The Mask of Fu Manchu

“Frankly, I don’t know what to think,” Petrie confessed. “It sounds fantastic to a degree. Really, Smith, in the circumstances...”

Sir Denis, having failed to light up with the first match, turned irritably to the speaker.

“Have you ever had occasion to observe, Petrie,” he inquired acidly, “that my average behaviour tends to the absurd?”

“Not at all.”

“Very well.” He struck a second match. “I will quote, from memory, the terms of the agreement to which Barton and I have set our hands, witnessed by Greville, here.”

The second match failed also. Laying his pipe upon the table:

“The phrasing doesn’t matter,” he went on, “but the hub of the thing is this:

“Dr. Fu Manchu’s agent was authorised to propose that at a meeting place to be mutually agreed on, but one not less than half a mile from any inhabited dwelling, no more than two persons should present themselves with the relics of the Prophet. Of the other part it was agreed that no more than two persons should be with Rima. Rima having been accepted on our side, and the relics on the other, all should be permitted to depart unmolested.”

“Well?” said the chief, leaning across the table; “it was playing into our hands!”

“Listen,” Nayland Smith’s even voice continued: “Knowing with whom I was dealing, I made a further condition. It was this: that after the interchange of valuables (pardon me, Greville, but I don’t quite know how otherwise to express myself) there should be a ten minutes’ truce. Note the time— ten minutes.”

“I still remain in the dark,” I confessed. “So do I,” said Petrie.

“Wait!” the chief growled, watching Nayland Smith intently. “I begin to see—I think I begin to see.”

“Good for you, Barton,” was the reply. “I naturally anticipated an ambush. If Fu Manchu can secure what he wants and at the same time dispose of two people in the world who know much of himself and his methods, this would be a master stroke. I looked for loopholes in the agreement. While the doctor would not hesitate to murder any of us, he is incapable of dishonouring his bond. I played for safety.”

“Hopeless!” I exclaimed. “It appears to me that to-night we are walking with our eyes open right into a trap.”

“Wait!” With a third match the speaker got his pipe going. “By the courtesy of Mr. Aden it was left to me to suggest this meeting place. And I selected the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. It was a momentary inspiration, and I may have been wrong. But consider its advantages.”

He paused, and now we were all watching him intently.

“Apart from the condition that we shall be represented by no more than two persons at the meeting place, there is no clause in the agreement prohibiting our being covered by as many persons as we care to assemble!

“Police headquarters are advised. To-night at twelve o’clock Gizeh will be deserted; there’s no moon. A cordon will be drawn around the Pyramid. Nothing in my agreement with Mr. Aden prohibits this. When Rima is brought there from whatever place they have her in hiding, the fact will be reported to me.”

“By heaven!” cried the chief, and banged the table so violently that Petrie’s glass was upset; but, as if not noticing the fact. “By heaven! This is sheer genius. Smith. Your pickets will get her on the way?”

“It’s possible.”

Sir Lionel laughed boisterously and clapped his hands for a waiter.

“They won’t even get——” he began—and then paused.

I saw Sir Denis watching him, and I realised that he, as well as I, had noticed that schoolboy furtiveness creeping over Sir Lionel’s face. The arrival of the waiter interrupted us temporarily, but then:

“You see, Greville,” said Sir Denis, turning to me eagerly, “even if they slip past the pickets,and we have to enter the Pyramid, those inside will be at our mercy. Because the police will close around the entrance behind us, and——”

“And there’s only one entrance!” I concluded. “I see it all! We can’t fail to regain the relics?”

“This would be playing into our hands,” cried the chief, “if Fu Manchu agreed to it. We began cheering too soon! I admit the brilliancy of the scheme, Smith; I can see your point, now. But when a meeting place half a mile from any inhabited dwelling was suggested, Fu Manchu hadn’t thought about the Great Pyramid! He’s a devil incarnate and could probably work conjuring tricks almost anywhere else within the terms of the agreement. But the Pyramid! He’ll veto the whole thing when the slimy Aden reports.”

“I had fully anticipated it,” Nayland Smith admitted, “but only ten minutes ago, just before I joined you, the arrangement was confirmed on the telephone.”

“By whom!” I asked.

“By the only voice of its kind in the world—by the voice of Dr. Fu Manchu.”

“Good God!” I exclaimed—”then he’s here, in Cairo!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH

THE GREAT PYRAMID

We set out at eleven-thirty in Petrie’s car.

I suppose, of all the dark hours I have known, this was as black as any. I rested upon Sir Denis Nayland Smith as upon a rock....If he should fail me—all was lost.

That his singular plan was a good one I had accepted as a fact; failing this acceptance, I should have been in despair. Perhaps it was the aftermath of drugs to the influence of which I had been subjected; but I was in an oddly muted frame of mind. Frenzy had given place to a sort of Moslem-like resignation; a fatalistic, deadening recognition of the fact that if Rima, who was really all that mattered to me in the world, should have come to harm, life was ended.

At the village, where few lights were burning when we passed, a British policeman was on duty. Nayland Smith checked Petrie, and leaning out of the car:

“Anything passed?” he asked rapidly.

“Nothing much, sir. Two or three hotel parties. I’ve noticed a lot of funny-looking Bedouins about here to- night, but I suppose that’s nothing to do with the matter.”

“Making for Gizeh?”

“No, sir. They all went that way—into the village.”

“Go ahead, Petrie.”

As we swung around onto that long, straight tree-lined avenue which leads to the Plateau of Gizeh, I counted three cars which passed us, bound towards Cairo. There was nothing ahead, and nobody seemed to be following. As the hotel came into view:

“We have time in hand,” said Petrie, “shall I drive right ahead?”

“Pull up,” Nayland Smith directed sharply.

An Egyptian, who might have been a dragoman, had sprung from the shadow of the wall bordering the gardens of Mena House, where during the day a line of cars and camels may be seen. Nayland Smith craned out.

“Who is it?” he asked impatiently.

“Enderby, Sir Denis. You met me at headquarters to-day.” “Right! What have you to report?”

“Not a thing! I have four smart gyppies watching with me, and we have checked everybody. There’s absolutely nothing to report.”

“Leave the car here, Petrie,” said Nayland Smith, “we have time to walk. It may be better.”

Petrie backed the car in against the wall, and we all got out. The “Arab” whose name was Enderby, and