Rangoon and Calcutta. Only now, when he is in New York (and God knows how he got here!), have I realized that this dirty old barkeeper is Dr. Fu Manchu’s chief of staff!”
Mark Hepburn stared hard at the speaker, and then:
“This accounts for all the men at work in Chinatown,” he said slowly. “The man you mean is Sam Pak?”
“Sam Pak—none other,” snapped Nayland Smith. “And the truth respecting this ancient reprobate”—he indicated the writing-table—”reached me in its entirety only a few hours ago. If you could see him you would understand my amazement. He is incredibly old, and—so much for my knowledge of the East—I had always set him down as one step above the mendicant class. Yet, in the days of the empress, he was governor of a great province; in fact, he was Dr. Fu Manchu’s political senior! He was one of the first Chinamen to graduate at Cambridge, and he holds a science degree of Heidelberg.”
“Yet in your knowledge of him he has worked in slums in Chinatown—been a barkeeper?”
“It might occur in Russia to-morrow, Hepburn There are princes, grand dukes—I am not speaking of gigolos or soi-disant noblemen—spread about the world who, the right man giving the word, would work as scavengers, if called upon, to restore the Tsars.”
“That’s true enough.”
“And so, you see, we have got to find this aged Chinaman. I suspect that he has brought with him an arsenal of these unpleasant weapons which the doctor employs so successfully—Hullo! There’s the phone. We are wanted to identify the climber. . . .”
Chapter 15
THE SCARLET BRIDES (concluded)
Old Sam Pak was performing his nightly rounds of Base 3. Two Chinese boys were in attendance.
Up above, political warfare raged; the newspapers gave prominence to the Washington situation in preference to love, murder, or divorce. Dr. Orwin Prescott was reported to be “resting up before the battle.” Harvey Bragg was well in the news. Other aspirants to political eminence might be found elsewhere: “Bluebeard of the Backwoods” was front-page stuff. America was beginning to take Harvey Bragg seriously.
But in the mysterious silence of Base 3, old Sam Pak held absolute sway. Chinatown can keep its secrets. Only by exercise of a special sense, which comes to life after years of experience in the ways of the Orient, may a Westerner know when something strange is afoot. Sidelong glances;
sudden silences; furtive departures as the intruder enters. Police officers in Mott Street area had been reporting such trivial occurrences recently. Those responsible for diagnosing Asiatic symptom had deduced the arrival in New York of a Chinese big-shot.
Their diagnosis was correct. By this time every Chinaman from coast to coast knew that one of the Council of Seven controlling the Si-Fan, most dreaded secret society in the East, had entered America.
Sam Pak pursued his rounds. The place was a cunning maze of passages and stairs; a Chinese rabbit warren. One narrow passage, below the level of the room of the seven-eyed goddess, had a row of six highly-painted coffins ranged along its wall. They lay on their sides. Lids had been removed and plate glass substituted. This ghastly tunnel was vile with the smell of ancient rottenness.
One of Sam Pak’s attendant Chinamen switched on a light. The old mandarin, who had known nearly a century of vicissitudes, carried a great bunch of keys. In his progress he had tried door after door. He now tested the small traps set in the sides of the six coffins. In the sudden glare, insidious nocturnal things moved behind glass. . . .
There was a big iron door in the wall; it possessed three locks, all of which proved to be fastened. Here at once was part of that strange arsenal which Nayland Smith suspected to have been imported , and a secret sally-port the existence of which police headquarters would have given much to know about. It communicated with an old subterranean passage which led to the East River. . . .
On a floor above, Sam Pak opened a grille and looked into a neatly appointed bedroom. Dr. Orwin Prescott lay there sleeping. His face was very white.
A dim whirring sound broke the underground silence. Sam Pak handed the bunch of keys to one of the boys and shuffled slowly upstairs to the temple of the green-eyed goddess. It was in semi-darkness; the only light came through the coloured silk curtain draped before one of the stone cubicles.
Sam Pak crossed, drew the curtain aside, and spoke in Chinese:
“I am here, Master.”
“You grow old, my friend,” the cold, imperious tones of Dr. Fu Manchu replied. “You keep me waiting. I regret that you have refused to accept my offer to arrest your descent to the tomb.”
“I prefer to join my ancestors, marquis, when the call reaches me. I fear your wisdom. While I live I am with you body and soul in our great aims. When my hour comes I shall be glad to die.”
Silence fell. Old Sam Pak, withered hands tucked in wide sleeves, stooping, waited. . . .
“I will hear your own report on the matter which I entrusted to you.”
“You know already, Master, that the man, Peter Carlo, failed. I cannot say what evidence he left behind. But your orders regarding the other, Blondie Hahn, were carried out. He brought the man Carlo to Wu King’s Bar, and I interviewed them in the private room. I instructed Carlo, and he set out. I then paid Hahn his price. It was a waste of good money, but I obey. Ah Fu and Chung Chow did the rest . . . there are now only three Scarlet Brides left to us. . . .”
It was an hour after dawn when Nayland Smith and Mark Hepburn stood looking down at two stone slabs upon which two bodies lay.
One of the departed in life had been a small but very muscular Italian with uncommonly large, powerful hands. He presented a spectacle, owing to his many injuries, which must have revolted all but the toughest. There was a sound of dripping water.
“You have prepared your report, Doctor?” said Nayland Smith, addressing a plump, red-faced person who was smiling amiably at the exhibits as though he loved them.
