phenomena.
Smith’s reaction was strictly positive.
Running forward, he dropped down on his knees and scrutinized the carpet under the round table.
“Water spilled here!” he reported.
Springing up, he stepped to one of the windows and craned out. He appeared to be looking down into the Avenue. Then, twisting sideways, I saw him staring upward, and suddenly: “Hang on to me, Kerrigan!” he cried.
Frantically, I leapt forward and grasped him. I thought that violent vertigo threatened his precarious balance. But before I could speak and at the moment that I gripped him, he leaned right out and raised his arm. I saw the flash of his pistol in the moonlight.
He fired twice, upward and to the left.
Hot on the second shot came a high, thin scream which seemed to grow swiftly nearer and then to fade away into silence. From far below there arose a muted uproar; cries; a cessation of the immediate traffic hum: a shrill whistle . . . .
We rushed out no more than a few moments after the police had dragged something on to the sidewalk. They were holding back a crowd of morbid onlookers, many in evening dress. Inspector Hawk elbowed a way in for us. A heavy truck was drawn up nearby and the driver, an Italian, was excitedly explaining to a stolid policeman that he had had not a chance to pull up.
“I tella you he falla from the sky I” he was shouting. We stood hushed, looking down at what had been a small, browned-skinned man.
“As I thought,” said Smith. “One of the Doctor’s devils.” And as he spoke, and I turned away—for the spectacle was horrifying—a suspicion crossed my mind that here lay the origin of the strange story told by the house detective. The dead brown man wore a kind of jersey almost of the same hue as his skin, and trousers of similar colouring: his footgear consisted of rope sandals. But the outstanding characteristic was his disproportionately long arms: he had the arms of a baboon. One broad tyre of the truck had crushed him as he fell right in front of the moving vehicle.
“He was dead when he landed. Inspector,” said the patrolman to Hawk. “Must have come a long way down. He had some kind of satchel hung over his shoulder and it was filled with glass or something. The front tyre just ground it all to powder . . .”
CHAPTER XVI
PADDED FOOTSTEPS
“Kennard Wood is safe—for the time being.”‘
Smith faced me in our sitting-room. He was smoking at top speed. Wood was asleep in an apartment nearby, a man worn out. Rorke remained on duty in the lobby but would be relieved at four o’clock.
“Now that Wood has got in touch with you,” I said, “the mischief is done—from Fu Manchu’s point of view. Probably he will leave him alone.”
“I agree. In this case, Fu Manchu has failed. Wood has much to tell me, but he is too desperately tired for further exertion tonight. By the same token, we have failed, too.”
“How? It’s true that poor Longton died a horrible death; but you saved Kennard Wood.”
“And when I shot the Negrito I lost the only clue to the Snapping Fingers! Yes, it was one of the Doctor’s pygmies, whether from the Andamans or Sumatra I cannot say. You have had some experience of these little devils, Kerrigan. Undoubtedly he slipped in tonight amongst the crowd. The man Pannel, the house detective, evidently had a glimpse of him, but these creatures move like shadows and go as swiftly on all fours as upright.”
“But why did he come?”
“He brought the Snapping Fingers! Then he slipped out of the window and crouched somewhere outside to await the end. Anywhere an ape can climb a Negrito can climb. When I saw him he was swarming up an apparently smooth wall from ledge to ledge, making for the roof. He would have come down the fire ladders.”
“He carried a satchel—”
“To accommodate whatever causes the Snapping Fingers. When Wood was dead it was the pygmy’s job to remove the evidence. He saw that plans had miscarried and so made sure that no trace of the attempt should remain. The thing—whatever it is—was in that flower vase! I failed there, badly.”
I was silent for a while, watching him pacing up and down.
“The—characteristic smell was missing,” I said.
Smith turned and stared at me.
“The characteristic smell is present not before, but
It was sound advice and, having bade Smith good night, I tried to act upon it.
But I found that sleep was not for me. The quiet which comes upon New York only in the very late small hours had fallen now. Dawn was not far away. The hive-like humming of this sleepless city was at its lowest ebb. Yet I could not rest. A score of problems bombarded my mind. Where was Ardatha? How were these strange journeys of the Chinese Doctor accomplished? Should we be able to keep the marmoset alive until an opportunity arose to trade with the greatest enemy of white civilization? Would Fu Manchu restore Ardatha? Where was his New York base, from which he had operated against Longton and Kennard Wood? What caused the Snapping Fingers?
Groaning, I switched on the lights, got up and reached for my dressing-gown. As chronicler of the expedition, my work was badly in arrears: better to arrange my notes than to lie torturing myself with unanswerable queries.
A chilling wave of loneliness swept down upon me. I had to tell myself that I was really in New York, for in some way I seemed to have become removed from it, raised high above into a rarefied but sinister atmosphere; cut off from my fellow men. Although a hotel bedroom is not inspiring, I discovered inspiration of sorts, as a working journalist, in the litter of notes and a portable typewriter standing under a desk lamp. Yes, J must work.
The suite was very silent.
Thoughts of Ardatha haunted me. Her image, as I had glimpsed her in the blue dress, in the foyer below, persistently intruded between me and my purpose. Her eyes, seen even in that swift regard, had seemed to mirror a shadowy fear.
My thoughts took a new turn.
What was the nature of the gruesome experiments upon which Dr. Fu Manchu had been engaged in that deserted Limehouse warehouse? What new secret did he try to wrest from a normally unreadable future? That he had exposed himself to tremendous stresses was a fact manifest in his weakened condition. I endeavoured to visualize that laboratory beside the Thames; the violet lamp; to recall words spoken.
The ghastly horror of the Snapping Fingers was never far from my thoughts, and I was asking myself if the violet lamp might be associated in some way with that agent of death, when a sudden stir in the lobby brought me to my feet.
“Who’s there?” I heard dimly. “
Something had aroused Sergeant Rorke.
The room allotted to me was the last but one at the north end of the suite. Sir Lionel’s was actually the last and there was a communicating door. Smith slept at the southern end. I set out to inquire, switching up the sitting- room lights as I went through.
Rorke had the front door open and was peering to right and left along the corridor outside, at that hour only partially lighted. Hearing my footsteps, he turned swiftly.
“Oh, it’s you!” he said, and his manner was Jumpy.
Once more he peered sharply to left and right, then came in and closed the door. He began to chew.
“What rouses you, Mr. Kerrigan?” he asked (he was a present-tense addict). “Hope it isn’t me singing out.”
“No, I was awake. Did you hear something?”
