The Shadow of Fu Manchu

Camille raised her arms, clutched her head. She moaned . . . “Oh! . . . I . . . cannot bear this—”

“Repeat my words.”

“The fate . . . of the world . . . rests . . . in . . . my hands . . .”

Chapter XIII

Morris Craig came back, “under convoy” from Nayland Smith’s “quiet restaurant.” Standing before the private door:

“Your restaurant was certainly quiet,” he said. “But the check was a loud, sad cry. Come up if you like. Smith. But I have a demon night ahead of me. I must be through by tomorrow. Thanks for a truly edible dinner. Most acceptable to my British constitution. The wine was an answer to this pagan’s prayer.”

Nayland Smith gave him a long, steely-hard look.

“Have I succeeded in making it quite clear to you, Craig, that the danger is now, tonight, and for the next twenty-four hours?”

“Septically clear. Already I have symptoms of indigestion. But if I work on into the grey dawn I’m going to get the job finished, because I am bidden to spend the week-end with the big chief in the caves and jungles of Connecticut.”

Nayland Smith, a lean figure in a well-worn tweed suit, for he had left his topcoat in the car, hesitated for a moment; then he grasped Craig firmly by the arm.

“I won’t make myself a nuisance,” he said. “But I want to see you right back on the job before I leave you. The fact is—I have a queer, uneasy feeling tonight. We must neglect no precaution.”

And so they went up to the office together, and found it just as they had left it. Craig hung up hat and coat, grinning at Smith, who was lighting his pipe.

“Don’t mind me. Carry on as if you were in your own abode. I’ll carry on as if I were in mine.”

He crossed to unlock the safe, when:

“Wait a minute,” came sharply. “I’m going to make myself a nuisance after all.”

Craig turned. “How come?”

“The duplicate key is in my topcoat! You will have to let me out.”

“Blessings and peace,” murmured Craig. “But I promise not to go beyond the street door. There will thus be no excuse for my being escorted upstairs again. Before we start, better let Regan know I’m back.”

He called the laboratory, and waited.

“H’m. Silence. He surely can’t have gone to sleep . . . Try again.”

And now came Regan’s voice, oddly strained.

“Laboratory . . . Regan here.”

“That’s all right, Regan. Just wanted to say I’m back. Everything in order?”

“Yes . . . everything.”

Craig glanced at Nayland Smith

“Sounded very cross, didn’t he?”

“Don’t wonder. Is he expected to work all night too?

“No. Shaw relieves him at twelve o’clock.”

“Come on, then. I won’t detain you any longer.”

They went out.

That faint sound made by the elevator had just died away, when there came the muffled thud of two shots . . . The laboratory door was flung open—and Regan hurled himself down the steps. He held an automatic in his hand, as he raced towards the lobby.

“Dr. Craig! . . . Help! . . . Dr. Craig’.”

Making a series of bounds incredible in a creature ordinarily so slow and clumsy of movement, M’goyna followed. His teeth were exposed like the fangs of a wild animal. He uttered a snarl of rage.

Regan twisted around and fired again.

Instant upon the crack of his shot, M’goyna dashed the weapon from Regan’s grasp and swept him into a bear hug. Power of speech was crushed out of his body. He gave one gasping, despairing cry, and was silent. M’goyna lifted him onto a huge shoulder and carried him back up the steps.

Only a groan came from the laboratory when the semiman ran down again to recover Regan’s pistol.

He coughed as he reclosed the steel door . . .

The office remained empty for another two minutes. Then Craig returned, swinging his keys on their chain. He went straight to the safe, paused—and stood sniffing. He had detected a faint but unaccountable smell. He glanced all about him, until suddenly the boyish smile replaced a puzzled frown.

“Smith’s pipe!” he muttered.

Dismissing the matter lightly, as he always brushed aside—or tried to brush aside—anything which interfered with the job in hand, he had soon unlocked the safe and set up his materials. He was so deeply absorbed in his work that when Camille came in, he failed to notice even her presence.

She stood in the open doorway for a moment, staring vaguely about the office. Then she looked down at her handbag, and finally up at the clock above the desk. But not until she began to cross to her own room did Craig know she was there.

He spun around in a flash.

“Shades of evenin’! Don’t play bogey man with me. My nerves are not what they were in my misspent youth.”

Camille did not smile. She glanced at him and then, again, at the clock. She was not wearing her black- rimmed glasses, but her hair was tightly pinned back as usual. Craig wondered if something had disturbed her.

“I—I am sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. How’s Professor What’s-his-name? Full of beans and ballyhoo?”

“I—really don’t know.”

She moved away in the direction of her open door. Her manner was so strange that he could no longer ignore it. Insomnia, he knew, could play havoc with the nervous system. And Camille was behaving like one walking in her sleep. But when he spoke he retained the light note.

“What’s the prescription—Palm Beach, or a round trip in the Queen Elizabeth?”

Camille paused, but didn’t look back.

“I’m afraid—I have forgotten,” she replied.

She went into her room.

Craig scratched his chin, looking at her closed door. Certainly something was quite wrong. Could he have offended her? Was she laboring under a sense of grievance? Or was she really ill?

He took out a crushed packet of cigarettes from his hip pocket, smoothed one into roughly cylindrical form and lighted it; all the while staring at that closed door.

Very slowly, resuming his glasses, he returned to his work. But an image of Camille, wide-eyed, distrait, persistently intruded. He recalled that she had been in such a mood once before, and that he had made her go home. On the former occasion, too, she had been out but gave no account of where she had gone.

Something resembling a physical chill crept around his heart.

There was a man in her life. And he must have let her down . . .

Craig picked up a scribbling block and wrote a note in pencil. He was surprised, and angry, to find how shaky his hand had become. He must know the truth. But he would give her time. With a little tact, perhaps Camille could be induced to tell him.

He had never kissed her fingers, much less her lips, yet the thought of her in another man’s arms drove him mad. He remembered that he had recently considered her place in the scheme of things, and had decided to dismiss such considerations until his work was completed.

Now he was almost afraid to press the button which would call her.

But he did.

He was back at his drawing board when he heard her come in. She moved so quietly that he sensed, rather than knew, when she stood behind him. He tore off the top sheet and held it over his shoulder.

“Just type this out for me, d’you mind? It’s a note for Regan. He can’t read my writing.”