“Well”—he resumed his seat—”I’m on duty here now quite a while, and this job is kind of monotonous. Maybe I doze off, but certainly I think I hear something—right outside the door.”
“What like?”
“Now, that’s not so easy. No, sir.It might be a shuffle, like somebody steals along quietly, or it might be somebody fumbles with the door.”
“It didn’t sound like—snapping fingers?”
“Snapping fingers?” Sergeant Rorke stared hard and chewed hard. “Why, no. I don’t reckon so. Why does anybody snap his fingers?”
“I don’t know,” I answered wearily.“But you saw nothing?”
“Not a thing.”
I went back to my room. Smith had not been awakened, and I was inclined to believe that Rorke had dreamed the episode. The vicious little marmoset (which, nevertheless, meant so much to me) occupied a commodious cage in Barton’s adjoining room and there was nothing to indicate that the animal had been aroused.
My notes engaged my attention for the next few minutes. I was about to take a cigarette, when I paused, my hand suspended over the box.
“What was that?” I muttered.
I thought I had detected a faint movement in the sitting-room, indefinable, but inexplicable. It translated me magically to an apartment at the Prado. I seemed to hear again the ghostly snapping sound, to see the bloodless body of James Longton.
Smith had told me of ten that in dealing with Dr. Fu Manchu I must control my imagination.
But I opened a drawer, took out my Colt, and slipped it in my pocket.
There was something reassuring in its cool touch, and now I lighted a cigarette. As I dropped the lighter on the desk, I caught my breath and listened intently.
I had heard the sound again . . . .
* * *
Dismissing the idea that anyone could have been hiding in the rooms since Smith and I had returned, only one other theory seemed to remain—assuming that my overtired senses were not deluding me. I remembered that Rorke had recently opened the front door and had gone out into the corridor. It was possible, just possible, that during that interval someone had crept in.
Certain secret maps and plans, indispensable to our project, according to Barton, were locked in a steel box in Sir Lionel’s bedroom.
I stepped quickly into the darkened sitting-room and stood there for a while. I could detect no sound. I switched on die lights.
“These creatures move like shadows . . .” Almost I seemed to hear the crisp voice of Nayland Smith. “Anywhere an ape can climb a Negrito can climb.”
Had one of Fu Manchu’s devilish little brown allies crept into the place in some way?
These devil men were the bearers of the Snapping Fingers, of the loathsome thing that battened on blood. Yet, for all my tremors—and I confess I was fighting down panic—I remained unwilling to disturb Smith unless more concrete evidence presented itself. No sound came from Sergeant Rorke,
I dropped my cigarette in a tray and sat upright, listening.
There it was again . . . .
Footsteps, I was prepared to swear—padding footsteps.
I sprang up and ran to the door. I had left the lights on in the sitting-room.
It was empty.
Yet, as I stood there, my ears convinced me that soft, padding footsteps were actually receding at the further side!
I took myself firmly in hand. Was my imagination indeed playing ghostly tricks? I walked in the direction of the sound, and came to the door which led into the lobby. It was shut, and I paused there for a moment, listening. What I heard determined my next move. Quietly, I opened the door and stepped out. Sergeant Rorke was fast asleep in his chair. A short passage led to Smith’s quarters; I could see his door from where I stood; and I hesitated. I knew that he must be even more weary than Rorke. What I might have decided to do does not matter now. A decision was forced upon me.
From somewhere behind me came a weird whistling and thrumming—not loud enough to waken the sleeping police officer, but clearly audible to myself. I started wildly, twisted about, my heart leaping, and then recognized the sound. It was the marmoset in its cage! This recognition brought a momenary relief, to be followed by a doubt. What had awakened the animal? I turned back into the sitting-room. Here, the queer, sibilant language of the tiny monkey sounded much louder. The creature was excited.
Crossing to my own apartment, right on the threshold I pulled up sharply.
The communicating door, the door which led to Barton’s quarters, was wide open. When I had gone out it had been closed!
Determined, now, that the menace was real, that some clandestine thing, kin of the shadows but a thing physical, which could open doors, which I could shoot, was in the suite, I ran to the dark opening, reached for the switch and turned up the lights.
Perhaps I stood there for as long as thirty seconds, staring, staring into an empty room!
The steel box, with its three locks, remained in its place, untouched. Set on a chest of drawers, opposite, was the big cage which Sir Lionel had bought to accommodate Peko, the Doctor’s marmoset. And Peko’s behaviour was most remarkable.
Wrinkled forehead twitching, wicked teeth exposed, he tore at the wire bars with tiny, eager fingers, pouring out a torrent of angry whistling chatter. Why?
A door from Barton’s room opened directly on to the main corridor: but it was closed. I began to distrust my own judgement. I listened almost eagerly to sounds rising from the city below, sounds of motor horns, of a moving train; sounds which spoke of human activity of a normal kind, of people who did not explore the dark and sometimes evil secrets of nature but were just ordinary human beings.
Resolutely I turned my back on these phenomena which had no visible cause, returned to my room, and mixed myself a stiff drink.
I had left the door open, and even as I set my glass down on the desk, I heard again, but very softly—
And then I grew terribly afraid—afraid not of this invisible menace, but afraid of myself. I could see again the thoughtful eyes of the Harley Street doctor who had assured me that I must not think of active service for at least six months. I wondered what he had feared, perhaps that the poison in my system might in some way reach my brain.
It was a horrible thought; worse than any physical danger. But even as that dread crossed my mind, and as I raced across and stared into Barton’s room, it was dispelled by an unassailable, a physical fact.
I saw that the outer door was wide open. It closed, and I heard the snap of the lock!
Almost hurling myself forward, I re-opened it and sprang out. So precipitate was my action that Sergeant Rorke, who had evidently awakened and had come along the outside corridor, was nearly bowled over!
“Go easy, Mr. Kerrigan,” he spluttered. “Gee! What’s doing?”
“Quick! it’s important, sergeant! Did someone come out just ahead of me?”
“Come out? No, sir. I’ll say someone goes in! I wake up—oh, I’m asleep all right—and I get a hunch there’s another door to these apartments. Seems to be kind of something doing along here. I move right away. I see the door shut just as I step up to it. Then it opens again and you come out like the Gestapo’s after you.”
“But you are
