“Has he gone?” she asked rather wearily.
“Yes, he has left the park.”
“He has gone to make his report.” She closed her book and sighed as Mark Hepburn sat down beside her. “I seem to be under suspicion. I think the movements of everybody in the organization are checked from time to time. There has been some tremendous upset. Probably you know what it is? Frankly—I don’t. But it has resulted in an enormous amount of mechanical work being piled up on my shoulders. I receive hundreds of messages, apparently quite meaningless, which I have to take down in shorthand and repeat if called upon.”
“To whom do you repeat them, Moya?”
“To someone with a German accent. I have no idea of his identity.” Her gloved fingers played nervously with the book. “Then there is the Salvaletti-Dumas wedding. Old Emmanuel Dumas and myself have been made responsible for all arrangements. Lola, as you know, is with Salvaletti. It’s terribly hard work. Of course, it’s sheer propaganda and we have plenty of assistance. Nothing is being neglected which might help Salvaletti forward to the Presidency.”
“The murder of Harvey Bragg was a step in that direction,” said Hepburn grimly; “but——”
He checked his words. A party operating under his direction had located Dr. Fu Manchu and the man known as Sam Pak in a farmhouse in Connecticut! Even now it was being surrounded. Lieutenant Johnson was in charge. . . .
Moya did not answer at once; she sat staring straight before her for a while and then:
“That may be true,” she replied in a very quiet voice. “I give you my word that I don’t know if it is true or not. And I’m sure you realize”—she turned to him, and he looked into her beautiful troubled eyes—”that if I had known I should not have admitted it.”
He watched her for a while in silence.
“Yes, I do,” he said at last, in his unmusical, monotonous voice. “You play the game, even though you play it for the most evil man in the world.”
“The President!” Moya forced a wan smile. “I sometimes think he is above good or evil—he thinks on a plane which we simply can’t understand. Has that ever occurred to you, Mark?”
“Yes.” Mark Hepburn nodded. “It’s Nayland Smith’s idea, too. It simply means that he’s doubly dangerous to the peace of the world. You are such a dead straight little soul, Moya, that I can’t tell you what I have learned about the man you call the President. It’s a compliment to you, because I think if you were asked what I had said, you would feel called upon to answer truthfully.”
Moya glanced at him, then looked aside.
“Yes, she replied slowly, “I suppose I should. But”—she clenched her hands—”quite honestly, I don’t care very much to-day who gets control of the country. In the end, all forms of government are much alike, I believe. I am frightfully, desperately worried about Robbie.”
“What’s the matter, Moya?”
Hepburn bent to her. She continued to look aside: there were tears on her lashes.
“He’s very ill.”
“My dear!” In the most natural way in the world his arm was around her shoulders; he held her to him. “Why didn’t you tell me at first? What’s wrong? Who is attending him?”
“Dr. Burnett. It’s diphtheria! He contracted it on his last visit to the garden. I have heard, since, there’s a slight epidemic over there.”
“But diphtheria, in capable hands——”
“Something seems to have gone wrong. I want another opinion. I must hurry back now.”
Mark Hepburn cursed himself for an obtuse fool, for Moya knew that he was a doctor of medicine.
“Let me see him!” he said eagerly. “I know that sounds egotistical; I mean, I’m a very ordinary physician. But at least I have a deep interest in the case.”
“I wanted you to see him,” Moya answered simply. “Really, that was why I came to-day. I only learned last night what was the matter. . . .”
Nayland Smith hurried down from the plane and ran across the floodlighted dusk of the flying ground to a waiting car. The door banged; the car moved off. To the other occupant:
“Who is it?” he snapped.
“Johnson.”
“Ah Johnson, a recruit from the navy, I believe, as Hepburn is a recruit from the army? I have been notified that Dr. Fu Manchu and the man Sam Pak have been traced to a farmhouse in Connecticut. The latest news?”
“Dr. Fu Manchu left by road a few minutes ago, before I and my party could intercept him.”
“Damnation!” Nayland Smith drove his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “Too late—always too late!”
“He was heading for New York. Every possible point en route is watched. I returned by air to meet you.”
“However disguised,” said Smith, “his height alone makes his a conspicuous figure. Tell me where to drop you. Keep in touch with Regal.”
A police car preceded them on the lonely road and another brought up the rear. But a third car, showing no lights and travelling at sixty-five to seventy, passed.
A torrent of machine-gun bullets rained upon them! A violent explosion not five yards behind told of a wasted bomb!
