combined efforts, seemed to Sergeant Murphy, a devout Roman Catholic who had begun to pray fervently, to be an intervention by a Higher Power.
Sir Denis Nayland Smith in the course of his long career as a police officer, had studied assiduously whenever the opportunity offered, those branches of practical criminology with which his work had brought him in contact, East and West. He was something of a physician, understanding poisons and antidotes. Lock combinations had no mysteries for him, and there were few locks he could not force if called upon to do so. Knot-tying in all its intricacies, as practised by the late Harry Houdini, he had studied in Rangoon, his professor being a Chinese malefactor who was a master of the art.
When the ape-like Burman had come to tie him up, Smith had recognized at a glance that physical resistance was out of the question. It would have called for three powerful men and trained wrestlers at that to deal with him. His peculiar development warned Smith that the man was an expert in the art ofju-jitsu, which, together with his herculean strength, set him in a class apart.
Fah Lo Suee had gone when the tying took place. Nayland Smith submitted, feigning weakness. When he saw the narrow twine that was to be used, he anticipated what was coming, and permitting the man to wrench his arms behind his back, he put into practice a trick whereby many illusionists have mystified their audiences; Chinese in origin, but long well-known to professional magicians of the West. The man tied his thumbs, as well as his wrists. By means of maintaining a certain muscular stress during this painful operation, the result, though satisfactory to Dr. Fu Manchu’s private executioner, was also acceptable to Nayland Smith.
The latter knew that he could withdraw his hands at any moment convenient to him!
The lashings of his ankles was a different matter. Here, he knew himself to be helpless, and recognized expert handiwork.
He had preceded Alan Sterling down the stairs of the shaft, slung sackwise across one incredible shoulder of the Burmese killer . . .
Now, as he stood, his arms apparently tied behind him, but his ankles unlashed, staring up to where Dr. Fu Manchu sat veiled in darkness, he was actually a free man. He held the twine which had confined his wrists tightly clenched in his left hand.
He was calculating his chances—tensing himself for what he must do.
With the exception of his automatic, his personal possessions had not been disturbed; these included a pocket knife. He had opened its most serviceable blade, and held it now concealed in his right hand. He knew but one mode of attack calculated to give him the slightest chance against his scarcely human enemy.
If it failed, his fate could be no worse.
It was not a type of combat which he favoured; but having watched this man performing his ghastly work, he found that his scruples had fled.
As the harsh command was spoken and the monstrous Burman stepped forward, Nayland Smith sprang away, turned—and kicked with all the speed and accuracy of his Rugby forward days! He put every ounce of power in his long, lean body into that murderous kick . . .
The man uttered a roar not unlike the booming of a wounded gorilla—a creature he closely resembled— doubled up, staggered . . . and fell.
A shrill order, maniacal in its ferocity, came out of the darkness above. It was Dr. Fu Manchu speaking in Chinese. The order was:
“Shoot him!—shoot him!”
Smith ducked and darted out of the radius of light into the surrounding shadow where Sterling and Murphy lay. He almost fell over Sterling.
“Quick, quick!” he panted—”your wrists.”
“I’m crocked; don’t count on me. Untie Murphy.”
But Smith cut the twine from Sterling’s wrists and ankles.
“Stay where you are until I give the word.”
He bent over Sergeant Murphy.
“Ankles first. . . now wrists.”
“Thank God!” cried the detective. “At least we’ll die fighting!”
There was a flash in the darkness and a bullet spat on the floor close beside the speaker.
“Can you walk, Sterling?”
“Yes.”
A second shot, and a second bullet whistled by Nayland Smith’s ear. The voice of Dr. Fu Manchu, high-pitched and dreadful, came again, still speaking in Chinese.
“The lights, the lights!” he screamed.
Detective-sergeant Murphy, not too sure of cramped muscles, nevertheless set out through the darkness in the direction from which those stabs of flame had come.
Light suddenly illuminated the pit...
Dr. Fu Manchu stood upon the stairs, his clenched fists raised above his head, his face that of one possessed by devils. A wave of madness, blood lust, the ecstasy of sweeping his enemies from his path, ruled him. That great brain rocked upon its aged throne.
Murphy saw a Chinaman stripped to the waist not two paces from him. The man held an automatic: the sudden light had dazed him. Murphy sprang, struck, and fell on top of the gunman, holding down the hand which held the pistol. A second Asiatic, similarly armed, was running forward from the foot of the stairs. The Burmese strangler writhed on the floor before the furnace.
“Kill them! Kill them!” cried the maniacal voice.
Nayland Smith raced forward and threw himself down beside the struggling men—just as another shot cracked out.
The bullet grazed Murphy’s shoulder.
He inhaled sibilantly, but hung on to the Chinaman. Smith wrenched the weapon from the man’s grasp. He pulled the trigger as he released it, but the bullet went wide—registering with a dull thud upon some iron girder far up the shaft.
The second Chinaman dropped to his knee, took careful aim, and fired again. But he pulled the trigger a decimal point too late.
Nayland Smith had shot him squarely between the eyes.
Dr. Fu Manchu’s mania dropped from him like a scarlet cloak discarded. His face became again that composed, satan-ic mask which concealed alike his genius and his cruelty. He descended three steps.
The place was plunged in darkness.
Fiery gleams from chinks in the furnace door pierced the gloom; one like an abler spear struck upon the contorted face of the Burman, lying now apparently unconscious where he had fallen.
Then came the catastrophe.
A booming explosion shook the place, echoing awesomely from wall to wall of the pit.
“My God!” cried Murphy, grasping his wounded shoulder, “what’s that?”
The words were no sooner uttered than, heralded by a terrifying roar, a cataract of water came crashing down the shaft.
“The river’s broken through!” cried Sterling.
Above the crash and roar of falling water:
“Head for the stair!” shouted Nayland Smith. “All head for the stair!”
CHAPTER 44
AT SCOTLAND YARD
The commissioner of Metropolitan Police stood up as Dr. Petrie was shown into his room at New Scotland Yard.
The Commissioner was a very big man with an amiable and slightly bewildered manner. His room was a miracle of neatness; its hundred and one official appointments each in its correct place. A bowl of violets on his large writing desk struck an unexpected note, but even the violets were neatly arranged. The Commissioner, during a distinguished Army career, had displayed symptoms of something approaching genius as an organizer and administrator. If he lacked anything which the Chief of the Metropolitan Police should possess, it was
