one of the windows would have been useless, for they were of a kind not made to open, and the panes were too narrow to allow entrance had the glass been entirely removed. I walked around to the other side. Here was evidence of a landing stage long demolished. There were three windows and a walled-up door. Inspection was carried out from a narrow ledge which overhung the canal. Baffled again, I was about to return—when I heard footsteps coming down the lane!
I stayed where I was. Directly opposite, the narrow canal glittering between, rose a wall of the deserted Palazzo Mori. I could see that stone balustrade up which I had scrambled, the iron balcony to which I had clung. Nearer and nearer the footsteps approached, and now I heard a woman’s voice:
“Wait, just a moment! . . . I have the key.”
It was a soothing, caressing voice, and I longed for a glimpse of the speaker, but dared not move.
I heard the rattling of the padlock, opening of the door.
“Please wait! Not yet! We may be seen!”
Light suddenly illuminated the interior of the building. I crouched low, my heart beating fast, and cautiously from one corner of a window, peered in.
What I saw made my heart beat faster. It strengthened my resolution to do what Nayland Smith would have done . . .
Rudolf Adion, wearing a half mask, and a cloak over his evening dress, stood hands clasped behind him, watching a woman who knelt in a corner of the floor!
His eyes were ardent; he tore the mask off—and I saw a man enslaved. The woman wore a loose fur wrap, her arms resembled dull ivory. She was slender, almost serpentine, jet-black hair lay close to her shapely head. And as I looked and recognized her, she stood upright.
A trap had been opened, a section of floor with its impedimenta of pots and litter had been slid aside! She turned—and for the first time I saw her eyes.
Her eyes—long, narrow, dark-lashed eyes—were emerald green! I had thought that there were no eyes in the world like these except the eyes of Dr Fu Manchu.
She made a gesture of triumph. She smiled as perhaps long ago Calypso smiled.
“Be patient! This is the only way—come!”
The words reached me clearly through the broken window. Pulling her wrap over her bare shoulders, she beckoned and began to descend steps below the trap. I saw that she carried a flashlamp.
Rudolf Adion obeyed. The light below shone up into his dark, eager face as he stooped to follow.
And then came darkness.
The Zombie
Rudolf Adion, dictator of a great European nation, was going to his death!
I thought rapidly, trying to envisage the situation from what I believed would have been Nayland Smith’s point of view.
Probably I could reach police headquarters in ten minutes. A call box was of no avail, owing to my ignorance of the language, so that this meant ten minutes wasted. Before the police arrived, Adion might have disappeared as Nayland Smith had disappeared. That the passage led to the Palazzo Mori I had good reason to suppose. But unless it had been planned to assassinate the chancellor in that deserted building and hide his body, where were they going?
My experience of the methods of the Si-Fan inclined me to believe that Adion would be given a final opportunity to accept the Council’s orders. My decision was soon made. I would follow; and when I had found out where the woman was leading the dictator, return and bring a party large enough to surround the place.
The door I knew to be unfastened. I groped my way to where a dim oblong light indicated the position of the trap. I saw stone steps. I descended cautiously. The place in which I found myself had a foul reek; the filthy water of the Rio Mori dripped through its roof in places. It was an ancient stone passage, slimy and repellent. A vague moving light at the further end was that of the flashlamp carried by the woman.
Adion’s infatuation had blinded him to his danger. But putting myself in his place and substituting Ardatha for the woman of death, I knew that I, too, would have followed to the very gates of hell.
Fixing my eyes on that guiding light, I proceeded. The light disappeared, but I discovered ascending steps. A spear in the darkness led me up to a door ajar. I heard a voice and recognized it. It was the voice of Adion.
“Where are you leading me, Mona Lisa?”
In the exquisite face of this ghoul who hunted human souls for Dr Fu Manchu he had discovered a resemblance to that famous painting. The resemblance was not perceptible to me . . .
Along an arched cellar, silhouettes against the light of the moving lamp which cast grotesque shadows, I saw the pair ahead: the slender figure of the woman, the cloaked form of the doomed man. There was a great squat pillar in this forgotten crypt and I crept behind it until they had come to the top of the open stair and vanished into a Gothic archway.
Complete darkness had come when I crept forward and followed, feeling my way to the foot of the stair.
The sound of footsteps ceased. I stood stockstill. I heard the woman’s laughter, low-pitched, haunting. It ended abruptly. There came thickly muttered words in a man’s voice. He had her in his arms . . . Then the footsteps continued.
A key was placed in a lock and I heard the creaking of a door. It echoed, phantomesque, as though in a cavern; it warned me of what I should find. I waited until those sounds, mockingly repeated by the ghosts of the place, grew faint. Advancing, I found myself in the tomblike entrance hall of the Palazzo Mori.
The light carried by the woman was now a mere speck. However, using extreme caution, I followed it. As I crossed that haunted place, the shades of men trapped, poisoned, murdered there, seemed to move around me in a satanic dance. Tortured spirits of mediaeval Venice formed up at my back, barring the road to safety. Yet I pressed on, for I knew that the great outer door was open, that even if my way through the foul tunnel be cut off, here was another sally port although it meant a plunge into the Grand Canal.
The light faded out entirely, but a hollow ringing of footsteps assured me that I had further to go. One of those doors which the police party had found closed, was open! (The ancient lock had been wedged. It was fitted with a new, hidden lock.) And beyond that door Rudolf Adion went to destruction.
Down five steps I groped, and knew that I was below water level again.
Far along a tunnel similar to that which led under the Rio Mori, I saw the two figures. The man’s arm was around the woman; his head was close to hers. I knew that I could never be detected in the darkness of this ancient catacomb unless my own movements betrayed me; and when the silhouettes became blurred and then disappeared altogether I divined the presence of ascending steps at the end of the passage.
One fact of importance I noted: this damp and noisome burrow ran parallel to the Grand Canal. I must be a long way from my starting point.
And now it had grown so black that I had no alternative but to use my torch. I used it cautiously shining its ray directly before my feet. The floor was clammily repulsive, but I proceeded until I reached the steps. I switched off the torch.
A streak of light told me that a door had been left ajar at the top.
Gently I pushed it open and found myself in an empty wine cellar. One unshaded electric light swung from the vaulted roof. An open stone stair of four steps led up to an arch.
I questioned the wisdom of further advance. But I fear the spirit of Nayland Smith deserted me, that hereditary madness ruled my next move, for I crept up, found a massive, nail-studded door open, and peered out into a carpeted passage!
Emerging from that subterranean chill, the change of atmosphere was remarkable. Rudolf Adion’s voice reached me. He spoke happily, passionately. Then the speaker’s tone rose to a high note—a cry . . . and ceased abruptly!
They had him—it was all over! Inspired by a furious indignation, I stole forward and peered around the edge of a half-opened door into a room beyond. It was a small room having parquet flooring of a peculiar pattern: a plain border of black wood some three feet wide, the center designed to represent a lotus in bloom. Its walls were panelled, and the place appeared to be empty until, venturing unwisely to protrude my head, I saw watching me with a cold smile the woman of death!
* * *
