Читать книгу President Fu Manchu - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 9
ОглавлениеCHAPTER SEVEN
SLEEPLESS UNDERWORLD
Mark Hepburn replaced a tiny phial of a very rare reagent on a shelf above his head and, turning, stooped and peered through a microscope at something resembling a fragment of gummy paper. For a while he studied this object and then stood upright, stretching his white-clad arms—he wore an overall—and yawning wearily. The small room in which he worked was fitted up as a laboratory. Save for a remote booming noise as of distant thunder, it was silent.
Hepburn lighted a cigarette and stared out of the closed window. The boom as of distant thunder was explained: it was caused by the ceaseless traffic in miles of busy streets.
Below him spread a night prospect of a large area of New York City. Half-right, framed by the window, the tallest building in the world reared its dizzy head to flying storm clouds. Here was a splash of red light; there, a blur of green. A train moved along its track far away to the left. Thousands of windows made illuminated geometrical patterns in the darkness. Tonight there was a damp mist, so that the flambeau upheld by the distant Statue of Liberty was not visible.
A slight sound in the little laboratory on the fortieth floor of the Regal-Athenian Tower brought Hepburn around in a flash.
He found himself looking into the dark, eager face of Nayland Smith.
“Good Lord, Sir Denis! you move like a cat——”
“I used my key....”
“You startled me.”
“Have you got it, Hepburn—have you got it?”
“Yes.”
“What?” Nayland Smith’s lean face, framed in the upturned fur collar of his topcoat, lighted enthusiastically. “First-class job. What is it?”
“I don’t know what it is—that is to say I don’t know from what source it’s obtained. But it’s a concoction used by certain tribes on the Upper Amazon, and I happened to remember that the Academy of Medicine had a specimen and borrowed it. The preparation on the MS., the envelopes and the stamps gives identical reaction. A lot of study has been devoted to this stuff, which has remarkable properties. But nobody has yet succeeded in tracing it to its origin.”
“Is it called kaapi?”
“It is.”
“I might have known!” snapped Nayland Smith. “He has used it before with notable results. But I must congratulate you. Hepburn: imagination is so rarely allied with exact scientific knowledge.”
He peeled off the heavy topcoat and tossed it on a chair. Hepburn stared and smiled in his slow fashion.
Nayland Smith was dressed in police uniform!
“I was followed to headquarters,” said Smith, detecting the smile. “I can assure you I was not followed back. I left my cap (which didn’t fit me) in the police car. Bought the coat—quite useful in this weather—at a big store with several entrances, and returned here in a taxicab.”
Mark Hepburn leaned back on a glass-topped table which formed one of the appointments of the extemporized laboratory, staring in an abstracted way at Federal Officer 56.
“They must know you are here,” he said, in his slow dry way.
“Undoubtedly! They know I am here. But it is to their advantage to see that I don’t remain here.”
Hepburn stared a while longer and then nodded.
“You think they would come right out into the open like that?”
Nayland Smith shot out his left arm, gripping the speaker’s shoulder.
“Listen. You can hardly have forgotten the machine-gun party on the track when an attempt was made to hold up the special train? This evening I went out by a private entrance kindly placed at my disposal by the management. As I passed the corner of Forty-eighth Street, a car packed with gunmen was close behind me!”
“What!”
“The taxicab in which I was driving belonged to a group known as the Lotus Cabs....”
“I know it. One of the biggest corporations of its kind in the States.”
“It may be nothing to do with them, Hepburn. But the driver was in the pay of the other side.”
“You are sure?”
“I am quite sure. I opened the door, which is in front of the Lotus Cabs, as you may remember, and crouched down beside the wheel. I said to the man, ‘Drive like the devil! I am a federal agent and traffic rules don’t apply at the moment.’ ”
“What did he do?”
“He pretended to obey but deliberately tried to stall me! In a jam, the gunmen close behind, I jumped out, wriggled clear of the pack, cut through to Sixth Avenue and chartered another cab.”
He paused and drew a long breath. Pulling out the time-worn tobacco-pouch he began to load his briar.
“This stink-shop of yours is somewhat oppressive,” he said. “Let’s go into the sitting room.”
He walked out to a larger room adjoining, Hepburn following. Over his shoulder:
“Both you and I have got to disappear!” he snapped.
As he spoke he turned, pipe and pouch in hand. Hepburn met the glance of piercing steely eyes and knew that Nayland Smith did not speak lightly.
“The biggest prize which any man ever played for is at stake—the control of the United States of America. To his existing organization—the extent of which even I can only surmise—Dr. Fu Manchu has added the most highly efficient underworld which civilization has yet produced.”
