The Shadow of Fu Manchu

was warming to his subject; the enthusiasm of the specialist fired his eyes. “You see, the energy lies in successive strata—like the skins of an onion. And you know what the middle of a raw onion’s like!”

The tip of Frobisher’s cigar glowed ominously.

“Conveying what?” he growled through closed lips.

“Conveying that a site must be picked for an experimental station. Somewhere in wide-open spaces, far from the madding crowd. Little by little and bit by bit we shall transfer our monster there.”

“You told me you needed some high place.”

“There are high places other than the top of the Huston Building. I wish to avoid repeating, in the Huston Building, the story of the Tower of Babel. It would be spectacular, but unpopular.”

Michael Frobisher got up, crossed, removed the cigar from his lips, and stood right in front of Craig.

“Listen. You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

Craig smiled, that slightly mischievous, schoolboy smile which was so irresistibly charming.

“Yes,” he said. “I am. What are you going to do about it?”

Michael Frobisher turned and picked up his hat, which he had dropped on the floor beside his chair.

“If you say so, I’ll have to get busy.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “Give me all the facts on Saturday.”

When Frobisher opened the office door, he stood looking to right and left of the lobby for a moment before he went out.

Craig scratched his chin reflectively. What, exactly, was going on at Falling Waters? He felt peculiarly disinclined to work, considered ringing for Camille, not because he required her attendance, but for the pure pleasure of looking at her, then resolutely put on his glasses and settled down before the problem symbolized by that unfinished diagram.

He was destined, however, to be interrupted again.

The office door behind him opened very quietly, and Mrs. Frobisher peeped in. Craig remained unaware of her presence.

“Do I intrude?” she asked coyly.

Craig, conscious of shirt-sleeves, took off his glasses, jumped from the stool, and turned.

“Why—Mrs. Frobisher!” He swept back the drooping forelock. “I say—excuse my exposed laundry.”

Stella Frobisher extended her hand graciously. She didn’t offer it;

she extended it. She was an Englishwoman and her pattern of life appeared to be modelled upon customs embalmed in old volumes of Punch. Her hair had been blond, and would always remain so. She had canary-like manners. She fluttered.

“I was waiting until Mike had gone. He mustn’t know I have been here.”

Craig pulled a chair forward, and Stella Frobisher’s high heels clicked like castanets on the parquet as she crossed and sat down. She was correctly dressed in full mink uniform and wore a bird of paradise for a hat.

“Highly compromising. When did your heart first awaken to my charms?” said Craig as he put his coat on.

He had learned that airy badinage was the only possible kind of conversation with Mrs. Frobisher, who was some years younger than her husband and liked to think he had many rivals.

“Oh, you do say the queerest things!” Stella’s reputation for vivacity rested largely upon her habit of stressing words at random. “I have been having a treatment at Professor Hoffmeyer’s.”

“Am I acquainted with the lad?”

“Oh, everybody knows him. He’s simply too wonderful. He has made a new woman of me.”

“Yes. You look quite new.”

“Oh, now you think I’m being silly. Dr. Craig. But truly my nerves had quite gone. You see, there’s something very queer going on.”

“Queer goings on, eh?” Craig murmured, hunting for his cigarettes.

“Most peculiar. I know you’re laughing at me. But truly I’m terrified. There have been the most uncanny people prowling about Falling Waters recently.” She accepted a cigarette and Craig lighted it for her. “I simply dare not speak to Mike about it. You know how nervous he is. But I have ordered a pack of Alsatians from Wanamaker’s or somewhere and insisted that they must be ferocious.”

“A pack, you say?”

“A pack,” Stella repeated firmly. “I don’t know how many dogs there are in a pack, but I suppose fifty-two.”

“Expect the pack this week-end?”

“I hope so. Of course, I have engaged a special man to look after them.”

“Of course. Lion tamer, or some such character.”

“I have had barbed wire installed, and I shall loose the dogs at night.”

“Sounds uncommonly attractive. Lovers’ paradise.”

“I wanted to warn you, because now I must be off. If I’m late at the Ritz, Mike will think I’ve been up to something—”

Craig escorted her down to the street and was rewarded with an arch smile. Stella’s smile was an heirloom which had probably belonged to her mother.

Chapter IX

Nayland Smith came to the surface from depths of an unfathomable purple lake. A voice, unpleasantly familiar, matter-of-fact, reached his ears through violet haze which overhung the lake.

“I trust you find yourself quite restored. Sir Denis?”

Smith strove to identify the speaker; to determine his true environment; to find himself.

“And don’t hesitate to reply. You are no longer dumb. The discomfort was temporary.”

The speaker was identified. He was Dr. Malcolm!

“I—I—why . . . thank God! I can speak’.”

Nayland Smith’s voice rose higher on every word.

“So I observe. You are an expert boxer. Sir Denis, for a man of your years a remarkable one. Myself, although trained in several types of wrestling, unfortunately I know little of boxing.”

Dr. Malcolm wore a long white coat. He was regarding Smith with professional interest.

“Too bad. You’ll miss it when I get loose!” Smith rapped.

But Dr. Malcolm retained his suavity.

“Pugnacity highly developed. You appear to feel no gratitude for your restored power of speech?”

He poured a vivid blue liquid from a beaker into a phial. The phial he placed in a leather case.

“No. I’m waiting for the later symptoms to develop.”

Dr. Malcolm reclosed his case.

“You will wait in vain. The first injection I administered was intended merely to paralyze the muscles of articulation.”

“Thanks. It did.”

“A second counteracted it.”

“Truly ingenious.”

“But,” Dr. Malcolm went on, “my duties in your case were not nearly so dangerous as in the case of the policeman, Moreno. I was subject to exposure throughout the time I remained in the hospital.”

“So I gather,” said Smith.

This man’s cool audacity fascinated him.

“Of course”—Dr. Malcolm locked his leather case—”Circle 7-0300 is the number of a well-known hotel. I don’t live there.” He showed strong white teeth in a smile. “Mat Cha was most convincing as the girl who had been robbed, I thought?”