He glanced back ere beginning to climb. Water was creeping up to the first step. Spray and mist obstructed this view of the furnace. He wondered if the Burmese horror, to whom human life meant no more than wood to a circular saw, had triumphed over injury, or if he was doomed to be swallowed in that unnatural tide.
Smith started up the stairs.
He was planning for the imminent catastrophe, nor thinking any further ahead than the moment when the rising water should reach the furnace. He had placed the direction of the fall, and knew that except at one point where the waterspout came perilously near to the stairs, these were navigable to within one stage of the top.
Beyond that point, progress was impossible—and the volume of water was increasing minute by minute.
His feet were wet when he began to mount. The tunnel must be full, now, right to the dead end. It was only a question of time for this forgotten shaft to be filled to its brim.
Sterling was breathing heavily and Sergeant Murphy was giving him some assistance, when Nayland Smith caught up with them on the stairs.
He shouted in Sterling’s ear:
“Did that yellow swine crock you?”
Sterling grasped his arm and gripped it strongly, pressing his lips to the speaker’s ear.
“It’s only my wind,” he explained; “otherwise O.K.”
Smith who had momentarily snapped his torch on, snapped it off again, nursing the precious light. Fighting against the brain-damning clamour of falling water, he tried to estimate their chances.
He guessed that now the tunnel would be full. The flood would rise in the shaft at least a foot a minute. Failing inspiration on the part of the police, ultimate escape was problematical.
But he was thinking at the moment of that white hot furnace when steam was generated. That one point on the stairs almost touched by the waterspout was the only possible shelter. That an explosion there in the depths might wreck the entire shaft, was a possibility which one could not calculate.
Up they went, and up, until the spray cut off by an iron girder lashed them stingingly. Nayland Smith pressed the switch of his torch.
Sterling had sunk down upon the step—Murphy was supporting him. Smith bent to Murphy’s ear. “Stay where you are!” he shouted He groped his way upward.
CHAPTER 48
GALLAHO BRINGS UP THE REAR
“Is it fast?” shouted Gallaho.
“It’s fast,” Merton shouted back, “but you’re not going down there!”
Gallaho bent to Merton’s ear.
“Mind your own bloody business, my lad,” he roared. “If ever I want your advice I shall ask for it.”
Chief detective-inspector Gallaho climbed over the hand rail and began to descend the rope ladder, his bowler hat firmly screwed on to his bullet skull. Immediately, he was drenched to the skin.
Steam was rising from the shaft. The touch of the water was icy, numbing. But he knew that unless the ladder was too short he could reach a point of the staircase just below that ever-increasing cataract, and follow it down. He was a man with a clear-cut idea of what duty demanded.
The ladder proved to be of ample length. Gallaho gained the wooden steps, flashed his powerful torch, and saw that he stood near the waterfall thundering down into those unimaginable depths.
A faint light flickered far below.
Gallaho, his torch in his left hand, held well clear of his body, directed its ray towards that spot of light visible through the mist.
At first, what he saw was no more than a moving shadow, then it became concrete; and in the light, haggard, staggering, he saw Sir Denis Nayland Smith!
Gallaho ran down the intervening steps, and as the light showed more and more clearly the lean angular features, the detective saw the ghost of a smile break through their hag-gar dness.
An unfamiliar wave of emotion claimed him. He threw his arm around Sir Denis’s shoulder, and, shouting:
“Thank God I’ve found you, sir!” he said.
Smith bent to his ear.
“Good man!” he replied.
“The others sir?”
Nayland Smith indicated the steps below, and Gallaho lighting the way, the two began to descend. A sheet of water swept the point at which Smith had left Sterling and Sergeant Murphy.
Their situation had become untenable and they had mounted half-way up to the next platform. Smith’s chief worry was concerned with Sterling who was obviously in bad shape. But the sight of Gallaho afforded just that stimulus which he required. And the detective, throwing an arm around him to help him upwards, and recognizing that he was nearly spent, had an inspiration.
Bending close to his ear:
“Stick it, sir!” he shouted. ‘Your friend Miss Petrie is safe and well in Sir Denis’s flat!”
That stimulus was magical.
Nevertheless, the rope ladder, now nearly submerged in the ever widening waterspout, taxed Sterling to the limit. Murphy followed up behind. Merton, at the top, when collapse threatened, at the critical moment craned over and hauled Sterling to safety.
Nayland Smith came next—Gallaho truculently having claimed the right to bring up the rear.
He had earned that perilous honour.
The men in the brick passage-way broke into unorthodox cheers; nor did Forester check them.
“All out!” cried Nayland Smith. “Anything may happen when the furnace goes!”
The passage already was an inch deep in water, but they retreated along it, Gallaho and Nayland Smith last of the party.
They had reached the masked door in Sam Pak’s kitchen when the furnace exploded. Steam belched out of the corridor as from a huge exhaust. The ancient building shook.
Nayland Smith turned to Gallaho and very solemnly held out his hand.
CHAPTER 49
WAITING
“Nothing to report,” said Inspector Gallaho.
Nayland Smith nodded and glanced at Alan Sterling seated smoking in the armchair. It was the evening of the sixth day after the subterranean explosion in Chinatown, an explosion which had had several remarkable results.
The top of that forgotten pit leading down to the abandoned tunnel was actually covered, as later investigations showed, by the paved yard which adjoined Sam Pak’s restaurant. The ventilation shaft passed right through his premises; and there seemed to be a distinct possibility that the old house as well as the wooden superstructure, were actually part of the abandoned workings, modified and adapted to their later purpose.
A great crack had appeared in one wall of the restaurant. But no other visible damage appeared upon the surface.
Something resembling a phenomenal tide had disturbed Limehouse Reach that night, and was widely reported from crafts upon the river. The shaft with its horrible secrets was filled to within fifteen feet of the top.
Even allowing for secret getaways communicating with adjoining premises, it was reasonable to assume that neither Dr. Fu Manchu nor any of those attached to his service had escaped alive from the fire and flood.
A cordon had been thrown around the entire area with the cooperation of the River Police. Of old Sam Pak and the other Asiatics who had been in the Sailors’ Club, nothing had been seen. A house to house search in the yellow light of dawn satisfied Gallaho that they were not concealed in the neighbourhood. Nothing came of these researches to afford a clue to the mystery.
A guarded communication was issued to the newspapers under the Commissioner’s direction, to the effect that in forcing a way into suspected premises a buttress had collapsed and an old tunnel working been flooded by
