The Shadow of Fu Manchu

there!”

“My dear!” Stella squeezed her hands encouragingly. “I quite understand. Whatever do you suppose is the matter with us?”

“I’m afraid I can’t even imagine.”

“Could it be some new kind of epidemic?”

Camille’s heart was beating rapidly, her expression was introspective; for she was, as Dr. Fu Manchu had told her (but she had forgotten), a personable woman with a brain.

“I don’t know. Suppose we compare notes—”

Michael Frobisher’s study, the window of which offered a prospect of such woodland as Fenimore Cooper wrote about, was eminently that of a man of business. The books were reference books, the desk had nothing on it but a phone, a blotting-pad, pen, ink, a lamp, an almanac, and a photograph of Stella. The safe was built into the wall. No unnecessary litter.

“There’s the safe I told you about,” he was saying. “There’s the key—and the combination is right here.” He touched his rugged forehead. “Yet—I found the damned thing wide open! My papers”—he pulled out a drawer —”were sorted like a teller sorts checks. I know. I always have my papers in order. Then—somebody goes through my butler’s room.” He banged his big fist on the desk. “And not a bolt drawn, not a window opened!”

“Passing strange,” Craig murmured. He glanced at the folded diagram. “Hardly seems worthwhile to lock it up.”

Michael Frobisher stared at the end of his half-smoked cigar, twirling it between strong fingers.

“There’s been nothing since I installed the alarm system. But I don’t trust anybody. I want you to test it. Meanwhile”—he laid his hand on the paper—”how long will it take you to finish this thing?”

“Speaking optimistically, two hours.”

“You mean, in two hours it will be possible to say we’re finished?”

“Hardly. Shaw has to make the valves. Wonderful fellow, Shaw. Then we have to test the brute in action. When that bright day dawns, it may be the right time to say we’re finished!”

Frobisher put his cigar back in his hard mouth, and stared at Craig.

“You’re a funny guy,” he said. “It took a man like me to know you had the brains of an Einstein. I might have regretted the investment if Martin Shaw hadn’t backed you—and Regan. I’m doubtful of Regan—now. But he knows the game. Then—you’ve shown me things.”

“A privilege, Mr. Frobisher.”

Frobisher stood up.

“Don’t go all Oxford on me. Listen. When this detail here is finished, you say we shall be in a position to tap a source of inexhaustible energy which completely tops atomic power?”

“I say so firmly. Whether we can control the monster depends entirely upon—that.”

“The transmuter valve?”

“Exactly. It’s only a small gadget. Shaw could make all three of ‘em in a few hours. But if it works, Mr. Frobisher, and I know it will, we shall have at our command a force, cheaply obtained, which could (a) blow our world to bits, or (b) enable us to dispense with costly things like coal, oil, enormous atomic plants, and the like, forever. I am beginning to see tremendous possibilities.”

“Fine.”

Michael Frobisher was staring out of the window. His heavy face was transfigured. He, too, the man of commerce, the opportunist, could see those tremendous possibilities. No doubt he saw possibilities which had never crossed the purely scientific mind of Morris Craig.

“So,” said Craig, picking up the diagram and the notes, “I propose that I retire to my cubicle and busy myself until cocktails are served. Agreed?”

“Agreed. Remember—not a word to Mrs. F.”

When Craig left the study, Frobisher stood there for a long time, staring out of the window.

* * *

But Morris Craig’s route to his “cubicle” had been beset by an obstacle—Mrs. F. As he crossed the library towards the stair, she came in by another door. She glanced at the folded diagram.

“My dear Dr. Craig! Surely you haven’t come here to work?”

Craig pulled up, and smiled. Stella had always liked his smile; it was so English.

“Afraid, yes. But not for too long, I hope. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll nip up and get going right away.”

“But it’s too bad. How soon will you be ready to nip down again?”

“Just give me the tip when the bar opens.”

“Of course I will. But, you know, I have been talking to Camille. She is truly a dear girl. I don’t mean expensive. I mean charming.”

Craig’s attention was claimed, magically, by his hostess’s words.

“So glad you think so. She certainly is—brilliant.”

Stella Frobisher smiled her hereditary smile. She was quite without sex malice, and she had discovered a close link to bind her to Camille.

“Why don’t you. forget work? Why don’t you two scientific people go for a walk in the sunshine? After all, that’s what you’re here for.”

And Morris Craig was sorely tempted. Yes, that was what he was here for. But—

“You see, Mrs. Frobisher,” he said, “I rather jibbed the toil last night. Camille—er—Miss Navarre, has been working like a pack-mule for weeks past. Tends to neglect her fodder. So I asked her to step out for a plate of diet and a bottle of vintage “

“That was so like you. Dr. Craig.”

“Yes—I’m like that. We sort of banished dull care for an hour or two, and as a matter of fact, carried on pretty late. The chief is anxious about the job. He has more or less given me a deadline. I’m only making up for lost time. And so, please excuse me. Sound the trumpets, beat the drum when cocktails are served.”

He grinned boyishly and went upstairs. Stella went to look for Camille. She had discovered, in this young product of the Old World, something that the New World had been unable to give her. Stella Frobisher was often desperately lonely. She had never loved her husband passionately. Passion had passed her by.

In the study, Michael Frobisher had been talking on the phone. He had just hung up when Stein came in.

“Listen,” he said. “What’s this man, Sam, doing here?”

Stein’s heavy features registered nothing.

“I don’t know.”

“Talk to him. Find out. I trust nobody. 1 never employed that moron. Somebody has split us wide open. It isn’t just a leak. Somebody was in the Huston Building last night that had no right to be there. This man was supposed to be in Philadelphia. Who knows he was in Philadelphia? Check him up. Stein. It’s vital.”

“I can try to do. But his talk is so foolish I cannot believe he means it. He walks into my room, just now, and asks if I happen to have an old razor blade.”

“What for?”

“He says, to scrape his pipe bowl.”

Michael Frobisher glared ferociously.

“Ask him to have a drink. Give him plenty. Then talk to him.”

“I can try it.”

“Go and try it.”

Stein stolidly departed on this errand. There were those who could have warned him that it was a useless one.

Upstairs, in his room, Morris Craig had taken from his bag ink, pencils, brushes, and all the other implements of a craftsman’s craft. He had borrowed a large blotting-pad from the library to do service in lieu of a drawing