“The League of Good Americans, eh? You must realize, Hepburn, that the great plot doesn’t end with the control of the United States. It embraces Australia, the Philippines, and ultimately Canada! Middle Western farmers, crippled by mortgages, are being subsidized by the league and sent to Alaska, where unconsciously they are establishing a nucleus of Fu Manchu’s future domination!”
“In heaven’s name where does all the money come from?”
“From the Si-Fan, the oldest and most powerful secret society in the world. If the truth about the League of Good Americans—’America for every man and every man for America’—reached the public, I shudder to think what the reaction would be! But to return to personal matters—What are your plans in regard to Mrs. Adair?”
“I have none.” Mark Hepburn spoke slowly, his usual voice sounding even more monotonous than usual. “I have told you everything I know about her, Smith. And I think you will agree that the situation is one of great danger.”
“It is—for both. I assume that you are leaving it to Mrs. Adair to communicate with you?”
“I must.”
Nayland Smith stared hard for a moment, and then:
“She may be a trump card, Hepburn,” he said, “but frankly, I don’t know how to play her.”
in
“Saw my funny man last night, Goofy,” said Robbie Adair, laying down his porridge spoon and staring up wide- eyed at Nurse Goff. “Funny man who makes heads.”
“I believe he’s just a dream of yours, child,” Nurse Goff declared. “/ have never seen him.”
But Robbie was very earnest on the point, and was not to be checked. According to his account, the mysterious madman who hurled models of human heads from his lofty studio had appeared on the previous night. Robbie had awakened very late; he knew it had been very late “ ‘cause of the way the sky had looked.” He had gone to the window and had seen the man hurl a plaster head far out over the dome.
“I never heard such a silly tale in my life,” Nurse Goff declared. “God bless the child—he’s dreaming!”
“Not dweaming,” Robbie declared stoutly. “Please can I have some jam? Is Mum coming to-day?”
“I don’t know, dear; I hope so.”
“Are we going to the garden?”
“If it’s fine, Robbie.”
Robbie dealt with bread and jam for some time, and then:
“Will Uncle Mark be there?” he inquired.
“I don’t think so, dear.”
“Why not? I like Uncle Mark—all ‘cept his whiskers. I like Yellow Uncle, too, but he never comes.”
Nurse Goff suppressed a shudder. The man whom the boy had christened “Yellow Uncle” terrified her as her dour Scottish nature had never been terrified before. His existence in the life of Mrs. Adair, whom she respected as well as liked, was a mystery beyond her understanding. Rare, though his visits were, that he was Mrs. Adair’s protector she took for granted. But how Mrs. Adair, beautiful and delicately nurtured, ever could have begun this association with the dreadful Chinaman was something which Mary Goff simply could not understand. The affection of Robbie for this sinister being was to her mind even a greater problem.
“Give me an auto on my birfday,” Robbie added reminis-cently; ‘Yellow Uncle did.”
When, an hour later, his “auto” packed behind in the big Rolls driven by Joe, the cheerful Negro chauffeur, lonely little Robbie accompanied by Nurse Goff set out for his Long Island playground, a “protection” party in a Z-car was following.
Far in the rear, keeping the Z-car in sight, a government car in charge of Lietenant Johnson brought up the rear of the queer procession.
Chapter 27
THE STRATTON BUILDING
Mark Hepburn, in blue overalls and wearing a peaked cap, crept out from a window on to a dizzy parapet. Two men similarly attired followed him. One was an operative of Midtown Electric, the firm which had installed the lighting conductors;
the other was a federal agent. They were on the forty-seventh floor of the Stratton Building. The leaded dome swept up above them; below the New York hive buzzed ceaselessly.
“This way,” said Hepburn, and headed along the parapet.
He constantly looked down into a deep gutter which formed their path until at a point commanding an oblique view of the gulley which was Park Avenue, he pulled up sharply.
Storm clouds were gathering and sweeping over the city. To look upward was to derive an impression that the towering building swayed like a ship. Mark Hepburn was looking downward. He expressed an exclamation of satisfaction.
Fragments of clay littered the gutter; on some of the larger pieces might be seen the imprint of a modeller’s work. The madman of the Stratton Building was no myth, but an actuality!
Hepburn glanced up for a moment. The effect of the racing clouds above the tower of the building was to make him dizzy. He felt himself lurching and closed his eyes quickly; but he had seen what he wanted to see.
Above the slope of the leaded dome was an iron gallery upon which two windows opened. . . . .
