A moment later the door opened, and a gloomy Salvation Army captain entered.
“Thank God! Sir Denis,” said Hepburn and tried to repress the emotion he felt. “I was getting really worried.”
The Salvation Army captain removed his cap, his spectacles, and, very gingerly, his grey moustache, revealed the gaunt, eager features of Nayland Smith.
“Thanks, Hepburn,” he snapped. “I am sorry to have bothered you. But I was right.”
“What!”
Fey appeared silently, his stoic face a mask.
“A whisky and soda, sir?” he suggested.
“Thanks, Fey; a stiff one.”
A triumphant light danced in Smith’s steely eyes, and:
“It looks as though you had some news,” said Hepburn.
“I have.” Nayland Smith extracted pipe and pouch from the pocket of his uniform jacket. “My guess was right —a pure guess, Hepburn, no more; but I was right. Can you imagine whom I saw down there in Chinatown to- night?”
“Not——”
“No—my luck didn’t go as far as that. But just as I was turning out of Mott Street, right in the light from a restaurant, I saw our friend James Richet—the Abbot Donegal’s ex-secretary!”
“Richet?”
“Exactly; one of the key men. Luck was with me. Then, suddenly, it turned. Of all the unimaginable things, Hepburn . . a real Salvation Army officer came up to me! Following a brief conversation he challenged me to establish my identity, and I was forced to do so.”
He pulled back the top of his tunic, revealing the gold badge of a federal agent.
“A clumsy business, Hepburn. But what could I do? In the meantime I had lost my man. I met a detective officer as I went racing round the corner. He was unmistakable. I know a policeman, to whatever country he belongs, a quarter of a mile away. He had passed my man and did his best. I have memorized all the possible places into which he may have gone. But one thing is established, Hepburn—Dr. Fu Manchu has a Chinatown base. . . .”
Chapter 9
THE SEVEN-EYED GODDESS
James Richet, known to the organization of which he was a member as Number 38, stepped though a doorway—the fifth he had counted—and knew he must be below sea level. This door immediately closed behind him.
He found himself in a lobby with stone-faced walls. A silk-shaded lantern hung from an iron bracket. Immediately facing him was another arched doorway, curtained. Above the curtain-rod glowed a dim semi-circle of light. This place smelled like a joss house. The only other item of furniture was a narrow cushioned divan, and upon this a very old Chinaman was squatting. He wore a garment resembling a blue smock; he crouched forward on the divan, his veinous, claw-like hands resting upon his knees. He was a man of incalculable age: an intricate network of wrinkles mapped the whole of his face. His eyes were mere slits in the yellow skin. He might have been a chryselephantine statue, wrought by the cunning hands of a Chinese master.
A movement ever so slight of the bowed head indicated to Richet that the man on the divan was looking at him. He raised the left lapel of his topcoat. A small badge, apparently made of gold and ivory, not unlike one of the chips used at the Monte Carlo gaming tables, was revealed. It bore the number 38.
“James Richet,” he said.
One of the talon hands moved back to the wall—and in some place beyond a bell rang, dimly. A clawish finger indicated the curtained doorway. James Richet crossed the lobby, drew the curtain aside and entered.
The night out of which he had come was wet and icily cold, but the moisture which he wiped now from his forehead was not entirely due to the rain. He had removed his hat and stood looking about him. This was a rectangular apartment, also stone-faced; the floor was of polished stone upon which several rugs were spread. There were seven doors, two in each of the long walls, two in that ahead of him, and the one by which he had entered. Above each of them, on an iron bracket, a lantern was hung, shaded with amber silk. All the openings were draped, and the drapery of each was of a different colour. There were cushioned seats all around the walls, set between the seven openings.
There was no other furniture except a huge square block of black granite, set in the centre of the stone floor and supporting a grotesque figure which only an ultra-modern sculptor could have produced: a goddess possessing seven green eyes, so that one of her eyes watched each of the openings. There was the same perfume in the place as of stale incense, but nevertheless unlike the more characteristic odour of Chinatown. The place was silent, very silent. In contrast to the bitter weather prevailing up above, its seemed to be tropically hot. There was no one visible.
Richet looked about him uneasily. Then, as if the proximity even of the mummy-like Chinaman in the lobby afforded some sense of human companionship, he sat down just right of the opening by which he had entered, placing his black hat upon the cushion beside him.
He tried to think. This place was a miracle of cunning— Chinese cunning. As one descended from the secret street door (and this alone, was difficult to find) a second, masked door gave access to a considerable room. He realized that a police raid would almost certainly end there. Yet there were three more hidden doors—probably steel—and three short flights of stone steps before one reached this temple of the seven-eyed goddess. These doors had been opened from beyond as he had descended.
No sound came from the lobby. Richet slightly changed his position. A green eye seemed to be watching him. But it proved to be impossible to escape the regard of one of those seven eyes; and, viewed from any point, the grotesque idol displayed some feminine line, some strange semblance of distorted womanhood. . . .
