“He closed the door behind him?”
“He did. I opened it recently, beginning to wonder what had become of the marquis.”
“It may surprise you to learn, Sir Bertram,” said Nayland Smith quietly, “that only three or at the outside four of the rooms in Rowan House are furnished.”
“What!”
“It was a plot. But by a miracle the plotters have been tricked. I regret to say that this is not the worst. I don’t know all the truth, yet, but when the police arrive, I hope to leam it.”
Detective-inspector Gallaho appeared in the open doorway, Sir Bertram’s chauffeur at his heels.
“Preston!” Sir Bertram exclaimed—”what’s this?”
“A very nasty business, sir, if I may say so,” the man replied.
He was an obvious ex-Service man, clean limbed and of decent mentality. His hazel eyes were very angry and his fists clenched.
“Tell me,” Sir Bertram directed, tersely.
“Well, sir,” Preston went on, looking from face to face. “that Burmese butler who opened the door when we arrived, you remember, came out about ten minutes ago, and I naturally thought you were leaving. As I went up to him in the dark he jabbed a pistol in my ribs, and invited me to jump to the wheel. I am sorry, sir, but I did it. . . .”
“Don’t blame you,” growled Gallaho.
“Several people got into the car, sir. I had an impression that one was
“Where did you go to?” asked Nayland Smith.
“To an old mews not three miles from here, sir, where I was told to pull up—and I pulled up. This blasted Burman sat with his gun in my ribs the whole time that the party in the car were getting out. But I had my eye on the reflector and I think there were two women and two men.”
“Any idea of their appearance?” Smith demanded.
“Not the slightest, sir. It was very dark. I’m not sure, even, of their number. But one of the men was very sick, the others seemed to drag him out of the car.”
The roar of the powerful engine of the Flying Squad proclaimed itself; voices were heard.
“Here they are!” said Gallaho.
“Quick!” Sir Denis directed Preston: “What happened then?”
“The Burman jumped off, keeping me under cover. He told me to drive back. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, sir.”
Uniformed police were pouring into Rowan House.
CHAPTER 25
CURARI
“Nothing here!” declared Nayland Smith.
They had searched every foot of the deserted mews.
“A sort of cache?” suggested Sir Bertram Morgan, who had accompanied them, now keenly interested in their quest. “No doubt they kept a car here.”
“There’s evidence that they did,” said Gallaho. “And we’ll know more about it to-morrow. But in the meantime,” he turned to Sir Denis, “what’s the next move, sir?”
Rowan House had proved to be a mere shell, a mockery: the greater part of it unfurnished. The library in Rowan House in which Dr. Fu Manchu had received Sir Bertram, and the corridor leading to it from the Assyrian hall, were the only properly furnished parts of the place. There was a small writing-room on the other side of the house, the glass in the French window of which had been smashed, containing a number of bookshelves, a bureau and one or two other odds and ends. But with the exception of fragmentary belongings of the former tenant, the eccentric Lionel Barton, the place was unfurnished from floor to attic—nor was there a soul in it, although the police had searched it foot by foot.
The property had been sold by Sir Lionel Barton, but the last tenant had left nearly a year before. The books and some of the ornaments in the two furnished rooms, unreadable volumes in Sanskrit, Chinese and Persian, had been left behind by the out-going tenant as they had been left behind by Sir Lionel. The Chinese library, with its sliding doors and lacquer fittings, had been a feature of Rowan House during the time that Barton had occupied it. The place had been baited for the evening; a mouse-trap. The caretaker had vanished.
“They’ve got Sterling!” groaned Nayland Smith. “God knows why they’ve taken him—but they’ve got him!”
Sir Bertram was now keenly interested, tuned up for the hunt; his sentiments in regard to Madame Ingomar had undergone a definite change, yet he knew in his heart, although he could not doubt the assurance of the ex- Assistant Commissioner, that if she beckoned to him again—he would follow. . . .
He wondered how far he would go, to what extent he would fall under the influence of those magnetic eyes, that compelling voice. He shuddered. Perhaps he had had a nearer escape than he realized. But the gold had been . . .
The raiding party returned to the depot in the Yard car, and Sir Denis and Chief detective-inspector Gallaho accepted a lift home in Sir Bertram Morgan’s Rolls.
Fog met them in the London suburbs . . .
It was at some hour not far removed from that when dawn should have been breaking over London, that Nayland Smith prepared a whisky and soda for Gallaho and passing it to him raised his glass silently.
“I know sir,” said Gallaho; “it’s been a very bad show for us to-night.”
“A bad show all along,” snapped Sir Denis.
“Cramped, trammelled, cut off from his resources, Fu Manchu is
“That’s the devil of it, sir.”
“The devil indeed. He’s got Sterling.”
“Dead or alive?”
“Since he is a friend and a first-class type of man (I have worked with him in the past) I prefer to think, Inspector— alive. I doubt if Dr. Fu Manchu would burden himself with—”
“A corpse?”
“A corpse, yes.”
Nayland Smith’s gaze became abstracted, and plucking at his ear, he crossed the room and pulled a heavy curtain aside, gazing out upon the foggy Embankment.
There came a rap on the door.
“Come in!”
Fey entered, despite the approach of dawn, immaculate and unperturbed. Nayland Smith was still holding the heavy curtain aside, and:
“Have you noticed the window, sir?” Fey asked.
“No.”
Nayland Smith turned, and examined the window.
“By gad!” he rapped.
There was a neat, but slightly jagged hole an inch in circumference in one of the panes! He closed the curtains, and faced Fey. Gallaho, glass in hand, was staring from man to man.
“While I was walking up and down sir.” Fey went on coolly, “as you told me to do, earlier to-night, or rather, last night, sir,
He handed a small feathered dart to Nayland Smith.
The latter stepped to a lamp and examined it closely.
“Gallaho”, he said, “I should say that this thing had been fired from an air gun. But examine the point.”
The Scotland Yard man came forward, eagerly bending over the table.
“It seems to be covered in gum.”
“I won’t say
