cumbersome. The apparatus with which I project those visible and audible images of which you have had experience can be contained in a suitcase. There are no masts, no busy engine rooms, no dynamos.”
I watched him but did not move.
“This is Ericksen’s Ray, in its infancy at the so-called death of its inventor, Doctor Sven Ericksen—rather before your time, I think—but now, perfected. Allow me to demonstrate its powers.”
He pointed the thing, which I now decided resembled a hypodermic syringe, towards a vase which Mrs. Merton had filled that morning with flowers.
“Do you value that vase, Mr. Kerrigan?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“Because I propose to use it as a demonstration. Watch.”
He appeared to press a button at the end of the silver tube. There was no sound, no light, but where the vase of flowers had been there appeared a momentary cloud, a patch of darkness. I became aware of an acrid smell . . .
Vase and flowers had disappeared!
“Ericksen is a genius. You will observe that I say ‘is.’ For although dead to the world, he lives—to work for me. You will realize now why I said that I held death in my hands. Ardatha is coming to see you. She loves you: and when any of my women becomes thus infatuated with one who does not belong to me, I deal with her as I see fit. If she has betrayed me she shall die . . . Stand still! If she merely loves which is fallible but human, I may spare her. I am come in person, Mr. Kerrigan, not for this purpose alone, but for that of recovering from you the letter of instruction signed by every member of the Council of Seven, which Sir Denis Nayland Smith—I have always recognized his qualities—secured this afternoon from a house in Surrey.”
I did not speak; I continued to watch the tube.
“Love so transforms a woman that even my powers of plumbing human nature may be defeated. I am uncertain how low Ardatha has fallen in disloyalty to the Si-Fan where you have been concerned. I shall learn this tonight. But first, where is the document?”
I glanced into the brilliant green eyes and quickly glanced aside.
“I don’t know.”
He was silent. That deadly tube remained pointed directly at my breast.
“No. I recognize the truth. He brought it here but left without it. He has concealed it. He was afraid that my agents would intercept him on the way. He was afraid of
I stared dazedly at the tube. The hand of Dr Fu Manchu might have been carved of ivory: it was motionless.
“Look at me—answer!”
I raised my eyes. Dr Fu Manchu spoke softly.
“He left it. I thought so. I shall find it.”
My doorbell rang.
“This is Ardatha.” The voice became guttural, a voice of doom. “You have a fine mushrabiyeh screen here, Mr. Kerrigan, which I believe you brought from Arabia when you went there on behalf of your newspaper last autumn. I shall stand behind this screen, and you will admit Ardatha. She has been followed; she is covered. Any attempt to leave the building would be futile. Do not dare to warn her of my presence. Bring her into this room and let her say what she has come to say. I shall be listening. Upon her words rest life or death. Always I am just.”
Fists clenched, bathed in clammy perspiration, I turned and walked to the door.
“No word, no hint of warning—or I shall not spare you!”
I opened the door. Ardatha stood on the landing.
“My dear!” I exclaimed.
God knows how I looked, how wild my eyes must have been, but she crept into my extended arms as into a haven.
“Darling! I cannot bear it any longer! I had to come to save you!” I thought that our embrace would never end, except in death.
The Mushrabiyeh Screen
Ardatha, perhaps with the very next word which she uttered, was about to betray herself to the master of the Si-Fan!
My inclination was to take her up and race downstairs to the street. But Fu Manchu’s servants were watching; he had said so, and he never lied. On the other hand, few human brains could hold a secret long from those blazing green eyes. If I tried to warn her, if I failed to return, I was convinced deep within me that it would be the end of us. I thought of that gleaming tube like a hypodermic syringe of which Dr Fu Manchu had said:
“I hold death in my hand.”
No, I must return to the study must allow Ardatha to say what she was there to say—and abide by the consequences.
Her manner was strangely disturbed: I had felt her trembling during those bitter-sweet moments when I had held her in my arms. Remembering her composure on the occasion of that secret visit in Venice, I knew that tonight marked some crisis in her affairs—in mine—perhaps in the history of the world.
I led her towards the study. At the doorway she looked up at me. I tried to tell her silently with my eyes (but knew how hopelessly I failed) that behind the mushrabiyeh screen Dr Fu Manchu was hidden.
“Sit down, dear, and let me get you a drink.”
I forced myself to speak casually, but:
“No, no, please don’t go!” she said. “I want nothing. I had to see you, but I have only a few moments in which to tell you—oh, so many things! Please listen.” The amethyst eyes were wide open as she raised them to me. “Every second is of value. Just stay where you are and listen!”
Looking down at her, I stood there. She wore a very simple frock and her adorable creamy arms were bare. The red gleam of her wind-blown hair filled me with an insane longing to plunge my fingers in its living waves. I watched her. I tried to tell her . . .
“Although the affair of Venice was successful in its main purpose,” she went on swiftly, “it failed in some other ways. High officials of the French police know that James Brownlow Wilton was stolen away from the Blue Train, that it was not James Brownlow Wilton who died on the yacht. Sir Denis—yes?—he knows all about it too. And Baron Trenck, who silenced General Diesler, he was not given safe protection . . . All these things are charged against the president.”
She spoke those words with awe—the president! And watching her, watching her intently, I tried to say without moving my lips:
“The president is here!”
But as a telepathist I found myself a failure, for she continued:
“I betray no Si-Fan secrets in what I tell you, because I tell you only what you know already. I am one of them—and all the wrong I have ever done has been to try to save you. Because I am a woman I cannot help myself. But now what I am here to say to you—and when I have said it I must go—is this: A new president is to be elected!”
“What!”
“By him all the power of the Si-Fan—you cannot even guess what that power is—will be turned upon Sir Denis and—you.”
She clasped her hands and stood up.
“Please, please! if you value my happiness a little bit I beseech you from my soul, when that notice comes, make him obey it! Force him to obey it! Imprison him if you like!—for I tell you, if you fail in this, nothing, nothing on earth can save him—nor you! Come to the door with me, but no further. I must go.”
“But not yet, Ardatha!”
Dr Fu Manchu stepped from behind the screen.
It was a situation so appalling that it seemed to dull my sensibilities. Such a weakling and traitor did I stand in my own regard that I would have welcomed complete oblivion.
