The Mask of Fu Manchu

swing diminished....

“One of the most ancient signaling devices in the world, Greville—probably prehistoric in origin. Listen!”

I heard running footsteps, many running footsteps, in the street below—all receding into the distance....

Sir Denis laughed again, shortly.

“Our bull-roarer has successfully dispersed the curious natives!” he said.

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH

THE BLACK SHADOW

Dawn was very near when that odd party assembled in the room which we used as an office, the room in which Van Berg had died. Nayland Smith presided, looking haggardly tired after his exertions of the night. He paced up and down continuously. The chief stood near the door, shifting from foot to foot in his equally restless fashion. Rima sat in the one comfortable chair and I upon the arm of it.

A Persian police officer who spoke perfect English completed the party.

“Dr. Van Berg, as you know,” said Sir Denis, “died in this room. I have tried to explain how the murderer gained access. The room being higher than Sir Lionel’s, the line used was shorter, but the method was the same. I found fingerprints and footmarks on the roof of the mosque and also on the ledge below these shutters. A man stabbed as Van Berg was stabbed bleeds from the mouth; therefore I found no bloodstains. The Negro was swung across, not from the window, but from the roo/’ofthe mosque. He employed the same device, having quietly entered, of spraying the head of the sleeper with some drug which so far we haven’t been able to identify. It smells like mimosa. Fortunately, a portion remains in the spray upon the dead African, and analysis may enlighten us.”

“But Dr. Van Berg was stabbed, as I remember?” said the Persian official.

“Certainly!” Nayland Smith snapped. “He had a pair of Caspian kittens sleeping at the foot of his bed. The bed used to stand there, just where you are sitting. They awakened immediately and in turn awakened him. He must have realised what was afoot, and he sprang straight for the box. It was his first and only thought—for already he was under the influence of the drug. The Negro knifed him from behind.”

He pointed to a narrow-bladed knife which lay upon a small table.

“He came provided for a similar emergency to-night....

That unhappy mystery, I think, is solved.”

“I cannot doubt it,” the Persian admitted. “But the strength of this material,” touching a piece of the slender yellow-gray line, “is amazing. What is it?”

“It’s silkworm gut,” Sir Lionel shouted. “I recognized it at once. It’s the strongest animal substance known. It’s strong enough to land a shark, if he’s played properly.”

“I don’t agree with you. Barton,” Nayland Smith said quietly. “It certainly resembles silkworm gut, but it is infinitely stronger.”

Before the chief could reply:

“A very singular business. Sir Lionel,” the suave official murmured. “But I am happy to leam that no Persian subject is concerned in this murderous affair.”

There was a pause, and then:

“A fourth man was concerned,” said Nayland Smith, speaking unusually slowly. “He, as well as the Negro whom I wounded, has managed to get away. Probably there are exits from the mosque with which I am unacquainted?”

“You suggest that the fourth man concerned was one of our subjects?”

“I suggest nothing. I merely state that there was a fourth man. He was concealed in a window of the mosque.”

“Probably another of these Negroes—who are of a type quite unfamiliar to me....”

“They are Ogboni!” shouted the chief. “They come from a district of the Slave Coast I know well! They’re members of a secret Voodoo society. You should read my book The Sorcerers of Dahomey. I spent a year in their territory. When I saw that bull roarer there—” he pointed to the frontal bone with the twine attached, which also lay upon the small table—”it gave me the clue. I knew that these West African negroes were Ogboni. They’re active as cats and every bit as murderous. But I agree with Smith, that they were working under somebody else’s direction.”

The Persian official, a dignified and handsome man of forty-odd, wearing well tailored European clothes, raised his heavy brows and smiled slightly.

“Are you suggesting. Sir Lionel,” he asked, “that the religious trouble, which I fear you have brought about, is at the bottom of this?”

“I am,” the chief replied, glaring at him truculently.

“It’s beyond doubt,” said Nayland Smith. “The aim of the whole conspiracy was to gain possession of the green box.”

The Persian continued to smile.

“And in this aim it would seem that the conspirators have been successful.”

“They certainly managed to smuggle the box out of the mosque,” Nayland Smith admitted grimly, “although one of the pair was wounded, as I know for a fact.”

Our visitor stood up.

“Some sort of rough justice has been done,” he said. “The actual assassin of your poor friend Dr. Van Berg has met his deserts, as has his most active accomplice. The green box, I believe, contained valuable records of your recent inquiries in Khorassan....”

His very intonation told me unmistakably that he believed nothing of the kind....

“I feel, Sir Lionel, that this may represent a serious loss to Oriental students—nor can I imagine of what use these— records can be to those who have resorted to such dreadful measures to secure them.”

The chief clapped his hands, and Alt Mahmoud came in. The Persian official stooped and kissed Rima’s fingers, shook hands with the rest of us, and went out. There was silence for a few moments, and then:

“You know. Barton,” said Nayland Smith, pacing up and down rapidly, “Ispahan, though quite civilised, is rather off the map; and frankly—local feeling is against you. I mean this Mokanna movement is going to play hell in Persia if it goes on. As you started it—you’re not popular.”

“Never have been,” growled the chief; “never expect to be.”

“Not the point,” rapped Smith. “There’s going to be worse to come—when they know.”

A silence followed which I can remember more vividly than many conversations. Rima squeezed my arm and looked up at me in a troubled way. Sir Denis was not a man to panic. But he had made it perfectly clear that he took a grave view of the situation.

Sir Lionel had fenced with the local authorities throughout, knowing that they could have no official information regarding the relics—since, outside our own party (and now Captain Woodville and Stratton Jean), nobody but Amir Khan knew we had found them.

At the cost of one life in our camp and two in their own the enemy had secured the green box...but the green box was empty! I knew now why the chief had been so conscience-stricken by the death of Van Berg; I knew that the relics had never been where we all supposed them to be from the time that we came to Ispahan.

Van Berg had died defending an empty box....Sir Lionel began to laugh in his boisterous fashion. “We’ve scored over them. Smith!” he shouted, and shook his clenched fist. They had Van Berg—but we got a pair of the swine to-night! Topping it all—they’ve drawn a blank!”

His laughter ceased, and that wonderful, lined old face settled down again into the truculent mask which was the front Sir Lionel Barton showed to the world.

“It’s a poor triumph,” he added, “to pay for the loss of Van Berg.”