appearance to her own satisfaction, delicately rouging her cheeks.
Sir Denis watched her. Slowly he was regaining control of mind and body. Finally, replacing the tiny toilet case, Fah Lo Suee pulled out a yellow packet of cigarettes and bending forward, offered one.
A picture of the elegant Madame Ingomar flashed momentarily before his mind . . . The long jade holder; those patrician cigarettes of the finest yenedji . . .
“Thank you,” he said, and was glad to find that his voice was steady.
He took the cigarette, and Fah Lo Suee, placing another between her lips, dropped the packet back into her pocket, producing a lighter which she snapped into life, and lighting both.
Nayland Smith cautiously sat upright. This ghastly brick chamber, which might have been part of a sewer works, swam around him. His head ached mercilessly. His sight, too, was queerly dim. He had been struck upon the temple. He leaned back against the wall in an angle of which the bed was set.
“Fah Lo Suee,” he said—”for I know you by no other name:
where are we, and why are we here together?
She glanced at him swiftly, and as swiftly looked aside.
“We are in part of the workings of an abandoned Thames tunnel. We are together because ... we are going to die together.”
Nayland Smith was silent for a moment, watching her, and then:
“Is this place below Sam Pak’s” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then the raiding party will break through at any moment.”
“There are iron doors,” Fah Lo Suee replied, tonelessly. “Long before they can force them, we . . .”
She shrugged her shoulders, fixing the gaze of her long, narrow eyes upon him. Nayland Smith met that queer, contemplative gaze.
He realized how rarely in the past, in all his battles with the group surrounding Dr. Fu Manchu, he had looked into the eyes of Fah Lo Suee. How much had he dreamed?—to what extent now were his impressions his own, and to what extent due to the hypnotic power which he knew this woman to possess?
“Fu Manchu’s daughter,” he said: “Do you hate me as your father hates me?”
Fah Lo Suee closed and opened the slender fingers of her left hand. He watched that hand fascinatedly— thinking of the dirty yellow fingers of the Chinese waiter. His thoughts drew his glance floorwards, for there, near the chair upon which Fah Lo Suee sat, lay two crumpled objects which had puzzled him.
They were painted gloves!—gloves which had concealed the varnished nails and slim, indolent fingers of this daughter of the Manchus.
He glanced up again, and swiftly though Fah Lo Suee lowered her lashes, nevertheless, she had answered his question.
And he was silenced.
“I have loved you since the first day I ever saw you,” she replied, quietly.
And, listening to the music of her voice, Nayland Smith understood why so many men had fallen under its spell . . .
“I have had many of those experiences which are ridiculously called ‘affairs’, but the only man I could ever love, was the only man I could never have. You would never have known, for I should never have told you. I tell you now, because, although we could not live together, we are going to die together.”
CHAPTER 34
MORE IRON DOORS
“No way out,” said Gallaho, flashing his light about a low cellar, which contained stores of various kinds: bottles of wine, casks of beer, and cases of gin and whisky. There were cheeses, too, and even less fragrant delicacies of Chinese origin.
“This way, sir,” came a voice from somewhere above. “Here’s the way down!”
Gallaho came out of the cellar, and hurried up to a kitchen where Trench was standing before an open cupboard. The shelves of this cupboard contained all kinds of rubbish—tins, old papers, cardboard boxes. But in some way, probably by accident, the Scotland Yard man had discovered a hidden latch, and had swung all these shelves inward, for they constituted a second, masked door.
Hot, stifling air came up out of the darkness beyond.
“This is just below the bar, Inspector, and I noticed how hot it was at the end of the club room.”
“What’s in there? Be careful.”
Gallaho came forward and shot his light into the cavity. A steeply sloping passage with wooden steps was revealed.
“Come on,” he growled, and led the way.
Ten steps down there was a bend, Gallaho cautiously rounded it, and saw more steps ahead. It was very hot in this place, a thing for which he was quite unable to account. A brick landing was reached. Some of the brickwork had fallen away, and:
“This is built into an iron framework,” came a voice from somewhere behind.
There was a steady tramp of feet upon the stairs.
“Oh!” said Gallaho. “That’s funny!” He paused and looked about him. “I wonder if this is anything to do with the tunnel that Sir Denis has been inquiring about?”
“It’s been built a long time.”
“So I see. Also, it goes down a long way.”
The formation of the steps became more crude, the lower they went. They were merely boards roughly attached to cement. Now came a long, straight passage, brick-walled and cement floored. Gallaho led on; but it was so extensive that before he had reached the end, the whole of the party engaged in searching Sam Pak’s premises filed along behind him.
“This is a queer go,” said someone.
“We must be below Thames level.”
Gallaho pulled up with a jerk.
“Thames level or not,” he growled, “we’ve struck it here.”
“What is it, Inspector?”
Trench and others came crowding forward; Forester, far behind, was bringing up the rear.
“It’s this: another blasted
CHAPTER
35
THE FURNACE
Alan Sterling had abandoned hope. The message to Nayland Smith written on a leaf of his pocket-book (for nothing had been taken from him with the exception of his automatic) and pushed under the door to Ali, had miscarried, or perhaps it had never been dispatched.
No duties were allotted to him; no one came near the room. He was surrounded by an oppressive silence, through which, from time to time, that muted roaring seemed to vibrate. In his fall he had smashed his wristwatch and so had no means of knowing the time.
Hour after hour went by. He was desperately thirsty, but for a long time resisted his desire to pour out a drink from the water bottle.
Logic came to his rescue. Since he was completely in the power of the Chinese doctor, why should the latter trouble to tamper with the drinking water, when without danger or difficulty he could shoot him down at any time?
And what had become of Ali? Was it possible that he had been detected, and that he, Sterling, was doomed to be left locked in this dark brick prison somewhere in the bowels of the earth, perhaps even under water? So situated, hope of rescue there was none, if those who had placed him there chose to remain silent.
In short, his life depended upon that note having reached Sir Denis, and upon his success in tracing the subterranean tunnel, so vaguely referred to in it.
