up with a line, and the rope-ladder was attached fully ten minutes before the signal reached him.
The shot in the Sailors’ Club he did not hear. A tugboat was passing at the time and the noise of its passage entirely drowned that of the muffled shot. But he heard the whistle.
Regardless on this occasion of attracting attention the River Police craft was pushed as near as possible to the overhanging superstructure. Forester got on to the ladder, and began to climb. He turned.
“Nobody else until I give the word!” he shouted.
He reached the lighted window and looked in. He saw a dismal kind of bedroom, with a cheap iron bedstead in one corner, a dressing-table by the further window on his right, a chair, a number of odds and ends suggesting occupancy by a woman, and very little else. He crashed a heavy sea-boot through the glass, bent perilously, found that the window was unlatched, and raised it an inch or two with the heel of his boot. Then, descending a rung, he raised it fully, reached over the ledge and drew himself into the room.
He stood for a moment listening. There was not a sound.
He leaned out of the window.
“Come on!” he shouted.
Forester turned left, running along the room in the direction of a half-open door, and found himself upon a staircase, uncarpeted. Not waiting for the party, he went clattering down.
The room above had been lighted by an unshaded electric bulb, and there was a similar crude light upon the stair. But, reaching its foot and jerking a curtain aside, a curtain of some kind of rough patterned material, Forester saw darkness ahead of him.
Voices and bumping sounds indicated that his men were tumbling into the room above.
Forester shot the light of a torch into a place resembling a small restaurant. He stood, he discovered, at the end of a fairly well-stocked bar; dirty plush-covered seats ran along the wall on his left; there were a number of tables and chairs. Some of the tables were upset, and there was a faint tang,, perceptible above the fugg of the place, which told him that it was here the shot had been fired.
Footsteps sounded upon the stairs behind him.
But Forester continued to direct the light of his torch steadily upon a door immediately ahead. It was an iron door of the kind one meets with in strong-rooms.
Forester whistled softly and walked forward.
“Hullo, Chief, where are you?” called a voice.
“O.K. Try to find a switch and light this place up.”
The door, Forester saw at a glance, was one which locked automatically on being closed. Furthermore, a huge steel bolt had been shot into place. He withdrew the bolt, ignoring the scurrying footsteps of his men seeking the light control. Presently, one of them found it and the place became illuminated.
Forester pulled back the catch and hauled the door into the niche which it normally occupied, safe from the view of any casual visitor, and only to be discovered by one definitely searching for it.
A dingy corridor, dimly lighted, opened beyond. Forester found himself confronted by a badly damaged wooden door, the lock wrenched out of place and surrounded by jagged splinters, which lolled drunkenly in the opening. He started along the passage.
Another door, but this of a cheap wooden variety, was open at the end, and presently he found himself in Sam Pak’s delicatessen store. Only one shaded light was burning, that behind the counter.
“Who’s there?” came sharply.
A man was standing in the darkened shop, his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat.
“Inspector Forester. Who are you?”
The man drew his hands from his pockets.
“Detective-sergeant Trench, Inspector,” he introduced himself; “C.I.D. You got through from the back, then?”
“Yes, we’re in. Where’s Inspector Gallaho?”
“I’ll get him.”
CHAPTER 33
DAUGHTER OF THE MANCHUS
Nayland Smith tried to fight his way back to consciousness. He found himself unable to dissociate delirium from reality.
“My love, who has never loved me . . . Perhaps it might never have been, but now, it is too late ...”
A woman’s voice, a soothing, musical voice—and someone was bathing his forehead with Eau de Cologne.
Another blank came . . .
He was lying on a camp bed, in a low, square, brick chamber. His head throbbed agonizingly, but a soft arm pillowed his head, and soothing fingers caressed his brow. He struggled again to recover himself. This was phantasy, a distorted dream.
Where was he?
The act of opening his eyes alone had been an exquisite torture. Now, turning them aside, he experienced new pain. A woman, strangely dressed, knelt beside the bed upon which he lay. Her dark hair was disordered, her long green eyes watched him, piteously, supplicatingly, as the eyes of a mother watching a sick child.
Those long green eyes stirred latent memories, stimulating the dull brain. What woman had he known who possessed those eyes?
She was a strange creature. Her beautifully moulded lips moved as if she spoke, softly. But Nayland Smith could detect no words. Her shoulders were bare; her skin reminded him of ivory. And now, perhaps recognizing some return of understanding , she bent, fixing the gaze of her brilliant eyes upon him.
A moment of semi-lucidity came. He had seen this woman before; this woman with the ivory shoulders and the green eyes. But if a woman, why did she wear coarse grey flannel trousers? . . . She was perhaps half a woman and half a man . . .
Hot lips were crushed to his own, as darkness came again.
“You have never known . . . you would never have known . . . but at least we shall die together . . . Wake, oh, my dear! Wake; for the time is so short, and because I know I have to die, now I can tell you . . .”
Nayland Smith, as if in obedience to those urgent words, fought his way back to full consciousness.
The brick chamber and the camp bed had not been figments of delirium. He actually lay upon such a bed in a square brick chamber. The woman tending him was Fah Lo Suee!
Recognizing the return of full consciousness, she gently withdrew her arm from beneath his head, composedly rearranging the silk straps of a tiny garment which afforded a strange contrast to the wrinkled flannel trousers.
Nayland Smith saw that a grey coat, a complement of the trousers, lay upon the floor near by. There was a bowl of water on a little table beside him, a small bottle and a piece of torn silk saturated with Eau de Cologne.
Fah Lo Suee replaced the coat which was part of the uniform of the one-eyed waiter, and quietly seating herself on the solitary chair which the chamber boasted, watched him coolly and without embarrassment.
Had he heard aright? Had he heard this woman—thinking that she spoke to an unconscious man—profess her love? Had she pressed her lips to his? He was beginning to remember;
now clearly recalled all that had happened. Perhaps those later impressions were unreliable, or perhaps—a possibility— it was a deliberate move on the part of this daughter of an evil father. A new plot—but what could its purpose be?
Good God! He was in the power of Dr. Fu Manchu, his lifelong enemy!
It was the end! She had said it was the end, unless he had dreamed. He moved his head so that he could see her more clearly. Heavens! Who and what had struck him? His memories afforded no clue to the identity of his assailant. And Sergeant Murphy? What had become of Sergeant Murphy?
Fah Lo Suee watched him under lowered lashes.
Any make-up which she had worn in her role of Chinese waiter, had been removed. He must suppose that those long lashes were naturally dark. But her lips were pale, and now, from the pocket of the dirty flannel jacket, she took out a lipstick and a mirror which formed the lid of a small round-box. Unaffectedly, she adjusted her
