whom I took to be a secret service agent, conversed aside with Sir Denis for some time. Then, saluting in the native manner, he withdrew and disappeared into the shadows again.
“Queer business,” said Nayland Smith, pulling the lobe of his ear. “A gathering of the heads of the many orders of dervishes is taking place in the Village to-night. As a rule they don’t mix...And why at Gizeh?”
“Don’t like the sound of it myself,” the chief growled; but:
“D’you mind grabbing the case, Greville?” said Nayland Smith tersely.
With ill-concealed reluctance, Sir Lionel passed his leather suitcase into my possession; and we started up the sandy slope. I had abandoned speculation—almost abandoned hope;
having, in fact, achieved acceptance of the worst. Diamond stars gleamed in an ebony sky. The Great Pyramid, most wonderful, perhaps, of the structures of man, blotted out a triangle of the heavens. Our feet crunched on the sandy way. We were sombrely silent.
At one point, as we turned the bend at the top of the road, I remember that I wondered, momentarily, what the others were thinking about; and particularly if Sir Denis’s confidence remained unimpaired. My own, alas, had long since deserted me....
And dervishes were assembling at Gizeh. That certainly was odd. Why, as Nayland Smith had asked, at Gizeh?
Just as we were topping the slope a man appeared, apparently from nowhere, and so suddenly that I was startled out of my confused reverie. Petrie, who was beside me, grabbed my arm; and then:
“You’re early. Sir Denis,” said a voice. I knew it at once: it was that of Hewlett, Acting Super intendent of Police.
“Not so loud,” snapped Nayland Smith. “What’s the news?”
“None, I regret to say, sir.”
“You mean no one has entered The Pyramid?”
“Not a soul—if I can rely on my men!”
My heart sank—went down to zero. The scheme, the fantastic scheme, had failed. He was dealing with a super-mind, and Fu Manchu was laughing at him. It was unthinkable that the Chinese doctor should have exposed any of his agents to a danger so obvious.
“How many men have you here?”
“Sixty. The place is entirely surrounded.”
“What does this mean, Smith?” Petrie asked urgently. He turned to Hewlett, whom he evidently knew well, and: “How long have you been covering the Pyramid?” he added.
“Since the guides knocked off,” was the reply. “If anybody’s smuggled through in the interval, he must have been invisible.”
“It’s a booby trap,” said the chief shortly. “You’ve ruled me out, Smith, and perhaps it doesn’t matter. But, by heaven——”
“Disappear, Hewlett,” Nayland Smith directed tersely; and as Hewlett obediently merged into the shadows: “I don’t know what this means, Petrie,” he went on, “any more than you do. From the evidence, and I count it pretty sound, nobody has gone into the place to-night since sunset. But three of us have signed an agreement with an enemy I would strangle with my own hands if I had the opportunity, but with an enemy who has one redeeming virtue: he always keeps his word. We must keep ours.”
“He’s spotted the cordon,” Sir Lionel growled, “and he’s called his men off.”
“We have stuck strictly to the terms of the understanding. He must have anticipated that we should do our utmost to arrest his agents immediately the ten-minute truce ended.”
“Then he finds he can’t cope with the situation. He’s backed out—”
“My God!” I groaned, “where’s Rima? She can’t possibly be here!”
“Wait and see!” snapped Nayland Smith.
His words were spoken so savagely that I recognized the tension under which he was labouring and regretted my emotional outburst.
Tm sorry. Sir Denis,” I said. “It’s vital to me, and——” “It’s equally vital to
His words made me rather ashamed of myself. “I know,” I replied. “I’m terribly worked up.” “Barton,” came a tense order, “get in touch with Hewlett, and stand by, here. You too, Petrie.”
“I hate you for this,” said the chief violently. “Hate on! You are too damned impetuous for the job before us....»
Together, he and I set out.
I glanced back once, and Sir Lionel and Dr. Petrie presented a spectacle which might have been funny had my sense of humour been properly alert. Dimly visible, for the night was velvety dark, they stood looking after us like schoolboys left outside a circus....
And presently I found myself alone with Nayland Smith at the foot of that vast, mysterious building which has defied the researches of Egyptologists and exercised the imaginations of millions who have never seen it. Personally, I had lived down that sense of mystery which claims any man of average intelligence when first he confronts this architectural miracle.
Sir Lionel had carried out an inquiry here in 1930, just prior to our excavations on the site of Nineveh. I knew the Great Pyramid inside out, remembering the job more vividly because Rima had been absent in England during the time, the chief having given her leave of absence which he refused to grant to me.
We had reached the steps which led to the opening; and:
“You’re in charge now,” said Nayland Smith. “Lead, and I’ll follow. Give me the case.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH
INSIDE THE GREAT PYRAMID
In that little bay in the masonry which communicates with the entrance we stood and, turning, looked back.
Sixty men surrounded us; but not one of them was in sight. At some point there in the darkness, Sir Lionel and Dr. Petrie were probably watching. But in the absence of moonlight we must have been very shadowy figures, if visible at all. I looked down upon the mounds and hollows of the desert, and I could discern away to the left those streets of tombs whose excavation had added so little to our knowledge. There were two or three lighted windows in Mena House....
“Go ahead, Greville,” said Nayland Smith. “From this point onward I am absolutely in your hands.”
I turned, switching on the flash lamp which I carried, and began to walk down that narrow passage, blocked at its lower end, which leads to the only known entrance to the interior chambers. Familiar enough it was, because of the weeks I had spent there taking complicated measurements under Sir Lionel’s direction—measurements which had led to no definite results.
We came to the end where the old and new passages meet. Our footsteps in the silence of that densely enclosed place aroused most eerie echoes; and in the flattened V where the ascent begins:
“Stand still, Greville,” Sir Denis directed.
I obeyed. My light already was shining up the slope ahead. In silence we stood, for fully half a minute.
“What,” I asked, are you listening for?”
“For anything,” he replied in a low voice. “If I had not spoken to Dr. Fu Manchu in person on the telephone to-day, Greville, I should be prepared to swear that you and I were alone in this place to-night.”
“I have no reason to suppose otherwise,” I replied. “The pickets have seen no one enter. What have we to hope for?”
“Nothing is impossible—particularly to Dr. Fu Manchu. He accepted my terms and the meeting place. In short
