The Shadow of Fu Manchu

Huan Tsung had mounted a diversion . . .

The telephone in Camille’s room was buzzing persistently—had been buzzing for a long time.

Craig had left the desk light burning; but most of the office lay in shadow, so that when someone switched on a flashlamp in the lobby, a widening, fading blade of light swept across the parquet floor. Then the door was fully opened.

Koenig stepped in, looking cautiously about him. He carried a heavy leather case, which he set down by the safe.

And, as he stood upright again, a tall figure, draped in a black topcoat, the fur collar turned up, came in silently and joined him. Dr. Fu Manchu wore the tinted Hoffmeyer glasses, gloves, and carried a black hat. He looked in the direction of that persistent buzzing.

“Miss Navarre’s office,” said Koenig uneasily.

Dr. Fu Manchu indicated the safe, merely extending a gloved hand. Koenig nodded, knelt, and opened the leather case. Taking out a bunch of keys, he busied himself with the lock, working by the light of his flashlamp. Presently he paused. He turned.

“Combination has been changed!”

The tall figure standing behind him remained motionless. The buzzing in Camille’s room ceased.

“You came prepared for such a possibility?”

“Yes—but it may take a long time now.”

“You have nearly two hours. But no more.”

The clock over Craig’s desk struck its single note . . . ten o’clock.

Dr. Fu Manchu crossed and walked up the three steps. He beat upon the steel door.

“M’goyna!”

The door swung open. M’goyna’s huge frame showed silhouetted against a quivering green background. Dr. Fu Manchu entered the laboratory.

* * *

At half-past eleven, the man waiting for a bus was relieved by another detective. The avenue, now, was as completely deserted as any Manhattan avenue ever can be.

“Hello, Holland,” he said. “You’re welcome to this job! Like being the doorman of a vacant night club.”

“What are we supposed to be doing. Beaker, anyway?”

“Search me! Stop anybody going in, I suppose. We had orders to tail Dr. Craig if ever he came out, and Stoddart went after him two hours ago when he took his secretary off to make whoopee. A redhead straight from heaven.”

“Nothing else happened?”

“Bit of a scrap about ten o’clock. Big heel driving a truck knocked a boy off his bike. Nothing else . . . Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Holland lighted a cigarette, looking left and right along the avenue and wondering what had originally attracted him to police work. Beaker was making for a subway station and Holland followed the retreating figure with his eyes for several blocks. He settled down to a monotony broken only by an occasional bus halting at the nearby stop. The night was unseasonably warm.

At a quarter to twelve, a remarkable incident occurred.

It had been preceded by another curious occurrence, invisible to Holland, however. A red light had been flashed several times from the high parapet of the Huston Building, immediately outside Craig’s office . . .

Bearing down upon Holland at speed from the other end of the block, he saw a hatless young man in evening dress, who screamed as he ran!

“You won’t get me! You devils! You won’t get me!”

In spite of the emptiness of the streets, these outcries had had some effect. Two men were following, but maintaining a discreet distance from the screaming man. Keeping up that extraordinary pace, he drew nearer and nearer to Holland.

“Out of my way! They’re after me!”

Holland sized up the situation. The runner was of medium build, dark, and not bad-looking in a Latin fashion. Clearly Holland decided, he’s drunk, and a guy in that state is doubly strong. But I guess I’ll have to hold him. He may do damage.

An experienced manhandler, Holland stepped forward. But the runner kept on running.

“Out of my way!” he screamed. “I’ll kill you if you try to stop me!”

Holland stooped for a tackle, saw the gleam of a weapon, and side-stepped in a flash.

“They won’t get me!” yelled the demented man, and went racing around the comer.

Had the missing Sam been present, he would have recognized the lunatic as that Jed Laurillard who had once talked to him in a bar. In fact, this disciple had been given a particularly difficult assignment, one certain to land him in jail, as a chance to redeem his former mistake. He had, furthermore, been given a shot of hashish to lend color to the performance.

Holland clapped a whistle to his lips, and blew a shrill blast. Drawing his own automatic, he went tearing around the comer after the still screaming madman . . .

During a general mix-up which took place there, a big sedan drew in before the private door of the Huston Building, and three men came out and entered it. One of them carried a heavy roll of office carpet on his shoulder.

Huan Tsung had successfully covered the retirement of Dr. Fu Manchu.

When Martin Shaw stepped from a taxi, paid the driver, and saw the yellow cab driven away, he unbuttoned his topcoat to find his key. Someone was walking rapidly towards him; the only figure in sight. It was midnight.

Holland, whilst still some distance away, recognized the chief technician, and moderated his pace. The screaming alcoholic had just been removed in charge of two patrolmen, and would, no doubt, receive his appropriate medicine in the morning. By the time Holland reached the door, Shaw had already gone in, and was on his way up.

Shaw half expected that Dr. Craig would be still at work, and even when he didn’t see him at his desk, was prepared to find him in the laboratory. Then he noted that the drawing board was missing and the safe unlocked. Evidently, Craig had gone.

Whoever took the next (four-to-eight) duty usually slept on a couch in the office. But Regan seemed to have made no preparations.

Shaw went up the three steps and unlocked the steel door.

“Here we are, Regan!” he called in his breezy way. “Get to hell out of it,man!”

There was no reply. Everything seemed to be in order. But where was Regan?

Then, pinned to the logbook lying on a glass-topped table, Shaw saw a sheet of ruled paper. He crossed and bent over it.

A message, written shakily in Regan’s hand, appeared there. It said:

Mr. Shaw—

Had a slight accident. Compelled to go for medical treatment. Don’t be alarmed. Will report at 4 a.m. for duty.

J. J. Regan

“Slight accident?” Shaw muttered.

He looked keenly about him. What could have happened? There was nothing wrong with any of the experimental plant. He quickly satisfied himself on that score. So unlike Regan not to have timed the message. He wondered how long he had been gone. The last entry in the log (almost illegible) was timed eleven-fifteen.

He was hanging his coat up when he noticed the bloodstains.

They were very few—specks on white woodwork. But, stooping, he came to the conclusion that others had been wiped from the tiled floor below.

Regan, then, must have cut himself in some way, been unable to staunch the bleeding, and gone to find a surgeon. Shaw decided that he had better notify Dr. Craig. The laboratory phone was an extension from the secretary’s office. He reopened the door, went down the steps, and dialled from Camille’s room.

There was no answer to his call.