excusable that I should have fallen into the trap planted for me.
'Murray's house overlooks a common, and it's usually safe to trust to picking up a taxi on the main road, although sometimes one has to wait. During dinner I said nothing about Palmer, being still in two minds as to her complicity. But when I left, I made a blunder for which I should certainly condemn the rawest recruit.
'The door of Murray's house opens on a side turning--and as I came out a taxi, proceeding slowly in the direction of the common, passed me. The man looked out as I came down the steps and slowed up. I counted it a stroke of luck, said 'Lord's cricket ground--main entrance'--and jumped in.'
Nayland Smith smiled. It was not the genial, revealing smile that I knew.
'End of story!' he added. The windows were unopenable. As I closed the door, which locked automatically, a charge of gas was puffed into the interior. That taxi, Greville, had been waiting for me! '
'Then Weymouth and Yale-- '
'Weymouth and Yale, with a Flying Squad party, are covering the house of some perfectly harmless citizen in Finchley Road! What they'll do when I fail to turn up, I can't say. But they haven't a ghost of a clue to this place-- wherever it is! '
'It's beside the Regent Canal,' I replied slowly 'That's all I know about it. '
'Quite sufficient,' he rapped. 'In your amazing interview with Li King Su I detect our only ray of hope....'
An interruption came. Dimly--for sounds were muffled in this room--I heard the ringing of a bell. I saw Nayland Smith start. We both listened. We had not long to wait for the nest development.
Into the room the huge Nubian came running--followed by the man whom I knew now to be a Dyak. They swept down upon Nayland Smith!
I became tongue-tied. Horror had robbed me of speech.
The man with the mark of Kali on his brow bent swiftly. I tugged at my bonds. Nayland Smith caught my glance.. Don't worry, Greville,' he said. 'A hasty removal of prisoners is evidently--'
The Nubian clapped a huge black hand over the speaker's mouth!
I saw Nayland Smith, released from the chair, but rebound by the Dyak expert, lifted in the grasp of the giant Negro. He carried Sir Denis as he might have carried a toy dog under one arm--but he kept his free hand pressed to the captive's mouth.
There came a breathless interval. That dim ringing was renewed. The devotee of Kali considered me, his eyes lascivious with murder. Then, as the ringing persisted, he grasped my bound ankles, jerked me to the carpet, and dragged me out of the room! Where, formerly, I had been carried up, now I was hauled down and down, until I knew I was in the cellars of the house.
That I arrived there without sprained wrists or a cracked skull was something of a miracle. Arms fastened behind me, I had nevertheless done all I could to protect my head as I was dragged down many steps to the basement.
Into some dark, paved place, I was finally bundled. I divined, rather than knew, that Nayland Smith lay beside me.
'Sir Denis,' I gasped.
Wiry fingers gripped my throat, squeezing me to silence; but:
'Here!' Smith replied.
The word was cut off shortly--significantly.
There came a stirring up above--a sound of voices--of movement... shuffling.
My brain began to work rapidly, despite all the maltreatment my skull had received. This was an unexpected visit of some kind! The house was being cleared of its noxious elements, of its prisoners; made presentable for inspection! Possibly--the thought set my heart hammering-- Weymouth, after all, had secured some clue which had led him here.
I listened intently.
Short, regular breathing almost in my ear warned me that the slightest sound on my part would result in that strangle grip being renewed.
Yes! It was the police! There were heavy footsteps in the lobby above--deep voices.
Those sounds died away.
I told myself that the search party had gone up to explore the higher floors--and I wondered who was posing as owner of the house--and what had been done with the body of Li King Su.
The cellar in which I lay possessed drum- like properties. I distinctly heard heavy foot- steps on the stairs-- descending.
Perhaps the searchers had been unsatis- fied! Perhaps they were about to go! Then I heard, and recognized, a deep voice--
Weymouth!
At that, I determined to risk all.
A significant choking sound which came from the darkness behind might have warned me--for, even as I opened my mouth, a lean, oily smelling hand covered it--a steely grip was on my throat!...
'I trust you are satisfied, Inspector?' I heard, in a quavering female voice. 'If there is anything else-- '
'Nothing further, madam, thank you!'... Weymouth!... 'Evidently she didn't come here. I can only apologise for troubling you.'
Receding footsteps... murmurs of conver- sation.
The bang of a street door! My head dropped back limply as the deathly grip was removed; a whisper came out of the darkness:
'A divine accident--wasted!'
Nayland Smith was the speaker... and I knew that that indomitable spirit was very near to despair.
What possibly could have led Weymouth here? Clearly he had no information to justify a detailed search; no warrant. 'Evidently she didn't come here....' In those words the clue lay. And who was the old woman of the quavering voice?
Rapidly, these reflections flashed through my mind--but uppermost was a sense of such bitter, hopeless disappointment as I had never known before.
Truly, it was Fate.
Perhaps, as Fah Lo Suee believed, as Li King Su had believed, the day of the West was ended; perhaps we were obstacles in the way of some cataclysmic change, ordained, inevitable--and so must be brushed aside.
When presently we found ourselves back in that room where the figure of Kali sat, immutable, on a lacquer dias, I told myself that nothing which could happen now could stir me from this dreadful apathy into which I was fallen. And, as had been the case so often in my dealings with this fiendish group, I was wrong.
From my place on the divan I stared across at Nayland Smith where he sat limply in the armchair. Then I looked quickly around.
Some time before I had suspected the tall lacquer cabinet-- because of its resemblance to one I remembered at Abbots Hold--of being a concealed door. I had imagined that the figure of Kali which surmounted it was moving. I had been right.
The masked door opened and Fah Lo Suee came in.
She wore black gloves, carried a white silk shawl, a lace cap, and a pair of spectacles!... Her smile was mocking.
I might have known--from her uncanny power of mastering languages and dialects-- who the 'old woman' had been!
'A difficult moment, Shan,' she said composedly. 'Something I had not foreseen or provided for. A keener brain--such as yours, Sir Denis--might have challenged the gloves, even in the case of a very eccentric old lady!'
She began to pull them off, revealing those beautiful, long, feline hands.
'But my hands are rather memorable,' she added without hint of vanity and simply as a statement of fact. 'A late but expected guest was traced here. Fortunately, the taxi- driver upon whose evidence the visit was made was uncertain of the number. But it was very clever of the superintendent--following a telephone call from the lady's last address-- to find the man who had driven her from the station.'
She turned her long, arrow eyes in Nayland Smith's direction... and I saw his jaw harden as he clenched his teeth. I know, now, that already he understood.
