The Island of Fu Manchu

sight they looked like small monoplanes: further inspection led to confusion. Squadron Leader Allington laughed.

“Screams, aren’t they?” he cried. “No undercarriage, no propeller! And”—he tapped my shoulder knowingly —”how do you suppose we get ‘em into the air?”

It was a poser. There was no airfield outside, no runway. “Look!”

He moved a lever. That section of roof immediately above the machine which I had been inspecting, swung open. I saw the sky.

“Straight up, Kerrigan! Even a hawk needs a take-off, but these birds rise straight from their heels.”

“How?”

“One of our conscripts. Professor Swain—whose name you may have heard—discovered a meteoric substance in Poland (his native land) which was anti-gravitational—”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean that these planes are fitted with an insulated disc of Swainsten (named after its discoverer) which, when exposed, or partially exposed, to the earth’s influence, sends the bus flying upwards towards some unknown planet for which Swainsten has so keen an affinity that it overcomes gravity and atmosphere to get there! Uncontrolled, one would reach the stratosphere!”

“But—”

“The Swainsten disc is operated from the controls. The pilot can climb at terrific speed, or hover. It’s simply miraculous. I have learned, since I came here, that I didn’t know the first thing about flying! You begin to feel the fascination of having access to knowledge which others are groping to find. The whole show is like that. These things take the air as silently as owls.One could start from a bowling green and alight on a billiard table. Once afloat, propulsion is obtained from Ericksen waves—”

“But the Ericksen wave—”

“Disintegrates? I agree—if so directed. But, as fitted to the Bats (that is our name for these small planes) it enables the pilot to tune in to a suitable wavelength as one does with a radio set, and to pick up from it all the power he needs to develop anything up to three hundred miles an hour. There are larger models, of course, which can do more. I had the pleasure of bringing you here in one from the jamboree at Mome la Selle.”

It was dawning upon my mind that I was acquiring knowledge which I should never live to use: part, at least, of the mystery ofDr. Fu Manchu’s secret journeys was explained.

“The whole outfit is silent as a radio set; in fact it is broadly operated on the same principle, except that the energy is converted. I would give you a trial spin, but I have no instructions,. Some other time . . . . ”

When he had partially exhausted his enthusism for this, his pet subject (I gathered that he was Chief Pilot) I asked him a question which had been in my mind throughout.

“Aren’t there—urges, to return to your former friends?”

His mouth twisted into a wry expression.

“At first—yes; lots. I believe there have been cases where unwilling workers have been allowed to go. We have Professor Richner here—”

“But Professor Richner—”

“Is dead, you mean? My dear, Kerrigan, every soul on the Headquarters Staff (I refer to the officers) is legally dead! I am legally dead: we are all dead. But in those rare cases I have mentioned. Companion Richner has prescribed and one of the doctor’s medical staff has dealt with, the case. A painless injection and the patient returns to the world with a blind spot in his memory. He can tell his friends nothing: he remembers nothing. Do you see?”

I saw. Ardatha had had such a “painless injection.”

“When, as it were, normally one goes on leave—well, it is merely necessary to avoid old haunts and, if caught up, to stick to the new identity, profess ignorance and say ‘Sorry you must be mistaken’.”

“But even when you elect to stay under these conditions, there must be pulls to your old life?”

We were walking along a path which evidently led back to the main quadrangle, and Allington grabbed my arm in his impulsive way.

“In my own case, as no doubt it would be in yours, the pull was a girl. I was crazy about her. All the same, I consented to see Richner and I submitted to the injection he prescribed.”

“What occurred?”

“Well—it was a good deal like recovering from a tropical fever I saw Joan—she is one of the many Joans—in correct perspective. I realized, for the first time, that she had most irritating mannerisms, and that although her figure was good, her complexion was dreadful! It became clear to me, Kerrigan, that there are millions of pretty women in the world and that a Com” panion of the Si-Fan has a wide field of choice.”

I was silent for a while. My feelings about Squadron Leader Allington underwent a swift change.

I understood—and that first moment of understanding was a shattering moment. It became evident to me why Marriot Doughty, Horton and Allington—men, in their normal lives, honourable, above reproach—now embraced the ideals of the Si-Fan wholeheartedly, unquestioningly. They were truly zombies; slaves of a master physician. Better death than the “painless injection!”

Perhaps Nayland Smith was already dead—perhaps I was alone in this head office of Hell!

CHAPTER XXXV

ARDATHA REMEMBERS

Allington left me in my new quarters: the number on my door was 13, and I disliked the omen. I had seen so many things which transcended what hitherto I had regarded as natural laws that I was bewildered. There was a well-stocked buffet in the small sitting-room and I was about to take a drink when I paused, glass in hand.

The power of the Si-Fan was appalling; I was afraid to think about it. Men of genius laboured in the workshops, in the laboratories; men, some of them, whose names figure in every work of reference. “The conscripts,” as Allington termed them, had been poisoned, buried for dead, and then secretly exhumed. Their lives had been prolonged by means of some process known only to Dr. Fu Manchu. Allington had introduced me to Professor Richner. At the time of his death, in 1923, he had been seventy-two. He looked like an old man, but not like one nearing ninety!

Four days—I had been here for four days.

I set the glass down. Even as I did so, I knew that I flattered myself; for Dr. Fu Manchu would not go to so much trouble about a mere journalist. A comer in brains? I had seen but a small part of what this meant, but already I was appalled. The fate, not only of the United States but of the world, hung in the balance. I turned swiftly. Someone had opened my door.

Dr. Marriot Doughty came in.

You’re very jumpy, Kerrigan,” he said, professionally. “I was anxious to see how you had taken your first tour of headquarters.If you are going to have a whisky and soda may I join you? It’s an allowance, you know, and not deducted from pay!”

Reassured, I served out two drinks.

“You know,” said the physician, “I have got to get your bloodstream clean. Yours is one of those cases that put me on my mettle. You consulted Partlake in London, you told me. Between ourselves, Partlake is an old fool. I’ll have you fit inside a month.”

“What does it matter!”

“Oh! feeling like that about it? Well, well—I passed through that phase myself. When I “died* it was Partlake who signed my death certificate! I was conscious all the time, Kerrigan!”

“Good God!”

“They did me well and consigned me to the family vault in a Roman Catholic cemetery: we are a Catholic family, as you know. I knew that I was a case of catalepsy; I knew that Partlake had failed to make the proper tests. I wondered how long the agony would last.”

“How long did it last?”

“I was exhumed the same night! I believe the watchman had been drugged. The fellows who hauled me out were Asiatics: they belong to a special guild and do no other work. My coffin was replaced and the tomb re-sealed. A smart job. They hoisted me over a wall into a waiting car, and I was rushed to a house in Cadogan Square. A very