63
A LACQUER CABINET
Relays of detectives had been on duty all night, watching every exit from the building. Nayland Smith was pacing up and down the sitting-room when Gallaho was announced. He had paced up and down all night. Fleurette, ignoring the orders of the nurse, had joined him. She was curled up in the big armchair. Alan Sterling had ‘phoned twice.
“Any news, sir?”
“No.”
Gallaho leaned on the mantelshelf.
“It’s beginning to occur to me that we may be wrong.”
“Always a possibility, Gallaho. . . .”
The detective taking reports from the men on duty, had observed that the remainder of the incoming tenant’s furniture was being delivered. A secretary, wearing smart morning dress, had taken charge of operations. One of Staple’s large green vans was outside the service entrance; a smaller one was drawn up behind it.
“Those mahogany chairs,” the secretary had said as Gallaho had lingered for a moment, “and the large lacquer cabinet are to be brought down again. There is no room for them. Put them on the small van. . . .”
“I mean,” Gallaho went on doggedly, “we may have been barking up the wrong tree. There’s the possibility . . .”
The door bell had been ringing, but Gallaho had failed to hear it. Fey had opened the front door. And now:
“Darling!” cried Fleurette—
She leapt from the armchair and threw herself into her father’s arms. . . .
For Dr. Petrie had walked in!
Fleurette broke down completely.
She was still crying like a little child, but crying happily, when a small covered van which had left the building some ten minutes before was pulled up in a builder’s yard in Chelsea.
A man wearing a morning suit and a soft black hat got down from his place beside the driver and ran around to the rear of the van. Its load consisted of a set of mahogany chairs and a tall blue lacquer Japanese cabinet.
Climbing into the van, he opened the door of this Cabinet.
Dr. Fu Manchu stepped out.
“Companion Grassland,” he said, “you have earned merit—”
The End
