Here was the theory demonstrated! He was in a trap: he hadn’t the remotest idea where he was. This ghastly place might be anywhere within a fifty mile radius of the house in Surrey. He must wait for a suitable opening; try to plan ahead. He went on down the steps; the heat grew greater and greater. Dr. Fu Manchu followed him.
“Stop!” the harsh voice directed.
And Sterling stopped.
One thing there was which gave him power to control his emotion, which gave him strength to temporize, patience to wait: Fleurette was alive!
Some wizardry of the Chinese physician had perverted her outlook. He, Sterling, had seen such cases before in households belonging to Dr. Fu Manchu. The man’s knowledge was stupendous—he could play upon the strongest personality as a musician plays upon an instrument in an orchestra.
“You will presently observe something phenomenal.” The high voice continued, “something which has not occurred for several centuries. The mating of the elements. At the moment of transmutation, the fumes to which I have referred escape to a certain extent from the furnace.”
Sterling paused, looking down into the hot darkness.
“My facilities here are limited,” Dr. Fu Manchu continued, “and I am using primitive methods. I am cut off from my once great resources—to a certain extent by the activities of your
The heat of the place as they descended nearer and nearer to the furnace was becoming almost unendurable. But now came a loud and vicious crackling, the clang of metal, and the furnace door was thrown open.
A blaze of light from the white-hot fire poured across the floor below. Mummy-like figures moved in it to approach that miniature hell, now extending instruments resembling long narrow tongs.
From the white heat of the furnace they grabbed what looked like a ball of light, and lowered it to the floor.
The furnace doors were reclosed by two more mummy-like figures which appeared out of the shadows.
The scene became more and more fantastic. The incandescent globe was shattered. Where it had been, Sterling saw a number of objects resembling streaks of molten metal; their glow grew dim and more dim.
“This work,” said Dr. Fu Manchu, “will engage your attention in the immediate future. You have grossly interfered with my plans in the past, and I might justly and perhaps wisely, kill you. Unfortunately, I am short of labour at the moment, and you are a physically strong man——”
“You mean,” asked Sterling, “that you are going to make me work down in that hell?”
“I fear it must be so——” the speaker’s voice was very sibilant. “Continue to the base of the stairs.”
And Sterling, descending, found himself at the bottom of the huge black shaft. The furnace was closed—the Inferno dimly lighted. Not one of the mummy-wrapped figures was to be seen. But the heat——
A tunnel sloped away on his right. Far down it, a solitary lantern appeared, as if to indicate its clammy extent—for, as he could see, this tunnel dripped with moisture and its floor was flooded in places. A grateful coolness was perceptible at the entrance to this unwholesome looking burrow.
“You will observe,” said Dr. Fu Manchu—who invariably spole as if addressing a class of students—”that the temperature is lower here than on the stairs. We are actually a hundred and twenty feet below the surface. . . . We will return.”
The authority behind Dr. Fu Manchu’s orders had a quality which created awe, without making for resentment. Sterling had expereinced in the past this imposition of the Chinaman’s gigantic will. The power of Fu Manchu’s commands lay in his acceptance of the fact that they would never be questioned.
He passed the Chinaman, stepped on to the narrow stair, and clutching the iron rail proceeded upwards.
“It may interest you to learn,” came the harsh voice from behind him, “that human flesh is excellent fuel in relation to this particular experiment. . . .”
Sterling made no reply . . . the implication was one he did not care to dwell upon. He remembered that Dr. Fu Manchu had said, “I had intended to incinerate your body.”
These stairs with their rusty hand-rails, seemed all but interminable. Descent had been bad enough, but this return journey, following on the spectacle below, was worse. Vague gleams from the pit fitfully lighted the darkness. From behind, Dr. Fu Manchu directed a light upon the crude wooden steps. . . .
Sterling found himself back again in a curiously high, narrow, brick corridor which led to the vault in which he had first awakened. He had just passed a low door, deep sunken in brickwork, when:
“Stop,” the imperious voice directed.
There came a sound of rapping on the door—that of a bolt shot free—a faint creaking.
“Step back a pace, lower your head, and go in.”
Sterling obeyed. He knew that the alternative was suicide. This place, he began to realize, in addition to its heat, had a vague but ghastly charnel-house odour. . . .
He went ahead along a narrow passage; someone who had opened the door stood aside to allow him to pass. He found himself in a small, square, brick chamber illuminated by one unshaded bulb hanging on a length of cable. He heard the outer door being bolted.
There was a camp bed, a chair and a table on which stood a glass and a bottle of water. This square brick chamber had never been designed for habitation; he was in the bowels of some uncompleted engineering plant. . . .
The man who had admitted him—who had stood aside when he had entered—appeared now in the doorway—a huge negro with a pock-scarred face.
For one breathless moment Alan Sterling stared, not daring to believe what he saw—then:
“Alt Oke!” he whispered.
The expression on the black face of the man so oddly named defied definition—but it resolved itself into a grin. Ali Oke raised a finger to his lips in warning—and closed the heavy door. Sterling heard the sound of a bolt being shot. . . .
Ali Oke! It was all but incredible!
Ali-called “Oke” because this term was his equivalent for “I understand” or “very good, sir”—had been Sterling’s right-hand man on his Uganda expedition! He found it hard to believe that the faithful Ali, pride of the American Mission School, could be a servant of Dr. Fu Manchu. . . .
Complete silence. Even that queer dim roaring had ceased....
Yet—Sterling reflected—better men than Ali Oke had slaved for the Chinese doctor. He stared at the massive wooden door. A faint, sibilant sound drew his gaze floorward.
A piece of paper was being pushed under the door!
Sterling stooped and snatched it up. It was a fragment from the margin of a newspaper, and on it in child-like handwriting was written in pencil:—
Not speak. Somebody listen. Write something. Can send somebody. Ali.
CHAPTER 28
TUNNEL
BELOW WATER
Investigations in surrey brought some curious points to light
It was late in the afternoon when Gallaho came to Sir Denis’s apartment to make his report. To be on duty for twenty-four hours was no novelty to the C.I.D. man, but he was compelled to admit to himself that he felt extremely tired. Sir Denis, who wore a dressing-gown, but who was fully dressed beneath, simply radiated vitality. He was smoking furiously, and his blue-grey eyes were as keen as if, after a long and dreamless sleep, he had emerged fresh from his bath.
Gallaho, who guessed Sir Denis to be ten years his senior— as a matter of fact, he was wrong—found a constant source of amazement in Nayland Smith’s energy.
He reported that the mews to which Sir Bertram Morgan’s car had been driven was known to have
