“I asked the driver as it happens, and he told me we had just passed the British Consulate.”
“The British Consulate,” Mr. Ahmad echoed mechanically, his expression ghastly. “You alarm me, Mr. Merrick. I must make immediate inquiries. Sir Denis’s mission is a vital and a dangerous one. He has powerful enemies. It is possible that he has returned secretly for some reason of his own.”
He left soon afterwards, a man badly confused; and Brian settled down to try to puzzle out the truth. Mr. Ahmad had behaved like a crook unmasked, but on the other hand there could be a different explanation.
If Ahmad was on the level, he had done the wrong thing . . .
* * *
Dr. Fu Manchu was writing at a large desk of Arab manufacture, most cunningly inlaid with ivory, mother-of- pearl and semi-precious stones. It was loaded with books, racks of test tubes, manuscripts and certain queer objects not easy to define. Peko, the tiny marmoset, a companion of Fu Manchu’s travels, crouched on the doctor’s shoulder, beady eyes moving from point to point restlessly.
There was a faint buzzing. A voice spoke.
“Abdul Ahmad is here.”
“I will see him.”
Dr. Fu Manchu continued to make notes in small, neat characters in the margin of a bulky, faded volume until a door opened and Mr. Ahmad came in. He bowed obsequiously, then stood still. Fu Manchu glanced up.
“Yes? You wish to report something?”
“Excellency!” Ahmad stammered. “It is that Brian Merrick claims to have seen Nayland Smith last night!”
Dr. Fu Manchu closed the large volume and fixed a glance upon Mr. Ahmad which seemed to freeze that gentleman to the floor.
“Tell me what he said, exactly—exactly—and also what
Mr. Ahmad evidently had a phenomenal memory, for he repeated the conversation practically word for word under the barely endurable gaze of those strange green eyes.
Dr. Fu Manchu looked down at the emerald signet ring he wore and there was silence. The marmoset broke this silence by uttering one of his whistling cries and leaping to the top of a tall cabinet behind the Chinese doctor, where he sat chattering wickedly at Mr. Ahmad. Fu Manchu spoke.
“Merrick is lying for some reason of his own. There has been bungling. He suspects something. He did not see Nayland Smith where he claims to have seen him. But he may have seen him—elsewhere. This we must learn. Vast issues are at stake. Order Zobeida to report to me, here, immediately.”
Mr. Ahmad went out, and shortly afterwards Zobeida came in. Brian would have recognized Zobeida as Zoe Montero . . .
* * *
The memory which had been dodging Brian like a will-o’-the-wisp, came out into the open that evening. He was waiting on the hotel terrace for Zoe. He stood up when he saw her coming. Dusk had fallen and she moved gracefully through shadows, into the light of the moon, and out again. Once, when she was quite near, in shadow, a stray moonbeam touched her, briefly, lighted up her eyes.
And he knew where he had seen those beautiful eyes before . . . She had been in the shop of old Achmed es-Salah, wearing native dress and veiling her face! She had followed him when he left!
He was entangled in an invisible web! Every move he made was covered. Someone who had known he was going to Achmed’s shop had planted the girl there. She was infernally clever, too. That trick in the cocktail bar had been done beautifully!
And he could no longer doubt that Lola also was in the plot. ...
What did it all mean?
Why had no word come from Sir Denis? And why was he hiding in that old house in the native quarter?
Zoe smiled and gave him both her hands. She looked very lovely tonight.
“If I keep you waiting I am sorry, Brian. But an old friend of my father’s, an Englishman, hears I am in Cairo and calls me. He talks for so long. Yes. I am thirsty with talking. Please get me a big, cool drink.”
Brian clapped his hands for a waiter and gave the necessary orders.
“Does this old friend of yours live here in Cairo?” he ventured cautiously.
“Oh, no! He comes only yesterday and from my uncle in Luxor he finds I am here. He is very quick to find things out. He was for many years of the English police.”
“Is that right? I guess he’s here on some investigation?”
Zoe shook her head. A waiter brought two tall glasses.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me. But I know from my father that Sir Denis now belongs to the British Secret Service.”
She took a long drink; sighed contentedly. Brian tried to tell himself that her remark hadn’t stupefied him.
“What’s the rest of his name?”
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”
“Well I’ll be damned!” Brian breathed; and met the regard of wide-open amber eyes.
“What so much surprise you, Brian?” And even now the way she said “Brian” fascinated him. But he knew he must step warily.
“Just that I happen to know him, too.”
Zoe smiled delightedly.
“That is wonderful! And you don’t know he is here?”
“Wel!”—he spoke very slowly—”maybe he doesn’t know
He was doing some hard thinking. In that first startling moment of revelation, when he became suddenly convinced that Zoe and the girl in the bazaar were one and the same, which seemed to reveal this bewitching little tramp for an impostor, a spy set to watch him, he had decided what he would do. But this new development threw the whole plan out of gear.
Could he possibly have been wrong all along? Prejudiced by his dislike for Peter Wellingham, he might have jumped to the conclusion that the girl he had seen with him in Hyde Park was Lola—for he had never actually caught even a glimpse of her face. Still hag-ridden by his suspicions, he might also have assumed, wrongly, that Zoe and the veiled lady of the bazaar were identical, for no better reason than that both had amber eyes! Amber eyes were not uncommon in the East.
Zoe’s claim that she knew Nayland Smith couldn’t very well be bogus, or she would have reacted very differently when he told her that he, too, knew Sir Denis.
Where did he stand? Had he misjudged Mr. Ahmad as well?
“You are very thoughtful,” Zoe whispered softly. “Don’t you like me tonight?”
“My dear Zoe!” They sat side by side on a cushioned cane divan. “I was so surprised that I forgot to tell you how lovely you are.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. She smiled, raising pouting lips. And Brian didn’t even try to resist the sweet temptation. . . .
* * *
Dawn was not so far away when Brian finally turned in that night, and he slept late into the morning. He sent for his mail when he ordered coffee, but again there was nothing from Lola.
He was a man who once his suspicion had been aroused could never let the matter rest, but must leave no stone unturned to prove or disprove his doubts. If indeed he had become involved in a conspiracy against Nayland Smith, a conspiracy in which Wellingham, Lola, Ahmed, and Zoe were concerned, a love affair with Zoe was the best, and by far the most pleasant, way to find it out. So he argued.
And he had wasted no time.
Zoe, who, for all her youth, he suspected to be far from unsophisticated in love and the ways of lovers, had responded to the point of unconditional surrender. And it was then that Brian began to distrust himself. Never once, even while he caressed her, mingling kisses with what he believed to be artful leading questions, had she breathed