Nayland Smith, his pipe charged, automatically made to drop the pouch back into his coat pocket, was hampered by the uniform, and tossed the pouch irritably onto a chair. He took a box of matches from the marble mantelpiece and lighted his briar. Surrounded now by clouds of smoke he turned, staring at Hepburn.
“You are rounding up your Public Enemies,” he went on, in his snappy, staccato fashion. “But the groups which they controlled remain in existence. Those underground murder gangs are still operative, only awaiting the hand of a master. That master is here ... and he has assumed control. Our lives, Hepburn—” he snapped his fingers—“are not worth that! But let us review the position.”
He began to walk up and down, smoking furiously.
“The manuscript of Abbot Donegal’s uncompleted address was saturated with a preparation which you have identified, although its exact composition is unknown to you. His habit of wetting his thumb in turning over the pages (noted by a spy, almost certainly that James Richet, the secretary who has escaped us) resulted in his poisoning himself before he reached those revelations which Dr. Fu Manchu regarded as untimely. The abbot may or may not recover his memory of those pages, but in his own interests, and I think in the interests of this country, he has been bound to silence for a time. He is off the air. So much is clear, Hepburn?”
“Perfectly clear.”
“The gum of those stamps and envelopes, reserved for Dr. Prescott’s use at Weaver’s Farm, had been similarly treated. Prescott seems to have left the house and proceeded in the direction of the lake. He was, of course, under the influence of the drug. He was carried, as our later investigations proved, around the bank to the north end of the lake, and from there to the road, where a car was waiting. Latest reports regarding this car should reach headquarters tonight. It was, as suspected, undoubtedly proceeding in the direction of New York.”
“We have no clue to the person who tampered with the stationery at Weaver’s Farm,” Hepburn’s monotonous voice broke in.
“At the moment, none.”
Nayland Smith moved restlessly in the direction of one of the windows.
“Somewhere below there,” he went on, shooting out a pointing forefinger, “somewhere among those millions of lights, perhaps in sight from this very spot—Orwin Prescott is hidden!”
“I think you are right,” said Mark Hepburn, quietly.
“I am all but certain! New York, and not Washington, would be Dr. Fu Manchu’s selection as a base. He has been operating here, through chosen agents, for some months past. Others are flocking to him. I had news from Scotland Yard only this morning of one formidable old ruffian who has slipped through their nets for the twentieth time and is believed to be here. And Prescott will have been brought to the Doctor’s headquarters. God knows what ordeal faces him—what choice he will be called upon to make! It is possible even that he may be given no choice!”
Nayland Smith clenched his fists and shook them desperately in the direction of the myriad dancing lights of New York City.
“Look!” he cried. “Do you see? The mist has lifted. There is the Statue of Liberty! Do you realize, Hepburn—” he turned, a man all but imperturbable moved now by the immensity of his task, “—do you realize what that figure will become if we fail?”
The wild light died from his eyes. He replaced his pipe and audibly gripped the stem between his small, even white teeth.
“We are not going to fail, Sir Denis,” Hepburn replied in dry unmusical tones.
“Thank you,” snapped Nayland Smith, and gripped his shoulder. “Dr. Fu Manchu being a Chinaman, in which quarter of the city should you think it most unlikely he would establish a base?”
“Chinatown.”
Nayland Smith laughed gleefully.
“That is exactly how he will argue.”
2
In a small room, amber lighted through high windows, a man worked patiently upon a clay model of a Chinese head. A distant bell sounded, and the room became plunged in darkness. Only the glowing end of a cigarette showed through this darkness. A high-pitched, guttural voice spoke.
“Give me the latest report from the Number responsible for covering Federal Officer 56 in New York.”
“Only one other report to hand,” the modeler replied immediately; “received at eight forty-five. Federal Officer 56 is occupying an apartment in the Regal-Athenian Tower. Federal Officer Captain Mark Hepburn is also located there, and engaged upon chemical experiments. A few minutes after eight o’clock, Federal Officer 56 left by a service door and engaged one of the Lotus cabs. The driver notified the Number covering Lexington exits. A protection car was instructed, but 56 gave them the slip on the corner of Forty-eighth and reached Centre Street at eight thirty-five. Report concluded as follows: ‘Presume he is still at police headquarters as no notification that he has left is to hand.’ ”
Following a few moments of silence:
“Inform me,” the guttural voice continued, “directly any report is received from Number 38, now proceeding from Cleveland to New York City.”
The distant bell rang again and amber light prevailed once more in the small, domed room. The white-haired intellectual sculptor blinked slightly as though this sudden illumination hurt his eyes. Then, taking up tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles which he had laid down at the moment that the light had become extinguished, he dropped the stump of an Egyptian cigarette in an ash tray, having ignited another from the burning end. Taking up a modeling tool he returned to his eternal task.
