A moment of almost complete silence followed. He had been prepared to wait, perhaps to force the door. He was about to ring a second time when the door opened.
Mark Hepburn faced him!
Amazement, relief, doubt, alternately ruled Nayland Smith’s mind. The situation was beyond analysis. He fixed a penetrating stare on Hepburn’s haggard face: his hair was dishevelled, his expression wild, and with a queer note almost of resentment in his tone:
“Smith!” he exclaimed.
Nayland Smith nodded and stepped in, signalling to his party to remain outside.
Crossing a small vestibule, he found himself in a charmingly appointed sitting-room, essentially and peculiarly feminine in character. It was empty.
“I’m sorry about all this seeming mystery,” said Hepburn in a low voice; “and I understand your anxiety. But when you know the facts you will agree, I think, there was no other way”
“You undertook a certain responsibility,” Nayland Smith said grimly, “in a message to Fey—”
“Not so loud, Smith! I stand by it . . . . It’s hard to explain”— he hesitated, his deep-set eyes watching Nayland Smith— “but with all his crimes, after to-night—I’m sorry. Moya— Mrs. Adair—collapsed when she heard the news —”
“What, that the boy is dead?”
“No—that he will live!”
“I am glad to hear it. Largely as a result of your discovery of the Connecticut farm,” said Nayland Smith, continuing intently to watch Hepburn, “we have narrowed down our search to an area surrounding this building,. Your long, inexplicable absence following that message to Fey has checked us. I should be glad, Hepburn, if you would inform me where you believe Fu Manchu to be—”
The door opened, and Dr. Fu Manchu came in.
Smith’s hand plunged to his automatic, but Fu Manchu, frowning slightly, shook his head, His usually brilliant eyes were dully filmed. He wore a black suit and beneath his coat a curious black woollen garment with a high collar. In some strange way he resembled a renegade priest who had abandoned Christianity in favour of devil worship.
“Melodrama is uncalled for, Sir Denis,” he said, his guttural voice expressing no emotion whatever. “We are not in Hollywood. I shall be at your service in a moment.” He turned to Hepburn. “My written instructions are on the table beside the bed: you will find there also the name of the physician I have selected to take charge of the case. He is a Jew practising in the Ghetto; a man of integrity, with a sound knowledge of his profession. I do not imply, Sir Denis, that he is in the class of our mutual friend, Dr. Petrie (to whom I beg you to convey my regards), but he is the best physician in New York. I desire, Captain Hepburn, to be arrested by Sir Denis Nayland Smith, who has a prior claim. Will you be good enough to hand me over to him?”
Hepburn spoke hoarsely.
“Yes. . . . Smith, this is your prisoner.”
Fu Manchu bowed slightly. He took up a leather case which at the moment of entering he had placed upon the carpet beside him.
“I desire you, Captain Hepburn,” he said, “to call Dr. Goldberg immediately, and to remain with the patient until he arrives. . . .”
All but imperturbable as he had trained himself to be, Nayland Smith at this moment almost lost contact with reality. At the eleventh hour, with counsels of desperation becoming attractive, Fate rather than his own wit had delivered this man into his hands. Swiftly he glanced at Hepburn and read in the haggard face mingled emotions of which he himself was conscious. He had never dreamed that triumph achieved after years of striving could be such a dead-sea fruit.
The dimmed green eyes were fixed upon him, but there was nothing hypnotic in their regard; rather they held an ironical question. He stepped aside, indicating with his hand the vestibule in which the three men waited.
“Precede me, Dr. Fu Manchu.”
Fu Manchu, carrying the case, walked with his cat-like tread out into the vestibule, three keen glances fixed upon him, three barrels covering his every movement.
“Ring for the elevator,” rapped Nayland Smith.
One of the men went out through the front door, which had been left open.
Dr. Fu Manchu set his case upon the floor beside a chair.
“I assume, Sir Denis,” he said, his voice very sibilant, “I am permitted to take my coat and my cap?”
He opened a panelled cupboard and looked inside. Momentarily the opened door concealed him as a heavy black topcoat with an astrakhan collar was thrown out on to the back of the chair. Ensued an interval of not more than five seconds . . . then Nayland Smith sprang forward.
The leather case stood beside the chair, the black coat was draped across it; but the cupboard was empty!
Dr. Fu Manchu had disappeared.
“I am growing old, Hepburn,” said Nayland Smith. “It is high time I retired.”
Mark Hepburn, studying the crisp greying hair, bronzed features and clear eyes of the speaker, laughed shortly.
“No doubt Dr. Fu Manchu wishes you would,” he said.
“Yet he fooled me with a paltry vanishing-cabinet trick, an illusion which was old when the late Harry Houdini
