Nayland Smith ceased his promenade at the window and stood with his back to all of us, staring out.
“I don’t know where you’ve hidden the relics. Barton,” he said slowly, “but I may have to ask you to tell me. One thing I do know. This part of the East is no longer healthy for any of us. The second attempt has failed—but the third...”
“What are you suggesting?” Sir Lionel growled; “that I give ‘em up? Suppose it came to that. Who am I dealing with?” Nayland Smith did not turn. But:
“I believe I can tell you,” he answered quietly. “Then tell me! Don’t throw out hints. Speak up, man!” At that, Nayland Smith turned and stared at the speaker, remaining silent for some moments. At last:
“I flew here in a two-seater from Basra,” he replied. “There was no other aircraft available in the neighbourhood. I have already made arrangements, however. Imperial Airways have lent us a taxi. You must realise. Barton, the position is serious.” Something in his manner temporarily silenced the chief; until:
“I do realise it,” he admitted grudgingly. “Some organiser has got hold of this wave of fanaticism which my blowing up of El Mokanna’s tomb started, and he realises—I suppose that’s what you’re driving at?—that production of the actual relics would clinch the matter. Am I right?”
“You are!” said Nayland Smith. “And I must ask you to consider one or two facts. The drug which was used in the case of Van Berg, and again last night, is, I admit unfamiliar. But the method of employment is not. You see what I mean?”
Rima’s grip on my arm tightened; and:
“Shan,” she said, looking up at me, “it was what happened two years ago in England!”
The chief’s face was a study. Under tufted eyebrows he was positively glaring at Nayland Smith. The latter continued:
“Rima begins to realise what I mean. The device for passing from house to house without employing the usual method of descending to the street is also familiar to me. It was
He paused, and I found my mind working feverishly. Then, bringing that odd conversation to a dramatic head, came a husky query from Sir Lionel.
“Good God! Smith!” he said.
The emphasis on “he” resolved my final doubt.
“You’re not suggesting, Sir Denis,” I asked, “that we are up against
Rima clutched me now convulsively. Once only had she met the stupendous genius, Dr. Fu Manchu, but the memory of that one interview would remain with her to the end of her days, as it would remain with me.
“If I had had any doubts. Barton,” said Nayland Smith, “your identification of the murderer and his accomplice would have settled them. They belong, you tell me, to a secret society on the Slave Coast.”
He paused, staring hard at Sir Lionel.
“I believe that there is no secret society of this character, however small or remote, which is not affiliated to the organisation known as the Si-Fan. That natives of the Pacific Islands are indirectly controlled by this group, I know for a fact; why not Negroes of West Africa? Consider the matter from another angle. What are natives of the Slave Coast doing in Persia? Who has brought them here?
“They are instruments, Barton, in the hands of a master schemer. For what object they were originally imported, we shall probably never know, but their usefulness in the present case has been proved. There can be no association between this West African society and the survivors of the followers of El Mokanna. These Negroes are in the train of some directing personality.”
It was morning, and the East is early afoot. From a neighbouring market street came sounds of movement and discords human and animal. Suddenly Sir Denis spoke again.
“If any doubt had remained in my mind. Barton, it would have been removed last night. You may recall that just before the first signal came, someone passed slowly along the street below?”
“Yes! I heard him—but I couldn’t see him.”
“I heard him, too!” I cried....
“I both heard him and
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
ROAD TO CAIRO
Weary though I was of all the East, nevertheless, Cairo represented civilisation. I think I have never felt a greater wave of satisfaction than at the moment when, completing the third and longest stage of our flight from Ispahan, we climbed down upon the sands of Egypt.
Dr. Petrie was there to meet us; and the greeting between himself and Sir Denis, while it had all the restraint which characterises our peculiar race, was nevertheless so intimate and affectionate that I turned away and helped Rima down the ladder.
When the chief, last to alight, joined his old friend, I felt that Rima and I had no further part in the affair.
It should have been a happy reunion, but a cloud lay over it—a cloud which I, personally, was helpless to dispel.
Dr. Petrie, no whit changed since last I had seen him, broke away from Sir Denis and the chief and hugged Rima and myself in both arms. The best of men are not wholly unselfish;
and part of Petrie’s present happiness was explainable by something which I had overheard as he had grasped Nayland Smith’s hand:
“Thank God, old man! Kara is home in England....”
Mrs. Petrie, the most beautiful woman I have ever met (Rima is not jealous of my opinion), was staying with Petrie’s people in Surrey, where the doctor shortly anticipated joining her.
I was sincerely glad. For the gaunt shadow of Fu Manchu again had crept over us, and the lovely wife whom Petrie had snatched from that evil genius was in safe keeping beyond the reach of the menace which stretched over us even here.
Nevertheless, this was a momentary hiatus, if no more than momentary. Rima extended her arms, raised her adorable little head, and breathed in the desert air as one inhaling a heavenly perfume.
“Shan,” she said, “I don’t feel a bit safe, yet. But at least we are in Egypt,
Those words “our Egypt” quickened my pulse. It was in Egypt that I had met her, and in Egypt that I had learned to love her. But above and beyond even this they held a deeper significance. There is something about Egypt which seems to enter the blood of some of us, and to make that old, secret land a sort of super-motherland. I lack the power properly to express what I mean, but over and over again I have found this odd sort of cycle operating—suggesting some mystic affinity with the “gift of the Nile,” which, once recognized, can never be shaken off.
“Our Egypt!” Yes, I appreciated what she meant....
Dr. Petrie had his car waiting, and presently we set out for Cairo. Our pilot, Humphreys, had official routine duties to perform, but arrangements were made for his joining us later.
The chief, with Nayland Smith and Rima, packed themselves in behind, and I sat beside Dr. Petrie in front. Having cleared the outskirts ofHeliopolis and got out onto the road to Cairo:
“This last job of yours, Greville,” said Petrie, “in Khorassan, has had its echoes even here.”
“Good heavens! You don’t tell me!”
