Re-enter Dr Fu Manchu

own execution. I was desperately tempted to rush to the aid of my second self. But to do so could only have meant that the super-criminal, the most dangerous man in the world today, would have slipped again through my fingers. So I clenched my teeth when the thug sprang out on him and said to myself, ‘There, but for the grace of God, goes Nayland Smith’!”

“Who is—who was—the man impersonating you? It was a star performance. Even the British Embassy in Cairo fell for him! So did my father.”

Nayland Smith pulled out the familiar pipe and began to load it.

“So would my own mother, if she had been alive. . . . You’re staring at my pipe? Fortunately I had a spare one with me. The poor devil who was strangled probably has the other in his pocket. I don’t know who he was, Merrick. But he must have been a talented actor, with a nerve of iron.”

“His nerve began to fail.”

“I don’t wonder. They had news of my escape. There wasn’t room in New York for two Nayland Smiths!”

He rapped out the words like so many drum-taps, and at a speed which Brian realized that his impersonator had never acquired.

“He had every intonation of your voice, Sir Denis! All your gestures, every mannerism. Even that trick of twitching at the lobe of your ear! And I believe he smoked more than you do.”

Nayland Smith smiled. “Sounds like overacting! Poor devil. He probably played for big stakes. He had several weeks to study me, Merrick, while I was a prisoner in that damned house in Cairo.”

“In Cairo! Then it must have been you, yourself, I saw in a room with barred windows—the house of the Sherif Mohammed!”

Sir Denis stared for a moment, and then: “This is news,” he admitted, “but probably right. You can tell me later. We have little time, and you’re entitled to know the truth.”

He lighted his pipe, stood up and began to walk about.

“I had been on a mission behind the Bamboo Curtain. We had information that Dr. Fu Manchu was operating with the Red Chinese. Knowing the Doctor intimately, I doubted this. He controls a world-wide organization of his own, the Si-Fan. And if anyone succeeds in taking over China it won’t be the Communists!”

This was so like what the false Nayland Smith had told him, that Brian listened in growing wonder . . .

“On my way back, by sea (secretly, as I thought) I walked into a trap in Suez which I should have expected an intelligent schoolboy to avoid, and a few hours later found myself a prisoner in the house of the Sherif Mohammed. The Si-Fan had traced me. I was in the hands of Dr. Fu Manchu!”

“How long ago was that?”

“Roughly, two months. I had secured evidence that Fu Manchu had recently been in China, for his chief-of- staff, a brilliant old strategist, General Huan Tsung, was operating under cover right in Peiping. Some highly important scheme was brewing, and I scented that it would be carried out, not in the East, but in the West. I was right!

“It became clear from the beginning of my imprisonment that Fu Manchu hadn’t planned to kill me. For some reason, he wanted me alive! My ancient enemy was there in person, in the house of the Sherif Mohammed; and at first I had easy treatment. I was well fed and allowed to exercise in a walled courtyard. But for several hours every day I was brought to a room, two windows of which were barred, as you state, and put through a sort of brain-washing by Dr. Fu Manchu. He spoke to me from behind an iron grille high up in one wall ——”

“I have seen it!”

“Remarkable. Details later. He argued on ideological grounds, tried to convert me to the theories of the Si- Fan. Sometimes, he taunted me. He worked over me, Merrick, like a skilled performer playing on a stringed instrument. And not for a long time did the fact dawn that every move I made, every word I spoke, some other person, hidden behind the grille, studied, watched, listened to!

“He betrayed himself once only, but from that moment I knew he was always there—and a hazy idea of the plot began to appear. Someone was being trained to impersonate me! The scheme wasn’t a new one. I believe Fu Manchu had had it in mind for several years; probably searched the world for my near-double. I suspect, but may be wrong, that tape recordings of these conversations were made on a hidden microphone, to help my understudy to perfect his impersonation at leisure.”

“It beats everything I ever heard! Of course you tried to make a getaway?”

Nayland Smith checked his restless steps and stared grimly at Brian.

“During the day relays of Fu Manchu’s professional stran-glers had me covered. You saw two of them just now. At night there was a hidden microphone in my room. It not only recorded my slightest movements, but could also be used to transmit a note inaudible to human ears. Its production is Fu Manchu’s secret, as he was good enough to tell me. Its effect would be to kill me instantly by inducing haemorrhage of the brain!”

“But that’s Dr. Hessian’s invention!” Brian broke in.

Nayland Smith relighted his pipe. It had gone out while he was talking.

“Unless my deductions are wide of the mark, Merrick, the man you know as Otto Hessian is Dr. Fu Manchu!”

A faint buzzing reached them from the living-room.

“That’s the penthouse!” Brian spoke breathlessly.

“Then I had better answer.”

“But what are you going to do?”

Nayland Smith turned in the act of opening the door. “Whatever the late Nayland Smith the Second was expected to do... .”

* * *

As the door was left open, Brian could overhear Nayland Smith when he spoke on the penthouse line. The conversation was a short one. He came back, his expression grim; reclosed the door.

“Tell me, Merrick—is there anything, any trifle, about my appearance which strikes you as different from— his?”

Brian studied the clean-cut features, thinking hard.

“His skin maybe was artificially sunburned. It didn’t look quite natural.”

“Nothing to be done about that. What else?”

“Well, something had happened to the bridge of his nose. He wore plaster the first time I saw him. There was no scar, except when he smiled. Then, there was a faint wrinkle where the plaster had been.”

“That may explain what was found in a sort of studio in the Sherif’s house: a wonderful clay model of my head! These people must have got out in a desperate hurry. The studio adjoined a small operating theatre. It seems likely that my double had undergone plastic surgery ... H’m! Avoid smiling!”

“What was the phone message, Sir Denis?”

“In thirty minutes, I’m bidden to a conference with Dr. Fu Manchu, and probably my life hangs on not arousing his suspicion. The odds are in my favour. But my opponent——”

“Where are you to meet?”

“Up in the penthouse.”

“You mean Fu Manchu really lives there?”

“It’s his base of operations. I don’t wonder it staggers you. But let me bring you up to date. One day, in Cairo, there was considerable disturbance in the Sherif’s household. I sensed that something unusual was going on. Of course, it was the departure of Fu Manchu and most of his unsavoury crew for the United States. Don’t ask me how he travels, unless he has a magic carpet, or avoids being identified, because I don’t know.”

“That time, Sir Denis, if I’m not wrong, he travelled with me (and your double), posing as Dr. Hessian, in a plane provided by the British government!”

Nayland Smith laughed out loud. “You’re not wrong, Merrick. Thanks for the information. You see, I know his impersonation of an eccentric German scientist. He has worked it before. He’s a master of numberless languages and dialects. To the Western idea, he isn’t typically Chinese. He’s at least as tall as I am, has fine, ascetic features and a splendid head. His eyes, alone, and his hands, betray the Asiatic.”

“But the real Dr. Hessian?”

“If he’s alive—which I doubt—Otto Hessian is probably in Siberia. He disappeared behind the Iron Curtain