Читать книгу Daughter of Fu Manchu - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 7

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As Petrie sprang to his feet, a tall figure in flying kit came rushing into the dining car, and:

“Hunter!” Petrie exclaimed. “Hunter!”

I, too, stood up in a state of utter bewilderment.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Petrie went on.

He turned to me, and:

“Captain Jameson Hunter, of Imperial Airways,” he explained—“Mr. Shan Greville.”

He turned again to the pilot.

“What’s the idea, Hunter?” he demanded.

“The idea is,” the airman replied, grinning with evident enjoyment, “that I’ve made a dash from Heliopolis to cut you off at Wasta! Jump to it! You’ve got to be clear of the train in two minutes!”

“But we’re in the middle of dinner!”

“Don’t blame me. It’s Superintendent Weymouth’s doing. He’s standing by where I landed the bus.”

“But,” I interrupted, “where are we going?”

“Same place,” said the airman, grinning delightedly. “But I can get you there in no time, save you the Nile crossing and land you, I believe, within five hundred yards of the camp. Where’s your compartment? You have to run for your things or leave them on the train. It doesn’t matter much.”

“It does,” I said. I turned to Petrie. “I’ll get your bag. Fix things with the attendant and meet me on the platform.”

I rushed out of the dining car, observed in blank astonishment by every other occupant. Our compartment gained, I nearly knocked over the night attendant who was making the bed. Dr. Petrie’s bag I grabbed at once. Coats, hats, and two light suitcases were quickly bundled out. I thrust some loose money into the hand of the badly startled attendant and made for the exit.

Petrie’s bag I managed to place carefully on the platform. The rest of the kit I was compelled to throw out unceremoniously—for the train was already in motion. I jumped off the step and looked along the platform.

Far ahead, where the dining car had halted, I saw Petrie and Jameson Hunter engaged apparently in a heated altercation with the station master. Heads craned through many windows as the Luxor express moved off.

And suddenly, standing there with the baggage distributed about me, I became rigid, staring—staring—at a yellow, leering face which craned from a coach only one removed from that we had occupied.

The spy had been on the train!

I was brought to my senses by a tap on the arm. I turned. An airways mechanic stood at my elbow.

“Mr. Greville,” he said, “is this your baggage?”

I nodded.

“Close shave,” he commented. He began to pick up the bags. “I think I can manage the lot, sir. Captain Hunter will show you the way.”

“Careful with the black bag!” I cried. “Keep it upright, and for heaven’s sake, don’t jolt it!”

“Very good, sir.”

Hatless, dinnerless, and half asleep I stood, until Jameson Hunter, Dr. Petrie, and the station master joined me.

“It’s all settled,” said Hunter, still grinning cheerfully. “The station master here was rather labouring under the impression that it was a hold-up. I think he’s been corrupted by American movies. Well, here we go!”

But the station master was by no means willing to let us go. He was now surrounded by a group of subordinates, and above the chatter of their comments I presently gathered that we must produce our tickets. We did so, and pushed our way through the group. Further official obstruction was offered ... when all voices became suddenly silent.

A big man, wearing a blue serge suit, extraordinarily reminiscent of a London policeman in mufti, and who carried his soft hat so that the moonlight silvered his crisp white hair, strolled into the station.

“Weymouth!” cried Petrie. “This is amazing! What does it mean?”

The big, genial man, whom I had met once or twice at the club, appeared to be under a cloud. His geniality was less manifest than usual. But the effect of his arrival made a splendid advertisement for the British tradition in Egypt. The station master and his subordinates positively wilted in the presence of this one-time chief inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department now in supreme command of the Cairo detective service.

Weymouth nodded to me, a gleam of his old cheeriness lighting the blue eyes; then:

“I don’t begin to think what it means, Doctor,” he replied, “but it was what your wife told me.”

“The cry in the courtyard?”

“Yes. And the telegram I found waiting when I got back.”

“Telegram?” Petrie echoed. He turned to me. “Did you send it, Greville?”

“No. Do you mean, Superintendent, you received a telegram from Luxor?”

“I do. I received one to-day.”

“So did I,” said Petrie, slowly. “Who, in sanity’s name, sent those telegrams, Greville?”

But to that question I could find no answer.

“It’s mysterious, I grant,” said Weymouth. “But whoever he is, he’s a friend. Mrs. Petrie thinks——”

“Yes,” said Petrie, eagerly.

Weymouth smiled in a very sad way, and:

“She always knew in the old days,” he added. “It was uncanny.”

“It was,” Petrie agreed.

“Well, over the phone to-night she told me——”

“Yes?”

“She told me she had the old feeling.”

“Not——?”

“So I understood, Doctor. I didn’t waste another minute. I phoned Heliopolis and by a great stroke of luck found Jameson Hunter there with a bus, commissioned to pick up an American party now in Assouan. He was leaving in the morning, but I arranged with him to leave to-night.”

“Moonlight is bad for landing unless one knows the territory very well,” Jameson Hunter interrupted. “Fortunately I knew of a good spot outside here, and I know another just behind Der-el-Bahari. If we crash, it will be a bad show for Airways.”

We hurried out to where a car waited, Dr. Petrie personally carrying the bag with its precious contents; and soon, to that ceaseless tooting which characterizes Egyptian drivers, we were dashing through the narrow streets with pedestrians leaping like hares from right and left of our course.

Outside the town we ran into a cultivated area, but only quite a narrow belt. Here there was a road of sorts. We soon left this and were bumping and swaying over virgin, untamed desert. On we went, and on, in the bright moonlight. I seemed to have stepped over the borderline of reality. The glorious blaze of stars above me had become unreal, unfamiliar. My companions were unreal—a dream company.

All were silent except Jameson Hunter, whose constant ejaculations of “Jumping Jupiter!” when we took an unusually bad bump indicated that he at least had not succumbed to that sense of mystery which had claimed the rest of us.

On a long, gentle slope dangerously terminated by a ravine, the plane rested. Our baggage was quickly transferred from the car and we climbed on board. A second before the roar of the propeller washed out conversation:

“Hunter,” said Weymouth, “stretch her to the full. It’s a race to save a man from living death....”