The Trail of Fu Manchu

“Good ‘ealth, mister. Where I’m workin’ in Limehouse is on West India Dock Road and not far from the corner of the old Causeway. That’s where you see me, if I heard you right.”

“That’s it,” said Smith patiently; “ a grand fire you had.”

“I’d got some chestnuts,” chuckled the night watchman. “I remember as well as if it were an hour ago, and I’d roasted ‘em and I was eating ‘em. Did you notice me eating ‘em?”

“No, he didn’t,” growled Gallaho; “at least, he never told me he did.”

Nayland Smith grasped the speaker’s arm.

“Oh, didn’t he?” said the night watchman, lifting a tufted eyebrow in the direction of the detective.

“Well, I was. And through the fog there, what did I see? . . .”

He drank from the mug. Rain had begun to fall; the roar of the passing traffic rendered it necessary to bend far over the red pole in order to hear the man’s words. He set down his mug and stared truculently from face to face.

“I’m askin’ a bloody question,” he declared. “What did I see?”

“How the hell do I know, mate?” Gallaho shouted, in the true vernacular, his voice informed by suppressed irritation.

The night watchman chuckled. This was the sort of reaction he understood.

“Course you don’t know. That’s why I ask’ you ... I see a trap what belongs to the main sewer open from underneath. Get that? It just lifted—and first thing I thought was: an explosion! It wasn’t no further from me than”——he hesitated,—”that bus. It was lifted right off. There’s nobody about;

it’s the middle of the night. It was set down very quiet on the pavement, and what did I see then? . . .”

He took another sip from his mug; he had finished the bread and the bacon. Gallaho had sized up his witness, and:

“What did you see, mate?” he inquired.

“Here’s a story for the newspapers,” the watchman chuckled, as Nayland Smith reached across the barrier and offered him a cigarette from a yellow packet. “Thanks, mister—here’s a story!”

He succeeded in some mysterious way in lighting the cigarette from the fire in the brazier.

“A Chinaman popped up . . .”

“What!”

“You may well say ‘what’! But I’m tellin’ you. A Chinaman popped up out of the trap.”

“What kind of a Chinaman?”

Nayland Smith was the speaker, but in spite of his eagerness he had not forgotten to retain the accent.

“Looked like a Chinese sailor, as much as I could see of ‘im through the fog—not that there was a lot of fog at the time;

but there was some—there ‘ad been more. He took a look round. I sat quiet by my fire because, as I told that lousy cop what laughed at me, I thought for a minute I was dreamin’. Then he bent down and ‘elped another Chinese bloke to come up. The second Chinese bloke was old. He was an old Chinee, he were. . . .”

“What did he wear?” Smith inquired, pulling out a notebook and pencil, casually.

“Ho, ho!” chuckled the watchman. “I thought you’d want to make some notes. He wore a kind of overcoat and a tweed cap. But although I couldn’t see his face, I know it was a very funny face—very old and ‘aggard, and he were very tall——”

“Very tall?”

“That’s what I said—Very tall. Another bloke come up next——”

“Also a Chinaman?”

“Likewise Chinese, wearin’ a old jersey and trousers with his ‘ead bare. He bent back like the first bloke had done, and ‘auled up another Chinese——”

“Not another one,” growled Gallaho, acting up to the situation.

“Another one!” the watchman repeated truculently, fixing a ferocious glare upon the speaker, whom instinctively he disliked—”and another old ‘un—” challengingly, the glare unmoved from Gallaho—”and another old ‘un! . . .”

Nayland Smith was apparently making rapid notes; now:

“Was the other old one tall?” he inquired.

“He were not, he was just old.”

“Did you notice what he wore?”

“Listen ...” The night watchman puffed his cigarette and then stood up slowly— ”you’re not suggestin’ I’m barmy, are you?”

“You bet I’m not,” snapped Nayland Smith cheerfully. “You’ve given me a grand paragraph.”

“Oh, I see. Well, he wore a seedy kind o’suit like I might wear, and an old soft hat.”

“What did they do?”

“The two younger chinks put the trap back and stamped it down. Then they all crossed the road behind my ‘ut, and that’s all I know about it.”

“Didn’t you see where they went?”

“Listen, mister . . .” The watchman sat down again on his plank seat, refilling his mug from the pot and adding the remainder of the whisky to its contents. “There was nobody about. I ain’t as young as I used to be. If you saw chinks—two of’em tough lookin’ specimens—come up put of a sewer ... see what I mean? Do you know what I done? I pretends to be fast asleep! And now, I’m goin’ to ask you a question. In the circs,—what would you ‘ave done?”

“That’s sense,” growled Gallaho.

“But you reported it to the constable on the beat when he came along?” said Nayland Smith.

“As you say, mister. And he not only give me the bird, he told me I was barmy or blind-oh. It’ll be a long time before I gives information to the bloody police again, whatever I sees—whatever I sees.”

CHAPTER

52

“I AM CALLING YOU”

Fleurette knew that Alan must not be out after dusk in this misty weather. He had developed an unpleasant cough as a result of the injuries he had received; but Fleurette had found a faith almost amounting to worship in the wisdom of Dr. Petrie, her father so newly discovered, but already deeply loved.

He had assured her that this distressing symptom would disappear when the lesion was healed.

She had not wanted Alan to go. Her love for him was a strange thing, impossible to analyse. It had come uncalled for, unwanted; she almost resented the way she felt about Alan.

The curious but meaningless peace of her previous life, her fatalistic acceptance of what she believed to be her destiny, had been broken by this love for Alan. He had represented storm; the discovery of her father had represented calm.

She knew, but nevertheless experienced no resentment of the fact, that she had been used as a pawn in the game of the brilliant man who had dominated her life from infancy. Even now, after her father and Sir Denis had opened her eyes, gently, but surely, to the truth—or what they believed to be the truth—about the Prince (for she always thought of him as the Prince) Fleurette remained uncertain.

Sir Denis was wonderful; and her father—her heart beat faster when she thought of her father—he, of course, was simply a darling. In some way which she could not analyse, her allegiance, she knew, was shared between her father and Alan. It was all very new and very confusing. It had not only changed her life; it had changed her mode of thought—her outlook—everything.

Curled up in the big armchair before the fire, Fleurette tried to adjust her perspective in regard to this new life which opened before her.

Was she a traitor to those who had reared her, so tenderly and so wonderfully, in breaking with the code which had almost become part of herself? Was she breaking with all that was true, and plunging into a false world? Her education, probably unique for a woman, had endowed her with a capacity for clear thinking. She knew that her thoughts of Alan Sterling were inspired by infatuation. Would her esteem for his character, although she believed it to be fine, make life worth while when infatuation was over?