second-hand stores appeared at one end of the small rectangular room. It was set before a window, and this was the window of the wooden superstructure which looked out towards the Surrey bank of the Thames. A flannel suit, a pair of shoes, a muffler, and a Chinese cap, lay upon the floor.
Fascinated and unashamed, Nayland Smith watched the toilet of the woman who squeezed tiny feet into tiny jade green shoes.
She stood up, walked to the mirror, and smeared her face with cream from a glass jar which once had contained potted meat. The features of the one-eyed Chinese waiter became obliterated.
The classic features of Fah Lo Suee, daughter of Dr. Fu Manchu, revealed themselves!
Fah Lo Suee, having cleansed her skin, hurriedly carried the one chair to the dressing-table, and seating herself before a libellous mirror, set to work artistically to make up as a beautiful woman; for that she was.a beautiful woman Nayland Smith had never been able to deny.
Silently, cautiously, he began to descend. The River Police craft was pulled up beneath him. Forester and a member of the crew hung on to the end of the ladder as Nayland Smith came aboard.
“Put me ashore,” he snapped. “Gallaho! Sterling! Then stand by for Merton.”
Sterling grabbed the speaker’s arm. His grip was violent in its intensity.
“Sir Denis!” he said—”for God’s sake tell me—who is up there? What did you see?”
Nayland Smith turned. They were alongside the barge, across the deck of which they had come, and by the same route were returning.
“Your old friend Fah Lo Suee! When I gave the sign to Murphy and came out, I thought you had recognized her, too. I was interested in the fact that she seemed to have a base somewhere upstairs.”
“Fah Lo Suee,” Sterling muttered. “Good heavens! now that you point it out, of course, I realize it
“The Doctor is using her remorselessly: every hour of her day is fully occupied. Late though it is, she has some other duty to perform. She must be followed, Sterling.”
They were crossing the deck of the barge, Gallaho at their heels, his bowler hat jammed on at a rakish angle, when:
With one hand he grabbed the C.I.D. man, with the other he grasped the arm of Sterling.
A wavering blue light, a witch light, an elfin thing, danced against the fog mantle over the house of Sam Pak.
“Good Lord!” Gallaho muttered. “I heard of it for the first time to-night, but I’m damned if I can make out what it is.”
All watched in silence for a while. Suddenly, the mystic light disappeared.
“It looks like something out of hell,” said Gallaho.
“Very possibly it is,” Nayland Smith jerked. He turned to Sterling. “Did you notice anything curious about the air of the Sailors’ Club?”
“It had the usual fuggy atmosphere of places of that kind.”
“Certainly it had, but did anything in the temperature strike you?”
“Temperature . . .?”
“Exactly”
“Now, that you mention it, it was certainly very hot.”
“Exactly.”
“Now that you mention it, it was certainly very hot.”
“Undoubtedly it was, and twice as hot at the bar end as at the other.”
“Maybe it’s central heated,” said Gallaho. “I’ll ask Murphy about it.”
“Nothing of the kind,” snapped Nayland Smith. He was still staring up at that spot above the roof of Sam Pak’s where the queer, spirituous flame had appeared. “Certain sects in India burn their dead on burning ghats. Were you ever in India, Gallaho?”
“No sir. But whatever do you mean?”
“You would know what I meant if you had ever seen a burning ghat at night. . . .”
CHAPTER 17
THE GAME FLIES
WEST
“Whichever way the dame comes out,” said Gallaho, “she’s got to pass this corner to get on to the main road. It’s a pound to a penny there’s another way out into that yard which adjoins the restaurant, and I’m told that a car is sometimes garaged there. It may be there to-night.”
“Evidently it is,” said Nayland Smith. “Listen.”
Gallaho ceased speaking and he and Sterling listened intently. Someone had started a car at no great distance away.
“Quick!” snapped Nayland Smith. “Your man’s standing by?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll wait here. I want to see who is in the car. Directly it has passed, pick me up. ...”
Gallaho and Sterling set off down a side-turning. In a narrow opening between a deserted warehouse and the adjoining building, the Flying Squad car was hidden, all lights out. They had no more than reached it, when the car from the yard beside Sam Pak’s passed the head of the street.
The Scotland Yard driver pulled out smartly. On the corner he checked and Nayland Smith jumped in.
“Fah Lo Suee!” he said simply.
Sam Pak’s remained under cover. Anyone leaving would be shadowed to his destination, but Smith’s instructions were urgent upon the point that the suspicions of the old Chinaman must not be aroused. . .
Deserted Commercial Road East reached, the police car drew up closer to the quarry—for at one point a curtain of fog threatened to descend again. Beyond, however, it became clearer.
“What car is it, Gallaho?” Nayland Smith asked. “I can’t quite make out.”
“It’s a Morris, sir, and they’re making it shift a bit.” Nayland Smith laughed shortly.
“Once, it would have been at least a Delage,” he murmured.
Silence fell again as they proceeded along one of the most depressing thoroughfares in Europe. Occasional lorries bound dockward constituted practically the only traffic: pedestrians were very few indeed. The occasional figure of a policeman wearing his waterproof cape brought the reflection to Sterling’s mind that the duties of the Metropolitan Police force would not appeal to every man. Entering the City boundaries, the driver pulled up much closer to the pursued car. By the Mansion House the fog had disappeared altogether. Sterling glanced aside at Sir Denis. The bright light of a street lamp was shining in. He started, then laughed aloud. Shadow came again.
“What is it?” snapped Sir Denis.
“I had forgotten what you looked like,” Sterling explained , “and your appearance was rather a shock.”
“Anyone seeing us,” growled Gallaho, “would take it for granted that I had one of you chained to each wrist.”
He turned to Sir Denis. “I don’t quite understand, sir, why you have handed the Limehouse end of the inquiry over to Forester. You have got definite evidence that it’s the base of this Fu Manchu. Why not raid it? There’s every excuse, if ever we want to do it. It’s only necessary to find a single opium pipe on the premises!”
“I know,” Nayland Smith replied, speaking unusually slowly. “But in dealing with Dr. Fu Manchu, I have found it necessary to follow certain instincts. These may be the result of an intimate knowledge of the Doctor’s methods. But having been inside Sam Pak’s to-night, I am prepared to assert with complete confidence that Dr. Fu Manchu is not there. I think it highly probable that his beautiful and talented daughter is leading us to him now, however.”
“Oh, I see,” Gallaho growled. “You don’t think by any chance that this fly dame spotted you through your disguise, and is making a getaway?”
“I don’t think so. But it is a possibility, nevertheless.”
“I mean,” the detective went on doggedly, “it isn’t clear to me what she was doing down there, unless her job was that of a lookout. You tell me she’s very much the lady, so that her idea of fun wouldn’t be serving beer to drunken sailormen?”
