had heard, or imagined he had heard. Turning slowly and cautiously, he looked up ...
He saw a thing which for a moment touched him with awe.
The stone recess above had become vaguely illuminated, as if some spiritual light were thrown out from the shell of Isobel Demuras!
There came a vague shuffling—the same which he had detected when, last to leave, he had paused for a moment at the foot of the steps. Then ... a ray of light shot across the vault, touching the further wall, where it rested upon a brass plate. The inscription upon this he remembered to have read:
here lay Tristan Demuras, founder of the English branch of the family.
The noise above became louder. To it was added a squeaking sound. The ray disappeared from the opposite wall, but the niche above became more brightly illuminated. Nayland Smith on hands and knees crept to the corner of the vault. He had not vacated his former position more than three seconds when light poured down upon the pavement. He was just outside its radius.
The light disappeared; complete darkness fell. There came a renewed and a louder creaking, then a soft thud upon the floor beside him.
In that instant Nayland Smith sprang. . . .
“Gallaho!” he shouted. “Sterling!”
The teak door was opened with a crash. Gallaho shining his torch ahead of him came cluttering down the steps, Sterling close behind.
“The light. . . here, Gallaho—quick!” Nayland Smith spoke hoarsely. “Get his knife!”
“My God!”
Sterling sprang forward.
A lithe yellow man, his eyes on fire with venomous hatred, was struggling in Nayland Smith’s grasp! Sir Denis had him by the throat, but with his left hand he clutched the man’s lean, muscular wrist. A knife, having a short, curved blade, was grasped in the sinewy fingers. For all Nayland Smith’s efforts, its point was creeping nearer and nearer, driven by the maniacal strength which animated the tigerish body. The left arm of the yellow man was thrown around his captor, seeking to drag him down upon the quivering blade . . .
Gallaho twisted the weapon from the man’s grasp, and Nayland Smith stood up, breathing heavily. Two constables had joined them now, their lamps reinforcing the illumination.
“Who’s got bracelets?” growled Gallaho.
None of the party had handcuffs, but Constable Dorchester, of the spiky red hair, grabbed the prisoner and ran him up the steps.
Outside, held by Dorchester and another, his back against the teak door, he grinned fiendishly, but uttered no word whilst Nayland Smith resumed his shoes and put on his leather overcoat. Gallaho shone the light of a torch on to the face of the captive.
The man wore a soft shirt and no tie; a cheap flannel suit;
his ankles were bare, and his lean feet were encased in rubber-soled shoes. His teeth gleamed in that fixed grin of hatred; his sunken eyes held a reddish smouldering fire. Disordered oily black hair hung down over his forehead. He was panting and wet with perspiration.
Nayland Smith raised the damp hair from the man’s brow, revealing a small mark upon parchment-like skin.
“The mark of Kali,” he said. “I thought so ... One of the Doctor’s religious assassins.”
“What ever is the meaning of all this?” Mr. Roberts demanded in a high, quavering voice.
Nayland Smith turned in the speaker’s direction, so that from Sterling’s point of view, the keen, angular profile was clearly visible against the light of a lamp held by one of the constables.
“It means,” Sir Denis began . . .
Something hummed like a giant insect past Sterling’s ear, missed Nayland Smith by less than an inch as he sprang back, fists clenched, glittered evilly in the lantern light, and . . . the man whose brow was branded with the mark of Kali gurgled, and became limp in the grip of his two big captors.
A bloody foam appeared upon his lips.
He was pinned to the door by a long, narrow-bladed knife, which had completely pierced his throat and had penetrated nearly an inch into the teak against which he stood!
CHAPTER 11
SAM PAK OF LIMEHOUSE
Nayland Smith walked up and down his study in Whitehall. Heavy blue curtains were drawn before the windows. Alan Sterling from the depths of an armchair watched him gloomily.
“I am satisfied that the other shells in that vault were occupied by deceased Demurases,” said Sir Denis. “How long the group has had access to that mausoleum, is something we are unlikely ever to know. But doubtless it has served other purposes in the past. The supposed sarcophagus of Isobel Demuras, as I showed you, was no more than a trick box or hiding-place, having a spy-hole by means of which one concealed there could watch what was going on below. It is certain that I have been covered closely for some days past. We were followed to Dr. Norton’s house this evening, and later I was followed to the Home Secretary’s. To make assurance doubly sure, the Doctor planted a spy in the mausoleum.”
He paused, knocking out his pipe in the hearth.
“That knife was meant for me, Sterling,” he said grimly, “and Dr. Fu Manchu’s thugs rarely miss.”
“It was an act of Providence—the protection of heaven!”
“I agree. The reign of the Mandarin Fu Manchu is drawing to a close. The omens are against him. He smuggled Fleurette from Ambrose’s studio to the cemetery. The device seems elaborate; but consider the difficulty of transporting an insensible girl!”
Sterling jumped up, a lean but athletic figure, clenching and unclenching his sunburned hands.
“Insensible—yes!” he groaned. “How do we know she isn’t— dead... .”
“Because all the evidence points the other way. Dr. Fu Manchu is a good gambler; he would never throw away an ace. Consider the sheer brilliance of his asking police protection for Professor Ambrose—that is, for himself!”
“He had not anticipated that it would be continued in London.”
“Possibly not.”
He pressed a bell. A tall, gaunt manservant came in. A leathery quality in his complexion indicated that he had known tropical suns; his face was expressionless as that of a Sioux brave; his small eyes conveyed nothing.
“Set out a cold buffet in the dining-room, Fay,” Nayland Smith directed.
Fay, seeming to divine by means of some extra sense that this completed his instructions, slightly inclined his close-cropped head and went out as silently as he had come in.
The telephone bell rang. Sir Denis took up the instrument, and:
“Yes,” he said; “please show him up at once.” He replaced the receiver. “Gallaho is downstairs. I hope this means that the deceased thug has been identified.”
Sterling’s restlessness was feverish.
“This waiting,” he muttered, “is damnably trying.”
Nayland Smith unscrewed the top of a tobacco jar.
“Get out your pipe,” he snapped. “We’ll have a drink when Gallaho arrives. You don’t have to be jumpy— there’s work ahead, and I’m counting on you.”
Sterling nodded, clenched his white teeth, and plunged into a pocket of his suit for his pipe. At which moment, a bell rang. Sir Denis opened the door, crossed the lobby and faced Chief detective-inspector Gallaho at the very moment that the silent Fay admitted him. He could not wait for the Scotland Yard man to cross the threshold, but:
“Who was he?” he snapped; “do you know?”
“Got his history, sir, such as it is.”
“Good.”
The fog had penetrated to the lift-shaft of the building;
wisps floated out on the landing and aleady were penetrating the lobby. When the inspector had come
