and summon the night porter. The result would have been better accomplished had I used my own room telephone. No doubt I had counted too confi- dently on meeting Fletcher or Weymouth.
I determined to take the matter into my own hands. I turned left, and walked swiftly in the direction of the door of Suite Number 5.
Even at the moment that I reached it I hesitated again. Of the fact that some deadly peril, urgent, insistent, threatened Swazi Pasha, I seemed to have occult information. But, as I realized, my facts were scanty. If I roused him, I might save his life. On the other hand, I might make myself ridiculous.
There was a bell-push outside the door, and my hand was raised to press it. Suddenly, silently, the door opened... and I found myself staring into the gaunt, angular face of Nayland Smith!
Chapter Ninth
THE MAN FROM EL-KHAEGA
With one significant gesture, Nayland Smith silenced the words on my lips. He took a quick step forward into the corridor and I saw that he was barefooted. Then, his lips very close to my ear:
'Lucky I heard you,' he whispered. 'One ring would have ruined everything! Come in. Be silent.... Whatever happens, do nothing.'
He stepped back, pointing urgently to my slippers. I removed them and tiptoed into the lobby. Nayland Smith reclosed the front door without making a sound and led me into the principal bedroom. Except for a faint streak of light coming through the curtains, the room was in darkness. He pushed me down into a corner near the foot of the bed and disappeared.
To say that I was astounded would be to labour the obvious. I actually questioned my sanity That Nayland Smith was alive made me want to shout with joy. But what in heav- en's name was he doing in Swazi Pasha's apartments? Where had be been and why had he failed to notify us of his escape? Finally, what was it that I had nearly ruined by my unexpected appearance and for what was he waiting in the dark?
Where Smith had gone and why we were concealing ourselves, I simply couldn't imagine; but, my eyes growing used to the gloom, I peered carefully about the bedroom without moving from the position in which he had placed me. I could see no one, hear nothing.
Then all my senses became keyed up-- alert. I had detected a sound of soft footsteps in the corridor outside! I waited--listening to it drawing nearer and nearer. The walker had reached the door, I thought.... But he did not pause, but passed on. The sound of footsteps grew faint--and finally died away.
Silence fell again. The window behind those drawn curtains was open at the top, and sometimes faint street noises reached my ears: the hooting of a passing taxi, the deeper note of a private car; and once, rumbling of what I judged to be a string of heavy lorries. But in the building about me, complete silence prevailed. I found myself looking across an eiderdown bedspread in the direction of the fireplace. Except that it was more ornate, it closely resembled that in my own room. The shock of meeting Smith, the present horrible mystery, keyed up my already wide-awake brain. I began to form a theory....
At which moment, as if to confirm it, came a faint sound. Something was shuffling lightly behind the electric radiator! This was backed by green tiles, or imita- tion tiles which I judged to be stamped on metal. The deep recess which they lined resembled a black cavity from where I crouched. I could just detect one spot of light on the metal hood of the radiator.
Following some moments of tense silence, came a second sound. And this... I recognized.
It was the same subdued, metallic clang which had arrested my attention in the room above!
I thought that the darkness behind the radiator had grown even denser. I scarcely breathed. Fists clenched, I watched, preparing to duck if any light should come in, since my discovery was clearly the last thing Nayland Smith desired.
The spot of high light on the hood moved outwards, towards me. I was afraid to trust my sight--until a very soft padding on the carpet provided an explanation of this phenomenon.
Someone had opened the back of the fire- place and now was lifting the radiator out bodily....
Who, or what, had crept out into the room?
Nothing moved again, but I thought a figure stood between me and the recess. Whatever it might be, it remained motion- less, so that, after I had concentrated my gaze, it presently took shape in the dusk--but such horrible shape, that, divided only by the width of the bed from it, I shrank involun- tarily.
It was a spiritual as well as a physical shrinking, such as I had experienced in that room in Limehouse, when, on the night of horror which had led to my release, a ghastly yellow dwarf had crossed my room, carrying a lantern. Of the fate of that misshapen thing I had seen bloody evidence. This figure now standing silent in the darkness-- standing so near to me--was another of the malignant killers; one of those Arabian abominations attached to the Old Man of the Mountain... he whose blazing eyes, as he sprang up from his mattress when the Mandarin Ki Ming denounced us, formed my last memory of the Council of Seven....
A sickly sweet exotic perfume stole to my nostrils.... I knew it!
To crouch there inactive, with definite terror beginning to claim me, was next to impossible, and I wondered why Nayland Smith had imposed so appalling a task. I wondered if he had seen what I could see-- knew what I knew.
The answer came swiftly, almost silently. I heard a dull, nauseating thud, followed by a second, heavier thud on the carpet. Nayland Smith's voice came in a tense whisper:
'Don't stir, Greville.'
My heart was beating like a sledge- hammer.
2
I began to count the seconds.... Fully a minute passed in absolutely unbroken silence.
Nayland Smith, I realized now, had been concealed in one of two recesses flanking the projecting fireplace. This same formation occurred in my own room, and might betoken a girder or platform, or possible a flue. Formerly, the Park Avenue had been fitted with open coal-fires.
Another minute passed. Nothing happened. The suspense began to grow intol- erable. A third minute
