Smith.”
He stared at me. Already he was groping for his pipe.
“Can any man rest till his task is finished?” he asked quietly. “I doubt it. Since Doctor Fu Manchu has tricked all the normal laws of life—will my task ever end?”
Fey served drinks and silently retired.
“I had a bad shock tonight. Smith,” I said awkwardly. “Ardatha was instrumental in the theft of the commissioner’s portfolio.”
Smith nodded, busily filling his pipe.
“She had no choice,” he snapped. “As I said at the time it was her punishment. At least she was not concerned in a murder, Kerrigan. Probably she had to succeed or die. I wonder if this really remarkable achievement has reinstated the doctor in the eyes of the Council.”
“Is it a fact. Smith, that the names of the Council were actually in your possession?”
“Yes. Some I had suspected, nor would their identity convey anything to the public. But three of the Seven are as well known to the world as Bernard Shaw. Even to me those names came as a surprise. But lacking the written evidence, as the commissioner says, we dare not move. Ah well! The doctor has obtained a firm footing in the Western world since he first began operating from Limehouse.”
He took up a bundle of letters which Fey had placed on a table near the armchair. He tossed them all aside until presently he came upon one at which he frowned queerly.
“Hello!” he murmured, “what’s this?”
He examined the writing, the post office stamp—and finally tore open the envelope. He glanced at the single sheet of paper which it contained. His face remained quite motionless as he bent forward and passed it to me . . .
I stared, and my heart missed a beat as I read:
The Council of Seven of the Si-Fan has decided that you are an obstruction to its policy. Its present purpose being the peace of the world, a purpose to which no sane man can be opposed, you are given a choice of two courses. Remain in London tonight and the Council guarantees your safety and will communicate with you by telephone.
I don’t know why these words written in a square heavy hand, on thick paper embossed with a Chinese hieroglyphic, should so have chilled me, but they did. It was no novelty for Nay land Smith to go in peril of his life, but knowing its record, frankly the dictum of the Council of Seven touched me with an icy hand.
“What do they mean. Smith, about leaving London?” I asked in a hoarse voice. “I suspected some new move when you spoke to the commissioner about saving the next victim.”
“Marcel Delibes, the French statesman, has received two warnings. Copies were among the papers I found in Lord Weimer’s house!”
“Well?”
“You may also recall that I promised to tell you when Doctor Fu Manchu ceased to be president?”
“Yes.”
“He has ceased to be president!”
“How can you possibly know?”
He held up the first notice.
“Doctor Fu Manchu’s delicate sense of humor would never permit him to do such a thing! Surely you realize, Kerrigan, that this means I am safe until the second notice arrives?”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I have made arrangements to leave for Paris tonight. Gallaho is coming, and—”
“So am I!”
Blue Carnations
“This is the sort of atmosphere in which Doctor Fu Manchu finds himself at home!”
We stood in the workroom of Marcel Delibes, the famous French statesman. He had been unavoidably detained but requested us to wait. Two windows opened onto a long balcony which I saw to be overgrown with clematis. It looked down on a pleasant and well-kept garden. Beyond one saw the Bois. The room, religiously neat as that of some Mother Superior, was brightened along its many bookshelves by those attractively light bindings affected by French publishers; and a further note of color was added by the presence of bowls and vases of carnations.
The perfume of all these flowers was somewhat overpowering, so that the impression I derived during my stay in the apartment was of carnations and of photographs of beautiful women.
There was a nearly full moon; the windows were wide open; and with Smith I examined the balcony outside. Our translation in a Royal Air Force plane from London had been so rapid, so dreamlike, that I was still in a mood to ask myself: Is this really Paris?
Yes, that carnation-scented room, dimly lighted except for one green-shaded lamp upon the writing desk, with photographs peeking glamorously from its shadows was, as Nayland Smith had said, an ideal atmosphere for Dr Fu Manchu.
Gallaho was downstairs with Jussac of the Surete Generale, and I knew that the house was guarded like a fortress. Even at this hour messengers were coming and going, and a considerable crowd had collected in the Bois outside, invisible and inaudible from the house by reason of its embracing gardens.
That sort of rumor which electrifies a population was creeping about Paris. Delibes, the rumour ran, had planned a political coup which, if it failed in its purpose, would mean that before a new day dawned France would be plunged into war.
“The grounds may be guarded, Smith,” I said, looking about me. “But Delibes takes no other precautions.”
I indicated the widely opened windows.
Smith nodded grimly.
“We have here, Kerrigan,” he replied, “another example of that foolhardy courage which has already brought so many distinguished heads under the axe of Doctor Fu Manchu.” He took up the table telephone and examined it carefully, then shook his head.
“No! He has been warned of the Green Death, a fact of which the Si-Fan is undoubtedly aware. If only the fool would face facts—if only he would give me his confidence! He knows, he has been told, of the fate of his predecessors who have defied the Council of Seven! He is a gallant man in more senses than one”—Smith nodded in the direction of the many photographs. “I must know what he plans to do and I must know what time the Si-Fan has given him in which to change his mind.”
“His peril is no greater than yours!”
“Perhaps not—but I don’t happen to be the political master of France! You are thinking of the letter which awaited me at the hotel desk?”
“I am.”
“Yes”—he nodded—”the second notice!”
“But, Smith—”
“About one thing I am determined, Kerrigan—and I come provided to see it through: M. Delibes must accept my advice. Another Si-Fan assassination would paralyze European statesmanship. It would mean submission to a reign of terror . . .”
Marcel Delibes came in, handsome, grey-haired; and I noted the dark eyebrows and moustache which had proved such a boon to French caricaturists. He wore a blue carnation in his buttonhole; he was charmingly apologetic.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “you come at an hour so vital in the history of France that I think I may be
